Imagi-Natives: ...for an imaginative life!

[Quote No.42841] Need Area: Money > General
"I love liberty, and I loathe constraint, dependence, and all their kindred annoyances. As long as my purse contains money it secures my independence, and exempts me from the trouble of seeking other money, a trouble of which I have always had a perfect horror; and the dread of seeing the end of my independence, makes me proportionately unwilling to part with my money. The money that we possess is the instrument of liberty, that which we lack and strive to obtain is the instrument of slavery." - Jean-Jacques Rousseau
(1712 – 1778), Franco-Swiss philosopher of the Enlightenment whose political ideas influenced the French Revolution, the development of socialist theory, and the growth of nationalism. As quoted in his book, ‘Confessions of Jean-Jacques Rousseau’ (1770, published 1782).
Author's Info on Wikipedia - Author on ebay - Author on Amazon - More Quotes by this Author
Start Searching Amazon for Gifts
Send as Free eCard with optional Google Image

[Quote No.42860] Need Area: Money > General
"Happiness: a good bank account, a good cook and a good digestion." - Jean-Jacques Rousseau
(1712 – 1778), Franco-Swiss philosopher of the Enlightenment whose political ideas influenced the French Revolution, the development of socialist theory, and the growth of nationalism.
Author's Info on Wikipedia - Author on ebay - Author on Amazon - More Quotes by this Author
Start Searching Amazon for Gifts
Send as Free eCard with optional Google Image

[Quote No.42907] Need Area: Money > General
"[There is always a danger to the middle classes and the wealthy when people in a society are so poor that they are hungry, especially if their numbers are large and the fact and visibility of the wealth discrepancy is obvious and frequent. Society’s law and order is then likely to break down and people desperate to survive, as well as those just envious or greedy, will disregard others’ needs and rights and society’s laws and use force to obtain the necessities, among other things, that they need, in order to survive, or prosper. At these times it is useful to remember that...] When the people shall have nothing more to eat, they will eat the rich! [This is the dystopian worst case scenario of the mutual benefit that living in societies under a social contract promises. To avoid that, amongst other objectives, social, economic and political philosophies and structures have evolved over history and geography ranging: from strong central government power and freedom through communal property rights, for example communism, to strong individual power and freedom from strict private property rights, for example laissez faire (free market) capitalism; from government tax and redistribution policies to opportunities for education, business set-up capital and free-markets that promote voluntary exchange in order to meet each other’s needs and desires.] [This quote about eating the rich contrasts with another famous quote of Rousseau’s about eating that has been used by the poor and hungry, and those purporting to represent their interests, to express their belief about the way the wealthy regard the poor and hungry’s plight, fairly or unfairly: ‘I remembered the way out suggested by a great princess when told that the peasants had no bread: ‘Well, let them eat cake’. It has also been translated in a longer form as ‘At length I recollected the thoughtless saying of a great princess, who, on being informed that the country people had no bread, replied, ‘Then let them eat cake!’ In the original French - ‘Qu'ils mangent de la brioche’. This statement has usually come to be attributed to Marie Antoinette, but it was written in 1766, when Marie Antoinette was 10 and still 4 years away from her marriage to Louis XVI of France, and is an account of events of 1740, before she was born. It also implies the phrase had been long known before that time. As quoted in his book, ‘Confessions of Jean-Jacques Rousseau’ (1770, published 1782).]" - Jean-Jacques Rousseau
(1712 – 1778), Franco-Swiss philosopher of the Enlightenment whose political ideas influenced the French Revolution, the development of socialist theory, and the growth of nationalism. Attributed to Rousseau as being from a ‘Speech at the commune on the 14th of October’ in ‘The History of the French Revolution’ by M. A. Thiers. Translated, with notes and illustrations from the most authentic sources, by Frederick Shoberl., Thiers, Adolphe, 1797-1877., page 359.
Author's Info on Wikipedia - Author on ebay - Author on Amazon - More Quotes by this Author
Start Searching Amazon for Gifts
Send as Free eCard with optional Google Image

