John Komlos Quotes

[T]his book is dedicated to a new kind of economics that promotes Capitalism with a Human Face.

The ideological commitment to "," ...has brought us to our current, precarious situation.

[S]o far all anthropometric studies have indicated substantial gender-based differences in the biological standard of living during episodes of economic change. ...[F]emales began to experience nutritional stress earlier than men during a downturn and were less likely to show improvements in an upswing.

[E]conomics—despite the extensive use of mathematics—will not be a rigorous discipline until it is based... on verifiable empirical evidence.

I do not believe that... income translates... into life satisfaction... particularly... statistical averages, because these hide what is going on in the lower tail of income distribution... [a] skewed... political force... manipulated by... Trumpism.

Wealth is... political power... and that's how we got from a democracy, to an oligarchy, to a plutocracy. Economists forgot completely about the need for countervailing power... and the oligarchs have taken over...

[N]utritional advantages of the were quite pronounced by the early eighteenth century. Thereafter, the height of the American population was above European norms until the mid-twentieth century, confirming the extent to which the new... environment was favorable from a human biological point of view.

I consider my views to be progressive, democratic, and humanitarian. ...[W]e could restructure the economy ...to improve our lives by focusing on increasing our life satisfaction instead of on income growth.

Status seeking is important. Relative incomes matter... Mainstream... economists said inequality was not a problem, and that's how we got an oligarchy [and populism].

Deregulation was supposed to make the economy more efficient... but instead it led to the financial crisis... and Blackboard Economists did not even see the crisis coming when it was around the corner.

The financial crisis of 2008 illustrated... how markets often go haywire, yet textbooks remain unchanged, failing to convey the fundamental flaws and systematic weaknesses of the free-market system.

The character is formed during the first few years of life, and the corporations have an impact on the way we think... so ... is not realistic, because producers spend an incredible amount of money in order to condition children and youth to drink Coca-Cola, to depend on the iPhone, to go to hamburger joints, to McDonald's... So adult economics, forget it! You've got to start the analysis with children, and that means that tastes are endogenous [determined within the economic system! ...The assumption of exogenous tastes is toxic.]

means that many processes are non-reversible... Poor people who go to poor schools... can't get into college and their whole life course is messed up...

So why were economists so wrong? The problem is that economics is an axiomatic theory, it's deductive, based on assumptions almost all of which are false [with] too many omitted factors, and they don't care about contradictions. They don't care about people killing themselves... That's not an economic problem.

[J]ustice is as important as efficiency.