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Economics Quotes

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Economics Quotes

“Government's view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases: If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it.”

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Author:Ronald Reagan
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“There is no virtue in compulsory government charity, and there is no virtue in advocating it. A politician who portrays himself as "caring" and "sensitive" because he wants to expand the government's charitable programs is merely saying that he's willing to try to do good with other people's money. Well, who isn't? And a voter who takes pride in supporting such programs is telling us that he'll do good with his own money - if a gun is held to his head.”

PeopleIfsWantTryingWellsGovernmentLibertyVirtueWillingPridePoliticianGunProgramEconomicsCharityCaringLibertarianSensitiveVotersLibertarianismFreedom And LibertyFreedom LibertyCharitableAdvocatingCompulsoryGovernment ProgramsWilling To Try
Author:P. J. O'Rourke
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“People have a hard time accepting free-market economics for the same reason they have a hard time accepting evolution: it is counterintuitive. Life looks intelligently designed, so our natural inclination is to infer that there must be an intelligent designer--a God. Similarly, the economy looks designed, so our natural inclination is to infer that we need a designer--a government. In fact, emergence and complexity theory explains how the principles of self-organization and emergence cause complex systems to arise from simple systems without a top-down designer.”

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Author:Michael Shermer
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“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.”

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Book:The Law
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“It is a popular delusion that the government wastes vast amounts of money through inefficiency and sloth. Enormous effort and elaborate planning are required to waste this much money.”

GovernmentEffortLibertyEconomicAmountWasteEconomicsLibertarianPlanningEnormousDelusionLibertarianismSlothGovernment SpendingInefficiencyGovernment Waste
Book:Parliament of Whores: A Lone Humorist Attempts to Explain the Entire U.S. Government
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“People often of masterful intelligence, trained usually in law or economics or perhaps in political science, who have led their governments into disastrous decisions and miscalculations because they have no awareness whatever of the historical background, the cultural universe, of the foreign societies with which they have to deal.”

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Author:Michael Howard
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“The problems that exist on Wall Street today go to the center of a debate in this country about wealth and democracy. We cannot keep our democracy if those who are in charge of handling the engines of our economy are not honest with their shareholders. That's why there is a role for government regulation here. That role for government is breaking up the monopolies, insisting on public disclosure, insisting on public audits, insisting on restitution whenever someone has been cheated.”

IfsHas BeensCountryProblemGovernmentTodayWealthRolesEconomyDemocracyStreetsHonestWallEconomicsDebateEnginesRegulationMonopolyCheatedShareholdersInsistingDisclosureGovernment RegulationNot HonestRestitution
Author:Dennis Kucinich
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“The worst thing that will probably happen-in fact is already well underway-is not energy depletion, economic collapse, conventional war, or the expansion of totalitarian governments. As terrible as these catastrophes would be for us, they can be repaired in a few generations. The one process now going on that will take millions of years to correct is loss of genetic and species diversity by the destruction of natural habitats. This is the folly our descendants are least likely to forgive us.”

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Author:E. O. Wilson
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“The country is now universally recognised as a nation on the move and takes its place amongst the successful economies in the region. The future potential is enormous but the country's destiny is in our hands. The time has come to move from small increments to bold, large initiatives. The time has come to stretch the envelope and set goals which were earlier not seen to be possible. The time has come for performance to be measured and for allocated funds of the government to reach the people for whom they were intended.”

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Author:Ratan Tata
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“Take not from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned.”

GovernmentFreedomLibertyCitizensMouthsCapitalismEconomicsLaborLibertarianSocialismBreadFoundersFoundingGoverningFreedom And LibertyFreedom LibertyPrivate PropertyOur Founding FathersProperty RightsLimited GovernmentDemocracies HaveBill Of RightsUs Founding FathersForefathersAmerican GovernmentLimiting GovernmentFounding AmericaLibertarian PartyEconomic FreedomInauguralConstitutional RightsFrugalLimited FreedomInaugural AddressGovernment RegulationFounding Fathers DemocracyRestrainingLimiting FreedomDistribution Of WealthConstitutional GovernmentFree Market CapitalismTyranny Founding FathersRedistribution Of WealthDemocracy In AmericaGovernment And PoliticsNot VotingGovernment PoliticsFuture Of AmericaVoting Founding FathersRobber Baron
Author:Thomas Jefferson
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“Socialism, like the ancient ideas from which it springs, confuses the distinction between government and society. As a result of this, every time we object to a thing being done by government, the socialists conclude that we object to its being done at all . . . . It is as if the socialists were to accuse us of not wanting persons to eat because we do not want the state to raise grain”

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Book:The Law
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“The recurrence of periods of depression and mass unemployment has discredited capitalism in the opinion of injudicious people. Yet these events are not the outcome of the operation of the free market. They are on the contrary the result of well-intentioned but ill-advised government interference with the market.”

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Book:Middle of the Road Policy Leads to Socialism
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“It is true that the welfare-statists are not socialists, that they never advocated or intended the socialization of private property, that they want to 'preserve' private property-with government control of its use and disposal. But that is the fundamental characteristic of fascism.”