[Quote No.43069] Need Area: Money > General
"Money is cold, so you need to be cool [in the sense of being dispassionately rational], too, when you deal with it." - Sivaya Subramuniyaswami
(1927–2001), also known as Gurudeva Satguru Sivaya Subramuniyaswami by his followers, was born in Oakland, California, on January 5, 1927, and adopted 'Saivism' as a young man. He traveled to India and Sri Lanka where he received initiation from Yogaswami of Jaffna in 1949. In the 1970s he established a Hindu monastery in Kauai, Hawaii and founded the magazine 'Hinduism Today'. He was one of Saivism's Gurus, the founder and leader of the Saiva Siddhanta Church. Subramuniyaswami was lauded by Klaus Klostermaier as 'the single-most advocate of Hinduism outside India'. [http://www.hinduismtoday.com/modules/smartsection/item.php?itemid=3872 ]
Author's Info on Wikipedia - Author on ebay - Author on Amazon - More Quotes by this Author
Start Searching Amazon for Gifts
Send as Free eCard with optional Google Image

[Quote No.43235] Need Area: Money > General
"Sound money is as much a pillar of freedom as private property. And [fiat, that is money not backed by any valuable commodity, for example gold or silver] money is not sound. It is nationalized and wrecked by the central bank and its money creation powers [whenever it is in the interests of the political elite to increase inflation to, for example, lower wages without being 'seen' to do it and to help borrowers including the government and big business pay their debts to domestic and foreign lenders with depreciated - i.e. 'smaller' - dollars]. The relationship between higher prices [inflation] and money creation is not difficult to understand. Murray Rothbard [the Austrian School economist] liked to use the analogy of a tooth fairy who tried to help the world by doubling the money stock and putting the new money under everyone's pillow. It seems like a wonderful idea, until you realize that every existing unit of money would become worth half of what it used to be. The people would be no better off than they were before. Analogies like this are useful. Think of a children's party in which there is only enough lemonade for 10 kids. Thirty kids show up, so the host waters down the juice. Have you really made more lemonade? No, you have just divided the lemonade among more people, giving each kid more water and less flavor." - Jeffrey Tucker
Executive editor, Laissez Faire Books. [http://lfb.org/today/the-silent-killer/ ]
Author's Info on Wikipedia - Author on ebay - Author on Amazon - More Quotes by this Author
Start Searching Amazon for Gifts
Send as Free eCard with optional Google Image

