Quotes from Basic Economics: A Citizen's Guide to the Economy

“Unfortunately, the real minimum wage is always zero, regardless of the laws, and that is the wage that many workers receive in the wake of the creation or escalation of a government-mandated minimum wage, because they lose their jobs or fail to find jobs when they enter the labor force. Making it illegal to pay less than a given amount does not make a worker’s productivity worth that amount—and, if it is not, that worker is unlikely to be employed.”
― Thomas Sowell, quote from Basic Economics: A Citizen's Guide to the Economy

“Economics is a study of cause-and-effect relationships in an economy. It's purpose is to discern the consequences of various ways of allocating resources which have alternative uses. It has nothing to say about philosophy or values, anymore than it has to say about music or literature.”
― Thomas Sowell, quote from Basic Economics: A Citizen's Guide to the Economy

“As an entrepreneur in India put it: 'Indians have learned from painful experience that the state does not work on behalf of the people. More often than not, it works on behalf of itself.”
― Thomas Sowell, quote from Basic Economics: A Citizen's Guide to the Economy

“Nada es más fácil que tener buenas intenciones. Pero cuando no se entiende cómo funciona una economía, las buenas intenciones pueden llevar a consecuencias desastrosas”
― Thomas Sowell, quote from Basic Economics: A Citizen's Guide to the Economy

“Economics is more than just a way to see patterns or to unravel puzzling anomalies. Its fundamental concern is with the material standard of living of society as a whole and how that is affected by particular decisions made by individuals and institutions. One of the ways of doing this is to look at economic policies and economic systems in terms of the incentives they create, rather than simply the goals they pursue. This means that consequences matter more than intentions—and not just the immediate consequences, but also the longer run repercussions of decisions, policies, and institutions.”
― Thomas Sowell, quote from Basic Economics: A Citizen's Guide to the Economy

“Seldom do people think things through foolishly. More often, they do not bother to think things through at all, so that even brainy individuals can reach untenable conclusions because their brainpower means little if it is not deployed and applied.”
― Thomas Sowell, quote from Basic Economics: A Citizen's Guide to the Economy

“Failure is part of the natural cycle of business. Companies are born, companies die, capitalism moves forward. Fortunemagazine{115}”
― Thomas Sowell, quote from Basic Economics: A Citizen's Guide to the Economy

“The history of black workers in the United States illustrates the point. As already noted, from the late nineteenth-century on through the middle of the twentieth century, the labor force participation rate of American blacks was slightly higher than that of American whites. In other words, blacks were just as employable at the wages they received as whites were at their very different wages. The minimum wage law changed that. Before federal minimum wage laws were instituted in the 1930s, the black unemployment rate was slightly lower than the white unemployment rate in 1930. But then followed the Davis-Bacon Act of 1931, the National Industrial Recovery Act of 1933 and the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938—all of which imposed government-mandated minimum wages, either on a particular sector or more broadly. The National Labor Relations Act of 1935, which promoted unionization, also tended to price black workers out of jobs, in addition to union rules that kept blacks from jobs by barring them from union membership. The National Industrial Recovery Act raised wage rates in the Southern textile industry by 70 percent in just five months and its impact nationwide was estimated to have cost blacks half a million jobs. While this Act was later declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court, the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 was upheld by the High Court and became the major force establishing a national minimum wage. As already noted, the inflation of the 1940s largely nullified the effect of the Fair Labor Standards Act, until it was amended in 1950 to raise minimum wages to a level that would have some actual effect on current wages. By 1954, black unemployment rates were double those of whites and have continued to be at that level or higher. Those particularly hard hit by the resulting unemployment have been black teenage males. Even though 1949—the year before a series of minimum wage escalations began—was a recession year, black teenage male unemployment that year was lower than it was to be at any time during the later boom years of the 1960s. The wide gap between the unemployment rates of black and white teenagers dates from the escalation of the minimum wage and the spread of its coverage in the 1950s. The usual explanations of high unemployment among black teenagers—inexperience, less education, lack of skills, racism—cannot explain their rising unemployment, since all these things were worse during the earlier period when black teenage unemployment was much lower. Taking the more normal year of 1948 as a basis for comparison, black male teenage unemployment then was less than half of what it would be at any time during the decade of the 1960s and less than one-third of what it would be in the 1970s. Unemployment among 16 and 17-year-old black males was no higher than among white males of the same age in 1948. It was only after a series of minimum wage escalations began that black male teenage unemployment not only skyrocketed but became more than double the unemployment rates among white male teenagers. In the early twenty-first century, the unemployment rate for black teenagers exceeded 30 percent. After the American economy turned down in the wake of the housing and financial crises, unemployment among black teenagers reached 40 percent.”
― Thomas Sowell, quote from Basic Economics: A Citizen's Guide to the Economy

“Many have blamed the gasoline shortages and long lines at filling stations in 1973 on the Arab Oil embargo of that year. However, the shortages and long lines began months before the Arab oil embargo, right after price controls were imposed.”
― Thomas Sowell, quote from Basic Economics: A Citizen's Guide to the Economy

