"There are basic insights of economics that are (still) largely unknown or ignored by the general public."

"[T]here are basic insights of economics ... that are largely unknown or ignored by the general public. W]e have to deal with ideas centuries old, on which the thought of professional economists has never made any permanent impression. ... [O]ur public thought, our legislation, and even our popular economic nomenclature are what they would have been if Smith, Ricardo, and Mill had never lived, and if such a term as political economy had never been known. ...
    "Before such a thing as economic science was known arose the [erroneous] theory of the 'balance of trade.' ... that trade between two nations could not be advantageous to both. ... And yet the combined arguments of economists for a hundred years [that there can be no trade between two nations which is not advantageous to both] have not sufficed to change the nomenclature or modify the ideas of commercial nations upon the subject. … The terms 'favourable' and 'unfavourable,' as applied to the supposed balance of trade, still mean what they did before Adam Smith was born. ...
    "From the economic point of view, the value of an industry is measured by the utility and cheapness of its product. From the popular point of view, utility is nearly lost sight of, and cheapness is apt to be considered as much an evil on one side as it is a good on the other. The benefit is supposed to be measured by the number of labourers and the sum total of wages which can be gained by pursuing the industry. ...
    "[There is a] general belief throughout the community that the rate of interest can practically be regulated by law. Not dissimilar from this is the wide general belief that laws making it difficult to collect rents and enforce the payment of debts are for the benefit of the poorer classes. They are undoubtedly for the benefit of those classes who do not expect to pay. But the fact, so obvious to the business economist, that everything gained in this way comes out of the pockets of the poor … is something which the law-making public have not yet apprehended.
    "That you cannot eat your cake and have it, too, is a maxim taught the school-boy from earliest infancy. But, when the economist applies the same maxim to the nation, he is met with objections and arguments, not only on the part of the thoughtless masses, but of influential and intelligent men."

~ Simon Newcomb from his 1893 article 'The Problem of Economic Education.' Hat tip Timothy Taylor (The Coversable Economist) who observes that " the outcome of economic policies is not determined by their announced intentions of politicians or by their popularity, but by the underlying realities of how firms and consumers will react."