"We are now experiencing the first truly major crisis of financial globalization. Never before have banks seen such destruction of their balance sheets in such a short time. Moreover, there are signs that the problems are spreading. The risk premiums on commercial property, consumer credit and corporate loans have risen sharply." – Swiss central bank governor Philipp Hildebrand, quoted March 12, 2008
“We’ve got a blind date with Destiny — and it looks like she’s ordered the lobster.” – William H. Macy, as “The Shoveler” in Mystery Men, 1999 (Screenplay by Neal Cuthbert.)
“I do not have a new message here; we have known for a long time that advance preparation and a strong balance sheet are the keys to riding out a financial storm. As I have emphasized before, the Federal Reserve can deal with liquidity pressures but cannot deal with solvency issues.” – William Poole, President of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, February 29, 2008 (as recently quoted by Dr. Gary North in his Reality Check e-newsletter.)
“I spoke to you in your prosperity, but you said, ‘I will not hear.’” – Jeremiah 22:21
"Any great nation that goes off the gold standard ends being a great nation." – Ronald Wilson Reagan (recently quoted in a debate, by Dr. Ron Paul)
"The dignity of man is not shattered in a single blow, but slowly softened, bent, and eventually neutered. Men are seldom forced to act, but are constantly restrained from acting. Such power does not destroy outright, but prevents genuine existence. It does not tyrannize immediately, but it dampens, weakens, and ultimately suffocates, until the entire population is reduced to nothing better than a flock of timid, uninspired animals, of which the government is shepherd." – Alexis de Tocqueville
"Personal weapons are what raised mankind out of the mud, and the rifle is the queen of personal weapons." – The Late Col. Jeff Cooper
“You can’t make an appointment to have an emergency so always have your firearm.” – The Late Col. Jeff Cooper
"We have the illusion of freedom only because so few ever try to exercise it. Try it sometime. Try to save your home from the highway crowd, or to work a trade without the approval of the goons, or to open a little business without a permit, or to grow a crop without a quota, or educate your child the way you want to, or to not have a child. We all have the freedom of a balloon floating in a pin factory." – Karl Hess
"We have staked the whole of all our political institutions upon the capacity of mankind for self-government, upon the capacity of each and all of us to govern ourselves, to control ourselves, to sustain ourselves according to the Ten Commandments of God." – James Madison
“As long as one doesn’t get into a gunfight, a 9 millimeter is just fine.” – Mark Moritz
"A government big enough to give you everything you want, is strong enough to take everything you have." – Thomas Jefferson
In the absence of the gold standard, there is no way to protect savings from confiscation through inflation . There is no safe store of value. If there were, the government would have to make its holding illegal, as was done in the case of gold. If everyone decided, for example, to convert all his bank deposits to silver or copper or any other good, and thereafter declined to accept checks as payment for goods, bank deposits would lose their purchasing power and government-created bank credit would be worthless as a claim on goods. The financial policy of the welfare …
“There is not any one news item that I can point to. We know that there is paper out there that we can’t trust. We don’t know exactly who owns it and how much. And we don’t know how they are valuing it.” – Douglas Peta, Chief Investment Strategist at J. W. Seligman & Company in New York, as quoted in the New York Times, March 1, 2008
“Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports. In vain would that man claim the tribute of patriotism who should labor to subvert these great pillars of human happiness, these firmest prop of the duties of men and citizens. The mere politician, equally with the pious man, ought to respect and to cherish them. A volume could not trace all their connections with private and public felicity. Let it simply be asked: Where is the security for property, for reputation, for life, if the sense of religious obligation desert the oaths …