What would've happened, do you think, had the government not intervened in October 2008? The catastrophe to the economy would've been absolutely unbelievable. And yet classical economists say, "Oh, well, no, it would've adjusted perfectly happily, a few weeks of… — Robert Skidelsky, Baron Skidelsky Copy Share Image
You do just have to go back to moral philosophy and you've got to say, okay, there is greed, people do want more and more, but then what restrains them and what restrained them in the past was a view of life in which one's satisfaction wasn't the most important thing, that you just, you needed enough and you could… — Robert Skidelsky, Baron Skidelsky Copy Share
Bankers were scapegoats for the whole Reagan-Thatcher era, which exalted finance and humbled industry, and which had allowed the fruits of progress to accrue disproportionately to the rich and super-rich. — Robert Skidelsky, Baron Skidelsky Copy Share
It's not enough say, "Look, bankers were immensely greedy and that they committed lots of frauds." I mean, that's not, they were set free, that sort of particular proclivity in human nature was set free to do its best and its worst. Politicians and regulators are consumers of ideas. They never have any ideas of their own, it would take… — Robert Skidelsky, Baron Skidelsky Copy Share
There's no automatic mechanism in a market system that reconciles the desire to save and the desire to invest. And therefore, the government has to sort of do something or the Federal Reserve, the Fed, or the Central Bank, or whatever, it has to intervene. It has to create enough investment for the economy not to suffer from a fall… — Robert Skidelsky, Baron Skidelsky Copy Share
When you think of everything in terms of just money, then almost nothing is enough. I mean, how much money is enough? Because it's… — Robert Skidelsky, Baron Skidelsky Copy Share Image
The psychology of the saver and the psychology of the investor is very closely connected with Keynes' distinction between risk and uncertainty. When the… — Robert Skidelsky, Baron Skidelsky Copy Share Image
What would've happened, do you think, had the government not intervened in October 2008? The catastrophe to the economy would've been absolutely unbelievable. And… — Robert Skidelsky, Baron Skidelsky Copy Share Image
Investors are trying to work out some risk premiere that have some correspondence with actual risks. But they don't, they're not, they can't go… — Robert Skidelsky, Baron Skidelsky Copy Share Image
Hayek became in his later years the dominant intellectual influence of the last quarter of the twentieth century. — Robert Skidelsky, Baron Skidelsky Copy Share Image
Americans feel as though the only position they can possibly occupy is number one and if they're not number one, well, the end of… — Robert Skidelsky, Baron Skidelsky Copy Share Image
