Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Comment on this quoteShare via Email Print this Page Daily Quotes Archives2011-02-16 Feb 16, 2011I place economy among the first and most important virtues and public debt as the greatest dangers to be feared ... We must not let our rulers load us with perpetual debt. We must make our choice between economy and liberty or profusion and servitude ... The same prudence which in private life would forbid our paying money for unexplained projects, forbids it in the disposition of public money. We are endeavoring to reduce the government to the practice of rigid economy to avoid burdening the people ...~ Thomas JeffersonThere is no difference in principle, ... between the economic philosophy of Nazism, socialism, communism, and fascism and that of the American welfare state and regulated economy.~ Jacob G. HornbergerSocial Security is an unfunded pay-as-you-go system, fundamentally flawed and analogous in design to illegal pyramid schemes. Government accounting creates the illusion of a trust fund, but in fact, excess receipts are spent immediately. The government’s own actuaries predict the system will be bankrupt by 2030, but Social Security could face financial crisis as early as 2014. Moreover, Social Security’s relatively poor rate of return makes the program an increasingly worse investment for today’s young worker. ... The system design itself is fundamentally flawed and cannot be repaired. It must instead be replaced by one derived from free markets and operated by free citizenry making individual economic decisions in their own self-interest. ... Reform is long overdue. If we fail to act soon, our children will either inherit a bankrupt system or be forced to pay an impossibly high level of taxes. Only private pensions with individual property rights to accumulate fund balances can create a secure pension system. Chile, which privatized its system in 1981, provides evidence of such a system’s effectiveness.~ Karl Borden Feb 15, 2011However, there is satisfaction in examining what they get out of all this torment, what advantage they derive from all the trouble of their wretched existence. Actually the people never blame the tyrant for the evils they suffer, but they do place responsibility on those who influence him; peoples, nations, all compete with one another, even the peasants, even the tillers of the soil, in mentioning the names of the favorites, in analyzing their vices, and heaping upon them a thousand insults, a thousand obscenities, a thousand maledictions. All their prayers, all their vows are directed against these persons; they hold them accountable for all their misfortunes, their pestilences, their famines; and if at times they show them outward respect, at those very moments they are fuming in their hearts and hold them in greater horror than wild beasts. This is the glory and honor heaped upon influential favorites for their services by people who, if they could tear apart their living bodies, would still clamor for more, only half satiated by the agony they might behold. For even when the favorites are dead those who live after are never too lazy to blacken the names of these people-eaters with the ink of a thousand pens, tear their reputations into bits in a thousand books, and drag, so to speak, their bones past posterity, forever punishing them after their death for their wicked lives.~ Estienne de la BoétieThe spirit of revolution, the spirit of insurrection, is a spirit radically opposed to liberty.~ Francois Pierre GuizotYou never hear about constitutional rights, free speech, and the free press. Every time I hear those words I say to myself, “That man is a Red, that man is a communist.” You never hear a real American talk like that.~ Frank Hague Feb 14, 2011It constantly amazes me that defenders of the free market are expected to offer certainty and perfection while government has only to make promises and express good intentions. Many times, for instance, I’ve heard people say, "A free market in education is a bad idea because some child somewhere might fall through the cracks," even though in today’s government school, millions of children are falling through the cracks every day.~ Dr. Lawrence W. ReedFairness does not require the redistribution of wealth; it requires the creation of wealth, geared to an economy that can provide employment for everyone able and willing to work.~ Felix RohatynNo one spends someone else’s money as carefully as he spends his own.~ Mark Skousen Feb 11, 2011Regulation -- which is based on force and fear -- undermines the moral base of business dealings. It becomes cheaper to bribe a building inspector than to meet his standards of construction. A fly-by-night securities operator can quickly meet all the S.E.C. requirements, gain the inference of respectability, and proceed to fleece the public. In an unregulated economy, the operator would have had to spend a number of years in reputable dealings before he could earn a position of trust sufficient to induce a number of investors to place funds with him. Protection of the consumer by regulation is thus illusory.~ Alan GreenspanHe who will not economize will have to agonize.~ ConfuciusThe use of force to achieve equality will destroy freedom, and the force, introduced for good purposes, will end up in the hands of people who use it to promote their own interest.~ Milton Friedman Feb 10, 2011I have known a vast quantity of nonsense talked about bad men not looking you in the face. Don´t trust that conventional idea. Dishonesty will stare honesty out of countenance any day in the week, if anything is to be got by it.~ Charles DickensCuriosity is the kernal of forbidden fruit.~ Dr. Thomas FullerRevenge is profitable, gratitude is expensive.~ Edward Gibbon Previous week's quotes Next week's quotes Share on Facebook Tweet Email Print