[Quote No.43306] Need Area: Money > General
"[Socialist and communists do not believe in the right of individuals to make decisions about their own individual private property because they do not believe in private property rights. They believe that property belongs to all in order for all to have the freedom to be themselves and have satisfying lives. This is a very noble aim. Unfortunately the ‘science’ of economics, which is just about how scarce resources are managed, shows that decisions have to be made by some individual, some group or the whole group. Common-sense shows that the whole group decision making is difficult, unwieldy, too time consuming and therefore unrealistic in large complex societies so that the decisions are devolved to groups and individuals. Unfortunately this defeats the stated purpose of individual freedom and satisfaction as each individual is no longer involved in most decisions that effect them, and must take what they are given, unlike free-market capitalism where each individual gets to freely choose for themselves albeit only within the limit of their resources; not to mention the lack of free market prices to show demand and supply imbalances and therefore how scarce resources should best be allocated to meet the needs and 'greatest happiness of the greatest number' as per utilitarianism’s and democracy’s dictum, which results in many shortages in socialist and communist economies. Also history has shown this form of socio-economic political structure leads to: 1-corruption with the powerful becoming greedy as Lord Acton said, ‘Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely’ and; 2-the powerful not needing to be competent because of a lack of personal incentives and true financial accountability, except a minority motivated by personal pride, fear, morality or ideology, unfortunately usually in the minority. History has shown this is what happens in most cases. Therefore rather than trying to, if necessary, forcefully change human nature’s self-interest as proposed in socialism and communism to 'altruism' [i.e. communist party officer for each group and re-education work camps for the incorrigible], capitalism according to Adam Smith said let people’s self-interest, regarding what they own, spur production and exchange and then through the 'invisible hand' of the market, products and services would continually improve through competition and also spread to where they were needed and desired and only limited by the exchangeable resources in total – i.e. unit profit times volume. In this way capitalism tries to harness human nature to help the group live with a better material standard of living and greater individual freedom, admittedly within the limit of their resources, but which in the most enlightened capitalist societies is another individual choice as they are set up to help people develop the skills to allow them to accumulate resources consistent with the contribution they make to the well-being of others, while supporting those temporaily or permanently disabled. However the ideology of freedom (of want), equality (of outcome), community and cooperation rather than freedom (of choice), equality (of treatment), individuality and competition is so appealing people still misunderstand the fatal flaws in socialism’s and communism’s lack of private property rights, which of course include their savings, which benefit society through the mechanism of credit to those with ideas that need funding, especially for production but also even for consumption. For example...] The private control of credit is the modern form of slavery. [This is the kind of statement that die-hard socialists and communists still unfortunately repeat, that from the brief explanation above, you will now understand, while noble, is misguided as it is a less effective means to the end of freedom and a satisfying life that we all desire for humanity and each individual, regardless of the socio-economic political philosophy we believe will achieve it best. In time it is hoped that more people will recognise the superiority of allowing private property rights as the means to bring the good life we all want for ourselves, our loved ones, other individuals and our societies!]" - Upton Sinclair
(1878 –1968), American author and one-time candidate for governor of California who wrote close to one hundred books in many genres. He achieved popularity in the first half of the twentieth century, acquiring particular fame for his classic muckraking novel, ‘The Jungle’ (1906). It exposed conditions in the U.S. meat packing industry, causing a public uproar that contributed in part to the passage a few months later of the 1906 Pure Food and Drug Act and the Meat Inspection Act. His political career: In the 1920s the Sinclairs moved to Monrovia, California, near Los Angeles, where Upton founded the state's chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). Wanting to pursue politics, he twice ran unsuccessfully for Congress on the Socialist ticket: in 1920 for the House of Representatives and in 1922 for the Senate. During this period, Sinclair was also active in radical politics in Los Angeles. For instance, in 1923, to support the challenged free speech rights of Industrial Workers of the World [founded in Chicago in June 1905 at a convention of two hundred socialists, anarchists, and radical trade unionists from all over the United States]... In 1934 Sinclair ran in the California gubernatorial election as a Democrat. Gaining 879,000 votes made this his most successful run for office, but Frank F. Merriam defeated him by a sizable margin. Sinclair's platform, known as the 'End Poverty In California' movement (EPIC), galvanized the support of the Democratic Party, and Sinclair gained its nomination. Severe dust storms during the Great Depression made farming on the Great Plains impossible, and hundreds of thousands of Southern and Great Plains residents migrated westward in the 1930s in the hope of finding work and a new life. Sinclair's plan to end poverty quickly became a controversial issue under the pressure of so many migrants. Conservatives considered his proposal an attempted communist takeover of their state and quickly opposed him, using propaganda to portray Sinclair as a staunch communist. Sinclair had been a member of the Socialist Party from 1902 to 1934, when he became a Democrat, though always considering himself a Socialist in spirit. At the same time, American and Soviet communists disassociated themselves from him as a capitalist... After his loss to Merriam, Sinclair abandoned EPIC and politics to return to writing. In 1935 Sinclair published ‘I, Candidate for Governor: And How I Got Licked’, in which he described the techniques employed by Merriam's supporters, including the popular Aimee Semple McPherson, who vehemently opposed socialism and what she perceived as Sinclair's modernism. Of his gubernatorial bid, Sinclair remarked in 1951: ‘The American People will take Socialism, but they won't take the label. I certainly proved it in the case of EPIC. Running on the Socialist ticket I got 60,000 votes, and running on the slogan to 'End Poverty in California' I got 879,000. I think we simply have to recognize the fact that our enemies have succeeded in spreading the Big Lie. There is no use attacking it by a front attack, it is much better to out-flank them.’
Author's Info on Wikipedia - Author on ebay - Author on Amazon - More Quotes by this Author
Start Searching Amazon for Gifts
Send as Free eCard with optional Google Image

[Quote No.43403] Need Area: Money > General
"Goods can serve many other purposes besides purchasing money, but money can serve no other purpose besides purchasing goods." - Adam Smith
(1723 - 1790), philosopher famous for writing the first book on economics, 'The Wealth of Nations'.
Author's Info on Wikipedia - Author on ebay - Author on Amazon - More Quotes by this Author
Start Searching Amazon for Gifts
Send as Free eCard with optional Google Image

[Quote No.43620] Need Area: Money > General
"[In a publication titled 'Putting It Simply', the Boston Federal Reserve Bank, explained the US fiat currency: 'When you or I write a check there must be sufficient funds in our account to cover that check, but when the Federal Reserve writes a check, it is creating money (because there is no longer any backing by any commodity like gold or silver).' This power to create currency, money supply or quantity of money can be misused deliberately for socio-political and economic reasons.] The power to determine the quantity of money... is too important, too pervasive, to be exercised by a few people, however public-spirited, if there is any feasible alternative. There is no need for such arbitrary power... Any system which gives so much power and so much discretion to a few men, [such as the US does with the Federal Reserve banking system, so] that mistakes - excusable or not - can have such far reaching effects, is a bad system. It is a bad system to believers in freedom just because it gives a few men such power without any effective check by the body politic - this is the key political argument against an independent central bank." - Milton Friedman
(1912 - 2006), Nobel Prize-winning economist, economic advisor to President Ronald Reagan and author.
Author's Info on Wikipedia - Author on ebay - Author on Amazon - More Quotes by this Author
Start Searching Amazon for Gifts
Send as Free eCard with optional Google Image

[Quote No.43621] Need Area: Money > General
"In a small Swiss city sits an international organization so obscure and secretive.... Control of the institution, the Bank for International Settlements, lies with some of the world's most powerful and least visible men: the heads of 32 central banks, officials able to shift billions of dollars and alter the course of economies at the stroke of a pen." - Keith Bradsher
'New York Times' bureau chief in Detroit (1996-2001) and Hong Kong (2001- ). Quote from the 'New York Times', August 5, 1995.
Author's Info on Wikipedia - Author on ebay - Author on Amazon - More Quotes by this Author
Start Searching Amazon for Gifts
Send as Free eCard with optional Google Image

[Quote No.43622] Need Area: Money > General
"The system of banking [is] a blot left in all our Constitutions, which, if not covered, will end in their destruction... I sincerely believe that banking institutions are more dangerous than standing armies; and that the principle of spending money to be paid by posterity [government deficit spending and borrowing by issuing and selling Treasury bonds to either the public - domestic or foreign - or to the central bank]... is but swindling futurity on a large scale." - Thomas Jefferson
(1743 - 1826), US Founding Father, who drafted the Declaration of Independence and was the 3rd US President. This is a quote of his statement in 1811 when President Jefferson refused to renew the charter for the First Bank of the United States (the 2nd central bank chartered by Congress in 1791).
Author's Info on Wikipedia - Author on ebay - Author on Amazon - More Quotes by this Author
Start Searching Amazon for Gifts
Send as Free eCard with optional Google Image

[Quote No.43623] Need Area: Money > General
"I consider the foundation of the Constitution as laid on this ground that 'all powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are preserved to the states or to the people.' ... To take a single step beyond the boundaries thus specially drawn around the powers of Congress is to take possession of a boundless field of power, no longer susceptible of any definition. The incorporation of a bank, and the powers assumed by this bill (chartering the first Bank of the United States), have not, been delegated to the United States by the Constitution." - Thomas Jefferson
(1743 - 1826), US Founding Father, who drafted the Declaration of Independence and was the 3rd US President.
Author's Info on Wikipedia - Author on ebay - Author on Amazon - More Quotes by this Author
Start Searching Amazon for Gifts
Send as Free eCard with optional Google Image

[Quote No.43641] Need Area: Money > General
"It is not the fact that a person has riches that keeps them from heaven, but the fact that riches have them." - Dr. Caird

Author's Info on Wikipedia - Author on ebay - Author on Amazon - More Quotes by this Author
Start Searching Amazon for Gifts
Send as Free eCard with optional Google Image

[Quote No.43702] Need Area: Money > General
"The [free] market economy is the social system of the division of labor under private ownership of the means of production. Everybody acts on his own behalf; but everybody’s actions aim at the satisfaction of other people's needs as well as at the satisfaction of his own. Everybody in acting serves his fellow citizens. Everybody, on the other hand, is served by his fellow citizens. Everybody is both a means and an end in himself; an ultimate end for himself and a means to other people in their endeavors to attain their own needs." - Ludwig von Mises
Austrian economist. Quote from his book, 'Human Action', 1949.
Author's Info on Wikipedia - Author on ebay - Author on Amazon - More Quotes by this Author
Start Searching Amazon for Gifts
Send as Free eCard with optional Google Image

