Inflation Quotes: Insightful Perspectives on the Impact of Rising Prices

"The way to crush the bourgeoisie is to grind them between the millstones of taxation and inflation"

"The first panacea for a mismanaged nation is inflation of the currency; the second is war. Both bring a temporary prosperity; both bring a permanent ruin. But both are the refuge of political and economic opportunists"

Ernest Hemingway, Novelist

"Inflation is when you pay fifteen dollars for the ten-dollar haircut you used to get for five dollars when you had hair"

Sam Ewing, Athlete

"I do not think it is an exaggeration to say history is largely a history of inflation, usually inflations engineered by governments for the gain of governments"

Friedrich August von Hayek, Economist

"I don't mind going back to daylight saving time. With inflation, the hour will be the only thing I've saved all year"

Victor Borge, Musician

"Domestic inflation reflects domestic monetary policy"

Martin Feldstein, Economist

"The best way to destroy the capitalist system is to debauch the currency. By a continuing process of inflation, governments can confiscate, secretly and unobserved, an important part of the wealth of their citizens"

John Maynard Keynes, Economist

"Inflation is as violent as a mugger, as frightening as an armed robber and as deadly as a hit man"

Ronald Reagan, President

"Economic medicine that was previously meted out by the cupful has recently been dispensed by the barrel. These once unthinkable dosages will almost certainly bring on unwelcome after-effects. Their precise nature is anyone's guess, though one likely consequence is an onslaught of inflation"

Warren Buffett, Businessman

"And so our goal on health care is, if we can get, instead of health care costs going up 6 percent a year, it's going up at the level of inflation, maybe just slightly above inflation, we've made huge progress. And by the way, that is the single most important thing we could do in terms of reducing our deficit. That's why we did it"

Barack Obama, President

"Congress has not raised the minimum wage since 1997. The minimum wage is now at its lowest level in 50 years adjusted for inflation"

Russ Carnahan, Politician

"Inflation is the one form of taxation that can be imposed without legislation"

Milton Friedman, Economist

"Inflation is taxation without legislation"

Milton Friedman, Economist

"We asked the workers to give up 25 percent of their salaries. Imagine! We asked the industrialists to freeze all costs, no matter what the inflation is"

Shimon Peres, Statesman

"With the shrinking of the US economy, and it's shrinking very rapidly, you not only have more money, but you also have fewer goods. That's a classic double-whammy on inflation"

Arthur Laffer, Economist

"Thirty years ago, many economists argued that inflation was a kind of minor inconvenience and that the cost of reducing inflation was too high a price to pay. No one would make those arguments today"

Martin Feldstein, Economist

"Inflation is lower and more stable and the real business cycle fluctuations are more modest"

Martin Feldstein, Economist

"In short, both experience and economic theory imply that the US could now t to a more competitive dollar without experiencing either increased inflation or decreased economic growth"

Martin Feldstein, Economist

"We pay some price when necessary to bring down inflation but that price is temporary and is not large relative to the permanent gain from reduced inflation"

Martin Feldstein, Economist

"I think the inflation prospects for the U.S. over the next five or six, seven years, are quite serious. You cannot have a bumper crop in apples without the value or the price of each apple falling. The Fed has had the largest increase in the monetary base in the history of the U.S., from colonial times to the present, times ten"

Arthur Laffer, Economist

"When runaway inflation and bank failures struck in Germany in the 1920s, the middle class was destroyed, which led directly to the rise of the Nazis"

Nick Clooney, Politician

"They flooded liquidity in the marketplace but the mortgage rate is based much more on expectations of inflation. So if the average investor believes that there is inflation coming, they'll move that rate up"

Franklin Raines, Businessman

"Right now the long-term investors are telling us that they're not as concerned about inflation and so we're seeing these rates now move into the marketplace and out to the street - rates that individuals can get"

Franklin Raines, Businessman

"The reality is that zero defects in products plus zero pollution plus zero risk on the job is equivalent to maximum growth of government plus zero economic growth plus runaway inflation"

Dixie Lee Ray, Politician

"Deficits do not in themselves produce inflation, nor does a balanced budget assure a stable price level"

William Vickrey, Educator

"Our system of private health insurance that fails to provide coverage to so many of our citizens also contributes to the double-digit health care inflation that is making America less competitive in the global economy"

John Conyers, Politician

"Inflation is the crabgrass in your savings"

Robert Orben, Entertainer

"If unemployment could be brought down to say 2 percent at the cost of an assured steady rate of inflation of 10 percent per year, or even 20 percent, this would be a good bargain"

William Vickrey, Educator

"I might say that when the settlement was made the Nixon administration issued what they called a second inflation alert in which the General Motors settlement was branded as being inflationary and bad for the country"

Leonard Woodcock, Activist

"Currently a level of unemployment of 7 percent or more seems to be required to keep inflation from accelerating, a level quite unacceptable as a permanent situation"

William Vickrey, Educator

"I continue to believe that the American people have a love-hate relationship with inflation. They hate inflation but love everything that causes it"

William E. Simon, Public Servant

"Inflation is bringing us true democracy. For the first time in history, luxuries and necessities are selling at the same price"

Robert Orben, Entertainer

"This persistence as private firms continued because it ensured the maximum of anonymity and secrecy to persons of tremendous public power who dreaded public knowledge of their activities as an evil almost as great as inflation"

Carroll Quigley, Writer

"By a continuing process of inflation, government can confiscate, secretly and unobserved, an important part of the wealth of their citizens"

John Maynard Keynes, Economist

"I'm a political scientist and I study these things, and I know that economic problems, with the rising unemployment and inflation and low productivity and so forth, were a factor in that election, in that defeat of President Carter"

Jeane Kirkpatrick, Diplomat

"If we have wealth, it will be protected from inflation and possibly even enhanced in value"

William Greider, Author

"This unchecked spending is growing faster than our economy, faster than inflation, and far beyond our means to sustain it"

Jim Nussle, Politician

"In the absence of the gold standard, there is no way to protect savings from confiscation through inflation. There is no safe store of value"

Alan Greenspan, Economist

"During the past two decades, inflation has fallen to a low level in major industrial countries"

Toshihiko Fukui, Public Servant

"The difficulty for Mr. Obama will be when the public sees where his decisions lead - higher inflation, higher interest rates, higher taxes, sluggish growth, and a jobless recovery"

Karl Rove, Politician

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