We enter the government essentially in a hotel that is on fire. We're throwing people from the windows into the pool to save their lives and this is the evaluation of the Olympic diving committee: Well, the splash was too big.
Austan Goolsbee
We've gone through rounds of tax cutting and rounds of tax increases in modern U.S. history. We haven't really had a big igniting of a trade war belligerence since the Depression era, and that's not an era that we want to repeat.
Austan Goolsbee
If you look at the Greek economic record, it's been very similar to the U.S. experience in the first four years of the Great Depression. And after having a Depression-sized event, they've cut the unit-labor cost in Greece - they've closed something like half the gap with Germany.
Austan Goolsbee
If you had asked people in 1929, 'Here is what is about to happen. How much would you pay to avoid the Great Depression from occurring?' The answer is they would have paid a lot. They would have borrowed money if it could be used to prevent the Great Depression.
Austan Goolsbee
The U.S. is still in a pretty good spot, especially relative to other advanced countries. The aging of our population is not as pronounced as almost anyone else's.
Austan Goolsbee
For every criticism of the U.S. economy, whenever people go into a panic, they look around and say, 'That's the cleanest shirt I have. So I'm putting it on.'
Austan Goolsbee
If we get to the point where we damage the full faith and credit of the United States, that would be the first default in history caused purely by insanity.
Austan Goolsbee
The data does not support that high-income tax cuts are the main drivers of growth, so I don't think that uncertainty over what the tax rate will be for someone that makes a million dollars a year has that big an impact on the economic growth rate in the country.
Austan Goolsbee
When I was at MIT, they had a beta test of Mosaic, the first popular browser. I remember looking at it, and there was a weather map or something. Now, in fairness to me, there weren't any websites then. But I remember saying, 'This is stupid - what's the point?' Now, of course, it's obvious.
Austan Goolsbee
A lot more people are willing to invest in bonds denominated in euros. And there was the fiscal discipline argument, which is that this tied the hands of countries the market hasn't always trusted, which also helped them borrow at low rates.
Austan Goolsbee