Quotes by John James Cowperthwaite

John James Cowperthwaite

A glimmer of light is better than no illumination at all.

Illumination

Light

Deficit financing proper is rather the process whereby a Government spends more money that it withdraws from the economy by taxation, borrowing, running down reserves, etc.; thereby causing in most circumstances, and very acutely in ours, monetary inflation and severe pressure on the balance of payments.

Balance

Government

Running

I am afraid that I do not believe that any body of men can have enough knowledge of the past, the present and the future to establish “development priorities” – which presumably means procuring some developments as being good and prohibiting others as being bad.

Believe

Mean

Past

I am also, I must confess, a little sceptical of the theory that we have a right, if we could, to pass on our capital burden to future generations. I remarked last year in this context that our predecessors had not passed any significant part of their burden on to us.

Generations

Littles

Years

I am confident, however old-fashioned this may sound, that funds left in the hands of the public will come into the Exchequer with interest at the time in the future when we need them.

Hands

Needs

Sound

I hold that two principles are important; first that there should be a steady expansion of public services, not an irregular one related to revenue accruing in any particular year; the second that taxes should be constant over long periods (provided, that is, that they are neither burdensome nor inequitable).

Long

Two

Years

I largely agree with those that hold that Government should not in general interfere with the course of the economy merely on the strength of its own commercial judgment. If we cannot rely on the judgment of individual businessmen, taking their own risks, we have no future anyway.

Government

Judgment

Risk

I must confess my distaste for any proposal to use public funds for the support of selected, and thereby, privileged, industrialists, the more particularly if this is to be based on bureaucratic views of what is good and what is bad by way of industrial development, but I have been studying the report referred to with some interest.

Growing Up

Support

Views

I should like to begin with a philosophical comment. I do not think that when one is speaking of hardships or benefits one can reasonably speak in terms of classes or social groups but only in terms of individuals.

Class

Philosophical

Thinking

I still believe that, in the long run, the aggregate of the decisions of individual businessmen, exercising individual judgment in a free economy, even if often mistaken, is likely to do less harm than the centralized decisions of a Government; and certainly the harm is likely to be counteracted faster. As I said earlier in this debate, our economic medicine may be painful but it is fast and powerful because it can act freely.

Believe

Powerful

Running

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Appreciation

Attitude

Balance

Believe

Children

Class

Damage

Debt

Etc

Example

Expansion

Faces

Fields

Generations

Government

Growing Up

Hands

Hong Kong

House

Illumination

Important

Intellectual

Judgment

Light

Littles

Long

May

Mean

Movement

Needs

Past

Philosophical

Powerful

Real

Risk

Running

Sacrifice

Sound

Support

Taxation

Teacher

Thinking

Trouble

Two

Views

Way

Years

The Future Blueprint

Tool

The Home Therapist: Anti Anxiety

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The Autobiography

Tool

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Tool

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Tool

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Quotes by John James Cowperthwaite

John James Cowperthwaite

A glimmer of light is better than no illumination at all.

I am afraid that I do not believe that any body of men can have enough knowledge of the past, the present and the future to establish “development priorities” – which presumably means procuring some developments as being good and prohibiting others as being bad.

I am also, I must confess, a little sceptical of the theory that we have a right, if we could, to pass on our capital burden to future generations. I remarked last year in this context that our predecessors had not passed any significant part of their burden on to us.

I am confident, however old-fashioned this may sound, that funds left in the hands of the public will come into the Exchequer with interest at the time in the future when we need them.

I largely agree with those that hold that Government should not in general interfere with the course of the economy merely on the strength of its own commercial judgment. If we cannot rely on the judgment of individual businessmen, taking their own risks, we have no future anyway.

I should like to begin with a philosophical comment. I do not think that when one is speaking of hardships or benefits one can reasonably speak in terms of classes or social groups but only in terms of individuals.

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