However, Hoover had converted the simple business ritual of reassurance into a major instrument of public policy. - John Kenneth Galbraith

There is nothing in economic life so willfully misunderstood as the great speculative episode. T

One of the small but rewarding vocations of a free society is the provision of needed conclusions, properly supported by statistics and moral indignation, for those in a position to pay for them.

Tenure was originally invented to protect radical professors, those who challenged the accepted order. But we don't have such people anymore at the universities, and the reason is tenure. When the time comes to grant it nowadays, the radicals get screened out. That's its principal function. It's a very good system, really - keeps academic life at a decent level of tranquility.