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The Great Gatsby
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The Great Gatsby
Hamlet

Tyler Cowen Quotes

Most restaurants in most cities, including Washington, are at a sort of mid-level. They’re somewhat trendy, or they have some sort of gimmick, or they’re somewhat expensive. And they make a lot of money off drinks. I tell people don’t go to most of them, unless your goal is just to socialize.

– Tyler Cowen

I’m not a vegetarian. But I think people who are vegetarians, they are actually more virtuous than the rest of us. I think they should be admired.

– Tyler Cowen

In the early stages of negotiation software, on your smartphone, there may be programs that listen to the pitch of a voice, or that test for stress. You’ll just ask the program, ‘Was he lying? Was he eager to do business with me?’ Maybe the computer will be right sixty per cent of the time.

– Tyler Cowen

In chess, computers show that what we call ‘strategy’ is reducible to tactics, ultimately. It only looks creative to us. They are still just glorified cash registers. This should make us feel uncomfortable, whether or not we think computers will ever be good composers of music or artistic painters.

– Tyler Cowen

At fancy and expensive restaurants (say, $50 and up for a dinner), you can follow a simple procedure to choose the best meal. Look at the menu and ask yourself: ‘Which of these items do I least want to order?’ Or: ‘Which one sounds the least appetizing?’ Then order that item.

– Tyler Cowen

I’ve been a foodie most of my life. I started when I lived for a year in Germany in my early 20s, and here was this new food environment, and I decided I needed to make sense of it. And I found it was the rules of economics that do the best job. Food is a capitalist product of supply and demand.

– Tyler Cowen

I sometimes say I am a ‘happiness optimist’ but a ‘revenue pessimist.’

– Tyler Cowen

Countries with lots of unmarried young men are the most vulnerable to sudden upheavals – this is what fueled the Arab Spring.

– Tyler Cowen

Economists love to talk about incentives, but the bottom line is that people hate being controlled or manipulated, even when done through voluntary institutions. This is one of the most important tensions in capitalism.

– Tyler Cowen

The way to make the world a better place, through your eating, is simply to eat a bit less meat. Local is sometimes good, sometimes bad. But even when it’s good, its environmental impact is relatively small compared to other possible improvements.

– Tyler Cowen

I think higher ed in the U.S. is fairly healthy, and by global standards it dominates, and it makes people more productive. But a lot of our K-12 is a disaster. And the single most important reform would just be to fire the worst ten or 15 percent of teachers in the lot, and we would have massive improvements.

– Tyler Cowen

A lot of local food is very tasty. I’m very happy to eat it. I just don’t think it’s the same thing as saving the world.

– Tyler Cowen

To get anything done, Obama has to be seen as having winning economy – which isn’t easy.

– Tyler Cowen

I’m a pessimist about the euro, but not about Europe. So the southern periphery, Spain, Italy, Greece, leave – Italy might be the first to go – and the rest stay. That will work just fine. But unless they want to give up democracy, I don’t see greater fiscal union as the answer.

– Tyler Cowen

In most of the world, breakfast is an important meal.

– Tyler Cowen

A bad or mediocre meal is more than just an unpleasant taste, it is an unnecessary negation of one of life’s pleasures – a wasted chance to refine our palates, learn about the world, and share a rewarding experience.

– Tyler Cowen

Economics is everywhere, and understanding economics can help you make better decisions and lead a happier life.

– Tyler Cowen

Vietnamese food has probably been saved from the mass market because most people never master the sauces and condiments that must be added to the food, at the table, for its glories to become apparent. It’s too much trouble, and a lot of people don’t like asking for help, especially if the interaction involves some linguistic awkwardness.

– Tyler Cowen

Most of us are not pure self-starters; most people need role models, they need coaches, they need exemplars, they maybe need some discipline or some rewards. We need to be motivated.

– Tyler Cowen

The iPhone is made on a global scale, and it blends computers, the Internet, communications, and artificial intelligence in one blockbuster, game-changing innovation. It reflects so many of the things that our contemporary world is good at – indeed, great at.

– Tyler Cowen

If we want to improve American food and make it much cheaper, we should deregulate the food trucks and the other street vendors, provided they meet certain sanitation standards. Many cities have already moved down this path, and people are not keeling over with salmonella.

– Tyler Cowen

What the banking system needs is creditors who monitor risk and cut their exposure when that risk is too high. Unlike regulators, creditors and counterparties know the details of a deal and have their own money on the line.

– Tyler Cowen

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