Tuesday, November 30, 2010

Trouble

The world has gotten itself into trouble with its heavy reliance on the dollar.
Vladimir Putin (Oct 2008, Russian/Chinese conference in Moscow)

Monday, November 29, 2010

World Currency Crisis

The world is in permanent monetary crisis, but once in a while, the crisis flares up acutely, and we noisily shift gears from one flawed monetary system to another.  We go back and forth from fixed paper rates to fluctuating rates, to some inchoate and aborted blend of the two.  Each new system, each basic change, is hailed extravagantly by economists, bankers, the financial press, politicians, and central banks, as the final and permanent solution to our persistent monetary woes.
Dr. Murray Rothbard (February 1986, The World Currency Crisis)

Sunday, November 28, 2010

Life

I think everybody should get rich and famous and do everything they ever dreamed of so they can see that it’s not the answer.
Jim Carrey (April, 2006; Reader’s Digest)

Saturday, November 27, 2010

Gold as Money

There can be no other criterion, no other standard than gold. Yes, gold which never changes, which can be shaped into ingots, bars, coins, which has no nationality and which is eternally and universally accepted as the unalterable fiduciary value par excellence. 
Charles De Gaulle (1890-1970, 1st French President of the 5th Republic)

Friday, November 26, 2010

Sow and Reap

Sow with a view to righteousness,
Reap in accordance with kindness;
God, Hosea 10:12a

Thursday, November 25, 2010

Stones to Bread

Because they believe in the messianic state, which they believe can turn stones into bread.
Wait a minute. It wasn't the Messiah who turned stones into bread. It was the devil who recommended this (Matthew 4). 
Gary North (2010)

Wednesday, November 24, 2010

The IMF and the World Bank

[The IMF and the World Bank] are today, in actual fact, large machines for the mere redistribution of income from the taxpaying citizens of the developed countries to irresponsible governments of undeveloped countries.
Jörg Guido Hülsmann (2008, The Ethics of Money Production)

Tuesday, November 23, 2010

Fiat Inflation

...fiat inflation is a juggernaut of social, economic, cultural, and spiritual destruction.
Jörg Guido Hülsmann (2008, The Ethics of Money Production)

Monday, November 22, 2010

Debts and Inflation

Towering debts are incompatible with financial self-reliance and thus they tend to weaken self-reliance also in all other spheres. The debt-ridden individual eventually adopts the habit of turning to others for help, rather than maturing into an economic and moral anchor of his family, and of his wider community. Wishful thinking and submissiveness replace soberness and independent judgement. And what about the many cases in which families can no longer shoulder the debt load? Then the result is either despair or, on the contrary, scorn for all standards of financial sanity. 
Jörg Guido Hülsmann (2008, The Ethics of Money Production)

Sunday, November 21, 2010

Inflation

Inflation, it has been said, is like a country where nobody speaks the truth.
Charles Goyette (2009, The Dollar Meltdown)

Saturday, November 20, 2010

Peer Review

Scientists understand that peer review per se provides only a minimal assurance of quality, and that the public conception of peer review as a stamp of authentication is far from the truth.
Nature Magazine (2006 editorial)

Friday, November 19, 2010

Bitterness

Li Deshui from Beijing's Economic Commission said a string of Asian states share China's "deep bitterness" over dollar debasement, and are examining ways of teaming up to insulate themselves from the tsunami of US liquidity.
Ambrose Evans-Pritchard (04/11/2010, In discussion about Quantitative Easing 2)

Thursday, November 18, 2010

Differing Defintions

If by "capitalism" is meant an economic system which recognizes the fundamental and positive role of business, the market, private property and the resulting responsibility for the means of production, as well as free human creativity in the economic sector, then the answer is certainly in the affirmative, even though it would perhaps be more appropriate to speak of a "business economy", "market economy" or simply "free economy". But if by "capitalism" is meant a system in which freedom in the economic sector is not circumscribed within a strong juridical framework which places it at the service of human freedom in its totality, and which sees it as a particular aspect of that freedom, the core of which is ethical and religious, then the reply is certainly negative.
John Paul II (1991, Centesimus Annus)
In discussion about whether he would recommend "Capitalism" to the developing world.

Wednesday, November 17, 2010

Abolition

Urge immediate abolition as earnestly as we may, it will, alas! be gradual abolition in the end. We have never said that slavery would be overthrown by a single blow; that it ought to be, we shall always contend. 
William Lloyd Garrison (The Liberator, August 13, 1831)

Tuesday, November 16, 2010

Subsidized Immorality

Rather than carrying an economic penalty, licentiousness might then actually go hand in hand with economic advantages, because it frees the protagonists from the costs of family life (for example, the costs associated with raising children). With the backing of the welfare state, these protagonists may mock conservative morals as some sort of superstition that has no real-life impact. The welfare state systematically exposes people to the temptation of believing that there are no time-tested moral precepts at all.
Jörg Guido Hülsmann (2008, The Ethics of Money Production)

Monday, November 15, 2010

American Defeat

... since 1789, the only government on earth that has had the power to crush the American people’s liberties across the board has been the government of the United States. 
Robert Higgs (2006, America Won the World Wars, but Americans Lost)

Sunday, November 14, 2010

O gold!

O Gold! I still prefer thee unto paper,
Which makes bank credit like a bank of vapour.
Lord Byron (1821, Don Juan, Canto the Twelfth)

Saturday, November 13, 2010

United States

The United States invariably does the right thing, after having exhausted every other alternative.
Winston Churchill (Unsourced)

Friday, November 12, 2010

Politcal/Physical Power

In essence, political power is the physical power, or the threat of it, that one man or a group of men may bring to bear on other men to affect behavior.
Frank Chodorov (1959, The Rise & Fall of Society)

Thursday, November 11, 2010

Mathematical Certainty

If you run the numbers, on all those numbers that you just talked about, which I think are accurate, very accurate, in 20 or 25 years, the United States goes bankrupt ... It’s a mathematical certainty.
John Allison IV (11/2010, Former CEO and Chairman of BB&T, the 10th Largest US Bank)

Wednesday, November 10, 2010

Trade and Specialization

Society thrives on trade simply because trade makes specialization possible, specialization increases output, and increased output reduces the cost in toil for the satisfactions men live by.  That being so, the market place is the most humane institution.
Frank Chodorov (1959, The Rise & Fall of Society)

Tuesday, November 9, 2010

Hypocrisy

... we insist that nothing ever justifies the slaughter of innocent men, women and children.
Barack Obama (11/08/2010 On a speech to the Indian Parliament)

Monday, November 8, 2010

On Voir Dire

You could say it's the process by which the system assures that no qualified person serves on a jury – or the process by which we make sure to get the dregs of society's barrel instead of the cream of society's crop.
Louis James 
2010, While Interviewing Doug Casey on Jury Duty, or specifically Voir Dire in this quotes instance.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voir_dire#Use_in_the_United_States_of_America

Sunday, November 7, 2010

Sloth Generation

This Boomerang Generation also turns out to be the Sloth Generation, since many of these people have never held a job in their lives. It's not their fault, for the most part. The economic crisis, child-labor laws, socialized educational costs, minimum wages, and a government-imposed culture of prolonged adolescence have combined to deny opportunity to an entire generation.
Llewellyn H. Rockwell Jr. (2010, The Killing and Reviving of the American Dream)

Saturday, November 6, 2010

Bilderberg Issues

The 58th Bilderberg Meeting will be held in Sitges, Spain 3 - 6 June 2010. The Conference will deal mainly with Financial Reform, Security, Cyber Technology, Energy, Pakistan, Afghanistan, World Food Problem, Global Cooling, Social Networking, Medical Science, EU-US relations.
Bilderberg Press Release (2010)

Friday, November 5, 2010

Government Waste

It could also be argued that governments have repeatedly followed Keynes's tongue-in-cheek advice to pour money down a hole in the ground, and that the amount of money wasted in this way, if properly invested, might by now have pulled the entire world out of poverty. 
Hunter Lewis (2009, Where Keynes Went Wrong)

Thursday, November 4, 2010

Personal Responsibility and Voting

Not one of all the ten millions of voters who helped to place [a person] in power would have dared to do so if he had known that he was to be held personally responsible before any just tribunal for the acts of those for whom he voted
Lysander Spooner (1886,  A Letter to Grover Cleveland)

Wednesday, November 3, 2010

Taking the Bait

 As long as Republicans say they are pro-life, support endless wars in Muslim countries, and compare themselves to the evil Democrats instead of some worthwhile standard, the majority of conservative Christians take the bait, only to be disappointed yet again when the election is over.
 Laurence Vance (2010)

Tuesday, November 2, 2010

Chestnuts

Let the British get their own chestnuts out of the fire
~1940 (American Isolationist or Non-Interventionist Phrase, according to Gore Vidal)

Monday, November 1, 2010

Purcashing Votes

Our politicians do not purchase votes, they advocate "social" programs.  It comes to the same thing.
Frank Chodorov (1959, The Rise & Fall of Society)