Naked Economics: Undressing the Dismal Science Quotes.

1. "When I applied to graduate school many years ago, I wrote an essay expressing my puzzlement at how a country that could put a man on the moon could still have people sleeping on the streets. Part of that problem is political will; we could take a lot of people off the streets tomorrow if we made it a national priority. But I have also come to realize that NASA had it easy. Rockets conform to the unchanging laws of physics. We know where the moon will be at a given time; we know precisely how fast a spacecraft will enter or exist the earth's orbit. If we get the equations right, the rocket will land where it is supposed to--always. Human beings are more complex than that. A recovering drug addict does not behave as predictably as a rocket in orbit. We don't have a formula for persuading a sixteen-year-old not to drop out of school. But we do have a powerful tool: We know that people seek to make themselves better off, however they may define that. Our best hope for improving the human condition is to understand why we act the way we do and then plan accordingly. Programs, organizations, and systems work better when they get the incentives right. It is like rowing downstream."
- Charles Wheelan, Naked Economics: Undressing the Dismal Science

2. "A market economy is to economics what democracy is to government: a decent, if flawed, choice among many bad alternatives."
- Charles Wheelan, Naked Economics: Undressing the Dismal Science

3. "In a basic agricultural society, it's easy enough to swap five chickens for a new dress or to pay a schoolteacher with a goat and three sacks of rice. Barter works less well in a more advanced economy. The logistical challenges of using chickens to buy books on Amazon.com would be formidable."
- Charles Wheelan, Naked Economics: Undressing the Dismal Science

4. "Most economists would concede that, in theory, government has the tools to smooth the business cycle. The problem is that fiscal policy is not made in theory; it's made in Congress."
- Charles Wheelan, Naked Economics: Undressing the Dismal Science

5. "At a time when we can split the atom, land on the moon, and decode the human genome, why do 2 billion people live on less than $2 a day?"
- Charles Wheelan, Naked Economics: Undressing the Dismal Science

6. "Economic development is not a zero-sum game; the world does not need poor countries in order to have rich countries, nor must some people be poor in order for others to be rich. Families who live in public housing on the South Side of Chicago are not poor because Bill Gates lives in a big house. They are poor despite the fact that Bill Gates lives in a big house. For a complex array of reasons, America’s poor have not shared in the productivity gains spawned by Microsoft Windows. Bill Gates did not take their pie away; he did not stand in the way of their success or benefit from their misfortunes."
- Charles Wheelan, Naked Economics: Undressing the Dismal Science

7. "Why did the chicken cross the road? Because it maximized his utility."
- Charles Wheelan, Naked Economics: Undressing the Dismal Science

8. "Making money takes time, so when we shop, we’re really spending time. The real cost of living isn’t measured in dollars and cents but in the hours and minutes we must work to live.1"
- Charles Wheelan, Naked Economics: Undressing the Dismal Science

9. "Economics is like gravity: Ignore it and you will be in for some rude surprises."
- Charles Wheelan, Naked Economics: Undressing the Dismal Science

10. "The real cost of something is what you must give up in order to get it, which is almost always more than just cash."
- Charles Wheelan, Naked Economics: Undressing the Dismal Science