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Book:Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal
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“Lobbying' is the activity of attempting to influence legislation by privately influencing the legislators. It is the result and creation of a mixed economy-of government by pressure groups. Its methods range from mere social courtesies and cocktail-party or luncheon "friendships" to favors, threats, bribes, blackmail.”

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Book:The Voice of Reason: Essays in Objectivist Thought
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“No individual or private group or private organization has the legal power to initiate the use of physical force against other individuals or groups and to compel them to act against their own voluntary choice. Only a government holds that power. The nature of governmental action is: coercive action. The nature of political power is: the power to force obedience under threat of physical injury-the threat of property expropriation, imprisonment, or death.”

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Book:Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal
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“Unlike the Marxists, the Nazis did not advocate public ownership of the means of production. They did demand that the government oversee and run the nation's economy. The issue of legal ownership is secondary; what counts is the issue of control. Private citizens, therefore, may continue to hold titles to property-so long as the state res...erves to itself the unqualified right to regulate the use of their property.”

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Author:Leonard Peikoff
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“The libertarian creed...offers the fulfillment of the best of the American past along with the promise of a far better future. Libertarians are squarely in the great classical liberal tradition that built the United States and bestowed on us the American heritage of individual liberty, a peaceful foreign policy, minimal government, and a free-market economy.”

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Author:Murray Rothbard
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“You know, if government were a product, selling it would be illegal. ... Government contains impure ingredients - as anybody who's looked at Congress can tell you. ... government practices deceptive advertising. And the merest glance at the federal budget is enough to convict the government of perjury, extortion, and fraud. ... in a nutshell: government should be against the law. Term limits aren't enough. We need jail.”

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Author:P. J. O'Rourke
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“Three-fifths to two-thirds of the federal budget consists of taking property from one American and giving it to another. Were a private person to do the same thing, we'd call it theft. When government does it, we euphemistically call it income redistribution, but that's exactly what thieves do - redistribute income. Income redistribution not only betrays the founders' vision, it's a sin in the eyes of God.”

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Author:Walter E. Williams
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“Government is necessary, but the only rights we can delegate to government are the ones we possess. For example, we all have a natural right to defend ourselves against predators. Since we possess that right, we can delegate authority to government to defend us. By contrast, we don't have a natural right to take the property of one person to give to another; therefore, we cannot legitimately delegate such authority to government.”

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Author:Walter E. Williams
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“Try this thought experiment. Pretend you're a tyrant. Among your many liberty-destroying objectives are extermination of blacks, Jews and Catholics. Which would you prefer, a United States with political power centralized in Washington, powerful government agencies with detailed information on Americans and compliant states or power widely dispersed over 50 states, thousands of local jurisdictions and a limited federal government?”

TryingStatesGovernmentPoliticalUnitedPowerfulLibertyUnited StatesEconomicInformationEconomicsCatholicJewExperimentsTyrannyLocalsObjectivesAgencyDestroyingTyrantsFederal GovernmentPolitical PowerExterminationJurisdictionOver 50Government AgenciesPowerful Government
Author:Walter E. Williams
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“What we call the market is really a democratic process involving millions, and in some markets billions, of people making personal decisions that express their preferences. When you hear someone say that he doesn't trust the market, and wants to replace it with government edicts, he's really calling for a switch from a democratic process to a totalitarian one.”

PeopleWantGovernmentProcessDecisionLibertyMillionsEconomicCallingEconomicsDemocraticBillionsPreferenceInvolvingDemocratic ProcessPersonal Decisions
Author:Walter E. Williams
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“The national budget must be balanced. The public debt must be reduced; the arrogance of the authorities must be moderated and controlled. Payments to foreign governments must be reduced. If the nation doesn't want to go bankrupt, people must again learn to work, instead of living on public assistance.”

PeopleIfsWantGovernmentNationsLibertyAuthorityEconomicsDebtLibertarianBudgetsArroganceControlledLibertarianismBalancedAssistancePaymentLiving OnNational Debt
Author:Taylor Caldwell
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“People who create things nowadays can expect to be prosecuted by highly moralistic people who are incapable of creating anything. There is no way to measure the chilling effect on innovation that results from the threats of taxation, regulation and prosecution against anything that succeeds. We'll never know how many ideas our government has aborted in the name protecting us.”

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Author:Joseph Sobran
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“The fact throughout history is that whenever government dominates the economic affairs of its citizenry, a free society is eroded, then destroyed, and a minority government ensues. Personal liberty without economic liberty is an absolute contradiction; the one cannot exist without the other.”

FactsGovernmentLibertyEconomicEconomicsAbsolutesAffairLibertarianDestroyedContradictionMinoritiesLibertarianismFree SocietyCitizenryPersonal LibertyMinority Government
Author:William E. Simon
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“Nothing is done. Everything in the world remains to be done or done over. The greatest picture is not yet painted, the greatest play isn't written, the greatest poem is unsung. There isn't in all the world a perfect railroad, nor a good government, nor a sound law. Physics, mathematics, and especially the most advanced and exact of the sciences are being fundamentally revised. . . Psychology, economics, and sociology are awaiting a Darwin, whose work in turn is awaiting an Einstein.”

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Book:The autobiography of Lincoln Steffens: abridged
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