Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles Quotes

“When human beings act, they inevitably synthesise memories of the past into new expectations and mental images for the future, regarding the different stages in the action process they will follow. The future is never predetermined, but instead the actor imagines, creates and builds it step by step. Therefore, the future is always uncertain, since it has yet to be done or built, and the only part of it the actor possesses consists of specific ideas, mental images or expectations he hopes to realise through the completion of stages he imagines.”
― Jesús Huerta de Soto, Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles

“The direct cause of massive unemployment is labour market inflexibility. In fact, state intervention in the labour market and union coercion, made possible by the privileges the legal system confers on unions, results in a series of regulations which make the labour market one of the most rigid. Furthermore, due to the artificial costs labour legislation generates, the discounted value of a worker's real marginal productivity tends to fall short of the total labour cost the entrepreneur incurs in hiring the worker. This leads to markedly high unemployment, which will affect all workers whose expected marginal productivity yields a discounted value lower than the cost involved in employing them. Therefore they will be dismissed or not hired at all.”
― Jesús Huerta de Soto, Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles

“Natomiast sfera pieniądza, kredytu bankowego i rynków finansowych pozostaje bardzo trudnym wyzwaniem dla teoretyków i czymś tajemniczym dla większości obywateli. Relacje społeczne bezpośrednio lub pośrednio związane z pieniądzem są zdecydowanie najbardziej abstrakcyjne i najmniej zrozumiałe, toteż odnośna wiedza jest niezwykle obszerna, złożona i trudno uchwytna. Z tego też powodu systematyczny przymus stosowany w tej dziedzinie przez rządy i banki centralne jest ogromnie szkodliwy i zgubny.”
― Jesús Huerta de Soto, Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles