Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Comment on this quote Share via Email Print this Page [21-40] of 579 Economics quotesEconomics QuotesEconomics Previous 20 quotes Next 20 quotes The trade of the petty usurer is hated with most reason: it makes a profit from currency itself, instead of making it from the process which currency was meant to serve. Their common characteristic is obviously their sordid avarice.~ Aristotle Hillsdale [College] forgoes government money in order to spare our students, faculty and administrators the bureaucratic interference that is the price of accepting federal financial support. ~ Larry P. Arnn 1. Our military is supposed to be a means to an end: national security. Due to its immense size and colossal budget, has our military not become an end as well as a means? 2. In World War II, Americans could explain “Why We Fight” in part because the government provided a clear and compelling rationale for war. Why are the goals of today’s wars so opaque to most Americans? 3. If our military provides us with our way of “nation building” abroad, won’t countries and peoples be more likely to copy our military ways and weaponry than our democratic teachings? 4. America is facing painful budgetary belt tightening. Why is the military immune? 5. Why does “support our troops” seemingly end when they leave the service, leading us to tolerate such inequities as an unemployment rate of 21% for young veterans?~ William J. Astore The cardinal maxim is, that any aid to a present bad Bank is the surest mode of preventing the establishment of a future good Bank.~ Walter Bagehot Madison, agreeing with the journal of the convention, records that the grant of power to emit bills of credit was refused by a majority of more than four to one. The evidence is perfect; no power to emit paper money was granted to the legislature of the United States.~ George Bancroft [R]eal charity doesn’t mean giving away someone else’s money.~ Doug Bandow [E]conomic liberty and creative entrepreneurship are the basis of any solution to today’s social and economic difficulties. Blaming business, setting wages, and attempting to run the economy by decree from Washington only exacerbates the problems. Consider the minimum wage. It seems so simple: Tell business to pay its workers more. But a hike in the minimum wage is essentially a tax, punishing precisely those companies that hire workers with the least skills.~ Doug Bandow A man must pay the fiddler. In my case it so happened that a whole symphony orchestra often had to be subsidized.~ John Barrymore Democrats will play the old Washington game of calling reductions in the rate of growth of spending for any program a 'cut'.~ Bruce Bartlett Nothing did more to spur the boom in stocks than the decision made by the New York Federal Reserve bank, in the spring of 1927, to cut the rediscount rate. Benjamin Strong, Governor of the bank, was chief advocate of this unwise measure, which was taken largely at the behest of Montagu Norman of the Bank of England....At the time of the Banks action I warned of its consequences....I felt that sooner or later the market had to break.~ Bernard Baruch It is impossible to introduce into society a greater change and a greater evil than this: the conversion of the law into an instrument of plunder.~ Frederic Bastiat Thus, if there exists a law which sanctions slavery or monopoly, oppression or robbery, in any form whatever, it must not even be mentioned. For how can it be mentioned without damaging the respect which it inspires? Still further, morality and political economy must be taught from the point of view of this law; from the supposition that it must be a just law merely because it is a law. Another effect of this tragic perversion of the law is that it gives an exaggerated importance to political passions and conflicts, and to politics in general.~ Frederic Bastiat When plunder becomes a way of life for a group of men living together in society, they create for themselves in the course of time a legal system that authorizes it and a moral code that glorifies it.~ Frederic Bastiat Men naturally rebel against the injustice of which they are victims. Thus, when plunder is organized by law for the profit of those who make the law, all the plundered classes try somehow to enter -- by peaceful or revolutionary means -- into the making of laws. According to their degree of enlightenment, these plundered classes may propose one of two entirely different purposes when they attempt to attain political power: Either they may wish to stop lawful plunder, or they may wish to share in it.~ Frederic Bastiat The state is the great fictitious entity by which everyone seeks to live at the expense of everyone else.~ Frederic Bastiat No legal plunder: This is the principle of justice, peace, order, stability, harmony, and logic. Until the day of my death, I shall proclaim this principle with all the force of my lungs (which alas! is all too inadequate).~ Frederic Bastiat By virtue of exchange, one man's prosperity is beneficial to all others.~ Frederic Bastiat But how is this legal plunder to be identified? Quite simply. See if the law takes from some persons what belongs to them, and gives it to other persons to whom it does not belong. See if the law benefits one citizen at the expense of another by doing what the citizen himself cannot do without committing a crime.~ Frederic Bastiat The war against illegal plunder has been fought since the beginning of the world. But how is... legal plunder to be identified? Quite simply. See if the law takes from some persons what belongs to them, and gives it to other persons to whom it does not belong. See if the law benefits one citizen at the expense of another by doing what the citizen himself cannot do without committing a crime. Then abolish this law without delay ... If such a law is not abolished immediately it will spread, multiply and develop into a system.~ Frederic Bastiat Those who support the death tax generally do so not for economic reasons but for political ones. They want to make the tax code 'fair' by taxing away the lifetime wealth of others.~ William Beach Previous 20 quotes Next 20 quotes Share on Facebook Tweet Email Print