“Misconceptions of business are almost inevitable in a society where most people have neither studied nor run businesses. In a society where most people are employees and consumers, it is easy to think of businesses as “them” – as impersonal organizations, whose internal operations are largely unknown and whose sums of money may sometimes be so huge as to be unfathomable.”
― Thomas Sowell, quote from Basic Economics: A Citizen's Guide to the Economy

“The fundamental confusion that makes income bracket data and individual income data seem mutually contradictory is the implicit assumption that people in particular income brackets at a given time are an enduring “class” at that level. If that were true, then trends over time in comparisons between income brackets would be the same as trends over time between individuals. Because that is not the case, the two sets of statistics lead not only to different conclusions but even opposite conclusions.”
― Thomas Sowell, quote from Basic Economics: A Citizen's Guide to the Economy

“Although Adam Smith is today often regarded as a “conservative” figure, he in fact attacked some of the dominant ideas and interests of his own times. Moreover, the idea of a spontaneously self-equilibrating system—the market economy—first developed by the Physiocrats and later made part of the tradition of classical economics by Adam Smith, represented a radically new departure, not only in analysis of social causation but also in seeing a reduced role for political, intellectual, or other elites as guides or controllers of the masses.”
― Thomas Sowell, quote from Basic Economics: A Citizen's Guide to the Economy

“Perhaps the most important thing about risk is its inescapability. Particular individuals, groups, or institutions may be sheltered from risk - but only at the cost of having someone else bear that risk. For a society as a whole, there is no someone else.”
― Thomas Sowell, quote from Basic Economics: A Citizen's Guide to the Economy

“prices are not costs. Prices are what pay for costs.”
― Thomas Sowell, quote from Basic Economics: A Citizen's Guide to the Economy

“People who want special taxes or subsidies for particular things seem not to understand that what they are really asking for is for the prices to misstate the relative scarcities of things and the relative values that the users of these things put on them. One”
― Thomas Sowell, quote from Basic Economics: A Citizen's Guide to the Economy

“A society in which such decisions can only be made by males has thrown away half of its knowledge, talents, and insights.”
― Thomas Sowell, quote from Basic Economics: A Citizen's Guide to the Economy

“Just as price fluctuations allocate scarce resources which have alternative uses, price controls which limit those fluctuations reduce the incentives for individuals to limit their own use of scarce resources desired by others.”
― Thomas Sowell, quote from Basic Economics: A Citizen's Guide to the Economy

“In short, rent control reduces the rate of housing turnover.”
― Thomas Sowell, quote from Basic Economics: A Citizen's Guide to the Economy

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Popular quotes

“In stating these matters, I speak an open and disinterested language, dictated by no passion but that of humanity. To me, who have not only refused offers, because I thought them improper, but have declined rewards I might with reputation have accepted, it is no wonder that meanness and imposition appear disgustful. Independence is my happiness, and I view things as they are, without regard to place or person; my country is the world, and my religion is to do good.”
― Thomas Paine, quote from Rights of Man

“People die all around us all the time. Drop like flies. Overdose. Aids. Sometimes they kill themselves. People come. They go. Dying is the same as rehab or moving back to Missouri. It just means I won't be seeing them again”
― James St. James, quote from Party Monster: A Fabulous But True Tale of Murder in Clubland

“Quit doing your game show host schtick, Marc," I ordered. "You're confusing the vampires. They're not big TV watchers."
"Certainly not daytime television," Sinclair sniffed.”
― MaryJanice Davidson, quote from Undead and Unemployed

“Where did you get that candy again?" Leven asked, worried.
"The pile said 'flavored'," Clover answered back, his face a chocolatey mess.
"Flavored?" Leven said exasperated. "Are you sure?"
"Yes," Clover argued. "F-l-a-w-e-d--flavored.”
― Obert Skye, quote from Leven Thumps and the Wrath of Ezra

“Stop.”

“You don’t want me to stop, you stupid, stubborn bastard.” Edgard snarled and devoured Trevor’s mouth in another possessive, bruising kiss.

Before Trevor could break free from the temptation, a distressed gasp somewhere to the left speeded up the process. Trevor shoved Edgard away. He spun so fast he lost his balance. But the damage had been done.

Chassie stood in the shadows in absolute shock.

Chapter Seven

Not happening. Not happening. Not happening.

Her body, her will, her consciousness appeared to be floating in another dimension, as this one shifted and twisted into the surreal. She couldn’t believe her eyes.

Not happening. Not happening. Not happening.

She had not witnessed her husband in the arms of another man. She had not seen him kissing another man like he was everything in his world. She had not heard the details of how they’d been together, what they’d been together. She had not imagined how badly they wanted to be together now.

Not happening. Not happening. Not happening.

The mantra she’d used during her childhood to vanquish nightmares wasn’t working this time.”
― Lorelei James, quote from Rough, Raw, and Ready

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