Evan Davis quotes - page 2

Mistakes are nothing to be ashamed of. (Evan Davis)

What is so striking about Liberia is that in a place where there is so much to be done, I have never seen so many people with nothing to do.

Evan Davis

In principle, there are only three main components of spending that much matter to monetary policy: consumer spending, business investment and exports and trade.

Evan Davis

Personally, I don't see old economics and behavioural economics as opposed. It is useful to assume people are rational as a good approximation to their long term behaviour, but it would be unwise not to think how in practice their behaviour may deviate from that simplifying assumption.

Evan Davis

Interest rate cuts have an effect in stimulating an economy by directly or indirectly making someone, somewhere, spend more than they otherwise would. That extra spending increases demand and ensures that we all carry on with work to do, without us having to slash our prices or our wrists.

Evan Davis

I've never enjoyed sleep as much until I got the 'Today' job. There is something about early sleep that's much better than late sleep. I feel myself going to sleep; I don't just plonk my head on the pillow. It's a sort of winding-down thing.

Evan Davis

I swing both ways. I can see things from a kind of conservative point of view and from a more socially liberal or left-wing point of view.

Evan Davis

At the BBC we've had plenty of women in good management jobs. It comes and goes but there's been plenty. On air, I think there's quite a bit more we can do.

Evan Davis

We escaped the last big bursting of a bubble - the dotcom bubble - with a relatively light U.S. recession. On that occasion, the world economy found its way back on track fairly quickly.

Evan Davis

Now undoubtedly, we face some very British challenges when it comes to infrastructure. We rightly cherish our back yards and green spaces, and we'll defend them passionately when projects are announced. We live in a democracy, and we like to debate these things, often for many years.

Evan Davis

All socio-political phenomena in the U.K. come laden with the baggage of a class-based theory or two attached to them. In the case of gay Tories, there is one particularly silly variant of the category, which asserts that gayness is bred in public schools and thus fits with Conservatism like hand in glove. (Evan Davis)

But beginners to the World Economics Forum have to understand there is no single Davos experience, and there is no single Davos community either. There are numerous tribes who interact only at a minimal level.

Evan Davis

Crossrail is a prime example of infrastructure. It is a rather deadly word, but I think it is exciting stuff, the civil engineering which makes Britain tick - the bridges, tunnels, power and water networks, which bind us together.

Evan Davis

Now I can broadcast to an audience of several million people on the 'Today' programme. I can talk about the day's news. But on radio, believe it or not, we have notes and scripts. And while we might ad lib the odd wryly amusing asides, they come at the frequency of a suburban bus. About one every 90 minutes.

Evan Davis

Even though disciplined sleeping habits and the adrenalin of live radio ensures that we are very awake while on duty, there is evidence of a phenomenon called circadian desynchronosis which causes one's brain to function slowly at those times of day when it thinks it should be asleep, regardless how wide awake the body is.

Evan Davis

For me, the main principle for broadcasters has to be that if people stand to benefit from an interview, they should be prepared to face some downside as well.

Evan Davis

We Brits print banknotes out in Debden in Essex, and have contracted it out to the private sector. Here in the U.S. it is a government operation right in the heart of Washington next door to the Holocaust Museum.

Evan Davis

When a population saves a lot, the funds are invested outside the country as well as inside. If the Japanese invest in the United States, it pushes their exchange rate down and makes their manufacturing more competitive.

Evan Davis

Once we are fed, heated, housed and healthy, our extra consumption inevitably has an element of luxury about it. And once luxury enters the scene, the practicalities are in trouble, as women who wear expensive stiletto heels can testify.

Evan Davis

My instinct is to assume that we consumers are an inconsistent bunch. We like competition if it delivers low prices, but grumble if it delivers the bad news that prices need to go up.

Evan Davis

I rarely come away from presenting the 'Today' programme without some sense of regret. There is always some question that I should have asked, or some point that I should have made. This is annoying but not surprising. Perfection is hard to achieve in a three-hour live programme. (Evan Davis)

The new industries are brainy industries and so-called knowledge workers tend to like to be near other people who are the same. Think of the City of Hollywood. People cluster. This means you have winning regions, such as London and Cambridge, and losing regions. The people who want to be top lawyers in Sunderland are hoovered up by London.

Evan Davis

The Germans are clear about what they do - cars and machine tools; the Japanese are clear about what they do - electronics; the Chinese are clear about what they do - they're the workshop of the world.

Evan Davis

The fact that radio is so hopeless at delivering data makes it an uncluttered medium, offering the basic story without the detailed trappings. But it does mean that if data is important, radio is probably not your place.

Evan Davis

Black Friday is not another bad hair day in Wall Street. It's the term used by American retailers to describe the day after the Thanksgiving Holiday, seen as the semi-official start of Christmas shopping season.

Evan Davis

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