Quotations from Chairman Burns

Though Arthur Burns is often described as a hidebound, conservative economist, his writings, speeches and personal remarks reveal that his interests are more catholic and his thinking more flexible than many of his critics suggest. Samples:

ON ECONOMIC MANAGEMENT: Anyone who is convinced that he can fine-tune the economy doesn't know what he is talking about.

ON UNEMPLOYMENT: An unemployment rate of 4.5% or 5% is high for any country, and it is uncomfortably high for a nation that aspires to greatness.

ON A FREE ECONOMY: The public interest would be well served if the Government proceeded to reduce tariffs, eliminate import quotas, reduce farm price supports, discourage restrictive work practices, reform the minimum wage, and enforce the antitrust laws more strictly.

ON SECRECY: I believe in telling as much as you can about Federal Reserve policy, but there are certain things that you cannot disclose because of their effect on the markets. If you tell precisely what you plan to do, some people will make money and some will lose; and those who lose will be the little guys who do not get the word.

ON THE PRESIDENCY: It's a terribly lonely job being President. He is surrounded by yes men who try to find out what the boss wants and give it to him. They don't protect him sufficiently from daily follies and lapses of judgment and temper. There is also a tendency for some political people to try to screen the President from the outside world, and defend him no matter what. It's no different in any administration.

ON STUDENTS: The number of years spent by students in our universities is excessive. Young people now mature physically at an earlier age than before, but we keep them in a university longer than we used to. Furthermore, if we saw to it that students got part-time jobs or loans on a needed scale, we could do away with scholarship programs. We have made them unnecessarily dependent on the Government, on foundations, or on us as parents.

ON PROTEST. The institutions of this country must respond to legitimate demands for change, or the tensions set up by a failure to do so could lead to authoritarianism.

ON THE MILITARY-INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX: It will remain a formidable factor in our economic and social life in the calculable future. It will continue to suggest to many foreign citizens, as it sometimes does even to our own, that our national prosperity is based on huge military spending, when, in fact, we could be much more prosperous without it.

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