No real English gentleman in his secret soul was ever sorry for the death of a political economist.

There is the expression of selfishness and there is the expression of selflessness - but economists or theoreticians never touched that part. They said: 'Go and become a philanthropist.' I said 'No I can do that in the business world create a different kind of business - a business based on selflessness.'

I don't want to get into the 'who's a hostage-taker' discussion here but what is the estate tax? It's a double tax on death. Economists will tell you that it's really not a tax that soaks the rich but it's a tax on capital that deprives business investment and therefore job creation.

Ask five economists and you'll get five different answers - six if one went to Harvard.

An economist is an expert who will know tomorrow why the things he predicted yesterday didn't happen today.

An economist's guess is liable to be as good as anybody else's.

If all the economists were laid end to end they'd never reach a conclusion.

But the age of chivalry is gone. That of sophisters economists and calculators has succeeded and the glory of Europe is extinguished forever.