A Collection Of Quotes Mentioned In MR.Basu’s Book

AN ECONOMIST IN THE REAL WORLD: THE ART OF POLICYMAKING IN INDIA

BY KAUSHIK BASU

QUOTES AND ADAGES MENTIONED IN THE BOOK

1. For a system resistant to change, nothing is as good as a crisis.
2. Totalitarian control is seldom as total and controlled as appears to outsiders.
3. History makes suggestion but rarely gives a roadmap.
4. “Don’t live beyond your means” – arthashastra.
5. For Manmohan Singh “he was a politician without a taste for politics”.
6. Politics many well be the only profession in which not being good is a virtue.
7. Contrary to what many laypersons believe, there is no one who understands “the economy” of a nation. The big challenge of economic policy is that it entails coordination among experts, each of whom understand just a sliver of this enormously complex machine.
8. Money was not discovered one day in a moment of scientific triumph.it emerged gradually, in small measures and through little innovation. But in terms of human achievement it must stand right there at the pinnacle of inventions. Without it we would have very little of what we know today as civilized life.
9. Knowledge generated anywhere is knowledge.
10. The free market has many strengths , but fairness and equity do not figure prominently among them
11. One well known feature of finance is that crisis often come in a flash. This is caused by imitative or herd behavior.
12. If others in your society are punctual, it is worth your effort to be punctual; if others are not it may not be worthwhile for you to expand the effort to be punctual.
13. “The ideas of economists and political philosophers both when they are right and when they are wrong are more powerful than is commonly understood. Indeed the world is ruled by little else. Practical man who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual influences, are usually slaves of some defunct economist. Madmen in authority, who hear voices in the air, are distilling their frenzy from some academic scribblers of a few years back.” – John Maynard Keynes{one of the most famous passage in his book The General Theory Of Employment}
14. For laypersons there is something threatening about inflation because they cannot see where it comes from, and a closely guarded secret among experts is that the understanding of experts is also incomplete.
15. One troubling feature of the exchange rate is that it is partly determined by expectations.
16. Good policy consists of exploiting the laws of the market, not denying that they exist.
17. When it comes to hoarding, it is the government of India that leads the pack.
18. In an economy, finance is the classic analogue of plumbing in a house –something we remain unaware of until something goes wrong with it.
19. Saving the company should not be equated with saving the people who head the company.
20. [arthashastra}- “ Just as it is impossible to know when a fish moving in water is drinking it, so it is impossible to find out when the government servants in charge of undertakings misappropriate money ‘
21. The common complaint in India ,repeated to the point of boredom in umpteen parlors and coffee houses is that “India problem is not the laws but in their implementation”
22. There is nothing quite as concrete about the law as the traditional view supposes.
23. In books on economic policy and economic development, we generally tend to ignore the role of norms and political institutions. But they are crucial determinants of growth and efficiency, getting these right is as important as getting our trade and monetary policies right.
24. India has one of the most talented and most obstructive bureaucracies in the world.
25. Much of India’s rules of administration are inherited from Britain .India’s problem is that it has held on to those rules more steadfastly than Britain and other commonwealth nations.
26. The hustle and bustle of India today hopefully is the sound of its engine revving up.♦

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