"The fact that an opinion has been widely held is no evidence whatever that it is not entirely absurd, indeed, in view of the silliness of the majority of mankind, a widespread belief is more likely to be foolish than sensible." – Bertrand Russell
“In modern democracies, successful politicians must possess two qualities: They must say what the people want to hear and they must do what those in power want done.” – Darryl Schoon
“Fear, Mr. Bond, takes gold out of circulation and hoards it against the evil day. In a period of history when every tomorrow may be the evil day, it is fair to say that a fat proportion of the gold dug out of one corner of the earth is at once buried again in another corner…” – Ian Fleming, Goldfinger
“The money markets have completely broken down, with no trading taking place at all. There is no market any more. Central banks are the only providers of cash to the market, no-one else is lending.” – Christoph Rieger, fixed-income strategist with Dresdner Kleinwort.
“The financial meltdown the economists of the Austrian School predicted has arrived. We are in this crisis because of an excess of artificially created credit at the hands of the Federal Reserve System. The solution being proposed? More artificial credit by the Federal Reserve. No liquidation of bad debt and malinvestment is to be allowed. By doing more of the same, we will only continue and intensify the distortions in our economy – all the capital misallocation, all the malinvestment – and prevent the market’s attempt to re-establish rational pricing of houses and other assets.” – Congressman Ron Paul, My …
“Mostly the thing I see is the pure lack of planning — people feel secure in their homes and think that it will never happen to them, and then it does”. Tom Hazelwood, quoted by Laura Rowley in Flirting with Disaster: Preparation is Key for Potential Catastrophes
"Bureaucracy is the epoxy that greases the wheels of progress." – James H. Boren, political science professor at Northeastern State University
"I returned, and saw under the sun, that the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to men of understanding, nor yet favour to men of skill; but time and chance happeneth to them all. For man also knoweth not his time: as the fishes that are taken in an evil net, and as the birds that are caught in the snare; so are the sons of men snared in an evil time, when it falleth suddenly upon them." – Ecclesiastes 9:11-12 (KJV)
"Government is the great fiction, through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else." – Frederic Bastiat, Essays on Political Economy, 1872
"During the hyperinflation in post WWI Germany, what used to be a comfortable nest egg was suddenly the value of a postage stamp. If one held just a portion of their savings in precious metals, the crisis was greatly softened. Gold will never be worth nothing, even if the exact price fluctuates. There is a famous photograph, however, of a German woman during this time period burning piles of tightly bound banknotes to keep warm." – Congressman Ron Paul
“How fabulous,” writes Brian Reade in the British tabloid The Mirror. “Thanks to the way it props up the USA’s two biggest mortgage firms, more than half of American homes are now effectively owned by the state… Who’d have imagined that when the most right-wing of neo-cons leaves office 50% of the Land of the Free will effectively be [public housing]”? – Bill Bonner
Every economy in the world has experienced booms and busts, but somewhere along the line someone came up with the bright idea of eliminating the busts. Throughout the 1990s the world experienced a series of economic crisis in Asia, Mexico, Russia, and even in the US markets that would have been enough to cleanse the system and restore equilibrium. On each and every occasion the Fed met the problem head on with the printing press, so a full blown reaction was avoided thereby creating what I call a “distortion” in the financial system that would eventually have to be sanitized. …
“When we add an additional trillion dollars to the debt, the burden of the taxpayer, sooner or later there’s got to be a reckoning… This is the mother of all bailouts.” – Sen. Richard Shelby, R.-Alabama, ranking member on the Senate Banking Committee, Sept 21, 2008
“I didn’t know how long we’d have together… Who does?” – Harrison Ford as Rick Deckard, in Blade Runner (1982). Screenplay by Hampton Fancher and David Peoples, based on the novel by Philip K. Dick
“Mr. President, we must not allow a mineshaft gap!” – George C. Scott as Gen. ‘Buck’ Turgidson , in Dr. Strangelove, 1964. (Screenplay by by Stanley Kubrick, Terry Southern and Peter George.)