“You are as much serving God in looking after your own children, training them up in God’s fear, minding the house, and making your household a church for God as you would be if you had been called to lead an army to battle for the Lord of hosts.” – Charles Spurgeon
“Ludwig von Mises warned us that governments will destroy free-markets long before they ever understand how they work. I would like to add that governments will destroy free-markets if they do not like the message of the market. Government intervention after all is nothing but a blatant attempt to change the market’s message about the price of some good or service. We have seen this intervention time and again by governments around the world, including the U.S. government. Sen. Lieberman’s bill to prevent institutional investors from buying commodities is a good example of this penchant to destroy the market process …
“Unless derivatives contracts are collateralized or guaranteed, their ultimate value depends on the creditworthiness of the counterparties. In the meantime, though, before a contract is settled, the counterparties record profits and losses – often huge in amounts – in their current earnings statements without so much as a penny changing hands. The range of derivatives contracts is limited only by the imagination of man (or sometimes, so it seems, madmen).” – Warren Buffett, in a recent Berkshire Hathaway annual report
“Self-sufficiency isn’t a sexy idea. At best, people who say they’re interested in being self-sufficient are stereotyped as dour, old-fashioned rural types. At worst, they’re seen as fanatical survivalists planning for an apocalypse. Economists also tell us that self-sufficiency is an anachronism. Instead, it is specialization that produces wealth, and economies – including the world economy – produce the most wealth when everyone, including countries, specializes in what they do best and then trades their products for the other things they need. The more specialization, the more connectivity among specialists, and the more trade along those connections, the better.” – …
“We are not only headed for a Depression, but a violent Depression that will be far worse than [the one that started in] 1929. Some experts believe the United States will fall into the chaos, bedlam and anarchy that tore apart Yugoslavia. I am not going that far, but I know our morals and ethics are not the same as they were in 1929. Moreover, we are a far more violent society and totally dependent upon a well oiled system for delivery of food and basic services.” – Mike Morgan
“The US economy is crumbling because the way we conduct the activities of daily life is insane relative to our circumstances. We’ve spent sixty years ramping up a suburban living arrangement that has suddenly entered a state of failure, and all its accessories and furnishings are failing in concert. The far-flung McHouse tracts are becoming both useless and worthless in the face of gasoline prices that will never be cheap again. The strip malls and office “parks” are following the residential real estate off a cliff. The retail tenants of all those places are hemorrhaging customers who have maxed out …
The ant works hard in the withering heat all summer long, building his house and laying up supplies for the winter. The grasshopper thinks he’s a fool. He laughs and dances and plays the summer away. Come winter, the ant is warm and well fed. The shivering grasshopper has no food or shelter, so he dies out in the cold. – Aesop (620BC – 560BC)
"Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide." – John Adams, 1814
"Beaten paths are for beaten men." – Eric A. Johnston (1842 – 1914), US journalist and short-story writer
“Hold on, my friends, to the Constitution and to the Republic for which it stands. Miracles do not cluster and what has happened once in 6,000 years, may not happen again. Hold on to the Constitution, for if the American Constitution should fail, there will be anarchy throughout the world.’” – Daniel Webster
"I remember during the metals’ bull market of the 1970s when we were worried about gas rising to $1.50 a gallon, some enterprising gas stations put up signs selling gas for a dime a gallon. Of course, they wanted pre-1964, 90-percent silver dimes which had value in excess of a gallon of gas. If you were smart, you didn’t fall for it. You were better off keeping the coins to yourself." – Howard J. Ruff
"Now I have a sheep and a cow, every body bids me good-morrow." – Ben Franklin, The Way to Wealth, 1736
"Almighty God…I yield thee humble and hearty thanks that thou has preserved me from the danger of the night past, and brought me to the light of the day, and the comforts thereof, a day which is consecrated to thine own service and for thine own honor. Let my heart, therefore, Gracious God, be so affected with the glory and majesty of it, that I may not do mine own works, but wait on thee, and discharge those weighty duties thou requirest of me. Give me grace to hear thee calling on me in thy word, that it may be …
"Invest in inflation; it’s the only thing that’s going up." – Will Rogers
"Patience and fortitude conquer all things." – Ralph Waldo Emerson