Politicians like to tell people what they want to hear - and what they want to hear is what won't happen.
Interpretation
This quote critiques politicians for misleading the public by making false promises.
Paul Samuelson's quote highlights the tendency of politicians to cater to the desires of the electorate by making promises that are often unrealistic or unlikely to be fulfilled. It suggests a disconnect between what politicians say to gain approval and the reality of what can be achieved, emphasizing the importance of critical thinking among voters when evaluating political rhetoric.
In practice
In a political debate, one could use this quote to critique a candidate's unrealistic promises.
To a person of analytical ability, perceptive enough to realise that mathematical equipment was a powerful sword in economics, the world of economics was his or her oyster in 1935. The terrain was strewn with beautiful theorems begging to be picked up and arranged in unified order.
I can't think of a president who has been overburdened by a knowledge of economics.
My belief is that nothing that can be expressed by mathematics cannot be expressed by careful use of literary words.
My family was well off but not rich. I spent the four years I was an undergraduate working on the beach. And it wasn't because I was lazy; it was because my freshman class would go to a hundred different employers and wouldn't get a nibble. That was a disequilibrium system. I realized that the ordinary old-fashioned Euclidean geometry didn't apply.
Economics has never been a science - and it is even less now than a few years ago.
There's nothing in Keynesian economics that would allow you to solve stagflation. But there's nothing in neoclassical economics that would allow you to solve stagflation, either.
It is urgent to prevent new U.S. aggression. The time is now for the world to say 'no' to U.S. threats of air attack against Iran, and to the very notion of a nuclear first-use 'option' by America or any other nation.
Whenever a fellow tells me he's bipartisan, I know he's going to vote against me.
I can express all my views on the slavery question by quotations from Henry Clay.
America must be the teacher of democracy, not the advertiser of the consumer society. It is unrealistic for the rest of the world to reach the American living standard.
The corporations are powerful only because we have allowed them to be. In theory, it is we, not they, who mandate the state. But we have neglected our duty of citizenship, and they have taken advantage of our neglect to seize the reins of government.
One of the reasons this election is so important is because the Supreme Court hangs in the balance. We need to overturn that terrible Supreme Court decision, Citizens United, and then reform our whole campaign finance system.
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