[Quote No.43706] Need Area: Money > General
"Of all things...indiscreet tampering [especially by government] with the [free] trade of provisions is the most dangerous, and it is always worst in the time when men are most disposed to it — that is, in the time of scarcity; because there is nothing on which the passions often are so violent, and their judgment so weak, and on which there exists such a multitude of ill-founded popular prejudices!" - Edmund Burke

Author's Info on Wikipedia - Author on ebay - Author on Amazon - More Quotes by this Author
Start Searching Amazon for Gifts
Send as Free eCard with optional Google Image

[Quote No.43878] Need Area: Money > General
"The prosperous man is never sure that he is loved for himself." - F. L. Lucan

Author's Info on Wikipedia - Author on ebay - Author on Amazon - More Quotes by this Author
Start Searching Amazon for Gifts
Send as Free eCard with optional Google Image

[Quote No.43936] Need Area: Money > General
"People believe that, when we demand free trade, we are motivated exclusively by the desire to allow labor and capital to take the direction most advantageous to them. Public opinion is mistaken on this point; this is merely a secondary consideration with us. What grieves us, afflicts us, horrifies us in the protectionist system is that it is the negation of law, justice, and property rights; that it turns the law, which should guarantee justice and the right to property, against them; that it both subverts and perverts the [equal and voluntary] conditions under which society exists." - Frédéric Bastiat
French lawyer and statesman. Quote from his 'Plunder and Law', 1850.
Author's Info on Wikipedia - Author on ebay - Author on Amazon - More Quotes by this Author
Start Searching Amazon for Gifts
Send as Free eCard with optional Google Image

[Quote No.43999] Need Area: Money > General
"Wealth is the product of man's capacity to think." - Ayn Rand

Author's Info on Wikipedia - Author on ebay - Author on Amazon - More Quotes by this Author
Start Searching Amazon for Gifts
Send as Free eCard with optional Google Image

[Quote No.44019] Need Area: Money > General
"Lampis the shipowner, on being asked how he acquired his wealth, answered: 'With no difficulty, my great wealth; but my first gains, with much effort.' " - Epictetus
'Enchiridion' [or 'Manual'] of Epictetus.
Author's Info on Wikipedia - Author on ebay - Author on Amazon - More Quotes by this Author
Start Searching Amazon for Gifts
Send as Free eCard with optional Google Image

[Quote No.44069] Need Area: Money > General
"Capital will always go where it’s welcome and stay where it’s well treated. Capital is not just money. It’s also talent and ideas. They, too, will go where they’re welcome and stay where they are well treated." - Walter Wriston
(1919-2005) Chairman and CEO of Citibank/Citicorp (1967-84)
Author's Info on Wikipedia - Author on ebay - Author on Amazon - More Quotes by this Author
Start Searching Amazon for Gifts
Send as Free eCard with optional Google Image

[Quote No.44075] Need Area: Money > General
"The Federal Reserve System is treated by nearly all economists with reverence. On no matter is their instruction of the young in the subtlety and benignity of established institutions more admiring - or, in broad effect, more successful. Corporations are flawed by an instinct for monopoly. Trade unions interfere with the market, urge trade restrictions, resist new technology and thus obstruct progress, and they can fall victim to extortionists and racketeers. The regulatory agencies of the government are notably imperfect instruments of economic guidance. The Federal Reserve System is not totally above criticism. It makes many mistakes but these are always interesting errors of judgment. They are examined not critically but respectfully to discover why men of insight went wrong. That for such error anyone should be sacked or even seriously rebuked is, for economists, nearly unthinkable. This approval goes back to the origins and can be highly negligent of circumstance. The most widely read account of the genesis of the System tells glowingly of its birth in the closing weeks of 1913 when the Federal Reserve Act was passed by Congress and signed by President Wilson." - John Kenneth Galbraith
(1908-2006) Canadian-born economist, Harvard professor. Source: 'Money: Whence It Came, Where It Went'.
Author's Info on Wikipedia - Author on ebay - Author on Amazon - More Quotes by this Author
Start Searching Amazon for Gifts
Send as Free eCard with optional Google Image

[Quote No.44076] Need Area: Money > General
"It is a sobering fact that the prominence of central banks in this century has coincided with a general tendency towards more inflation, not less... If the overriding objective is price stability, we did better with the nineteenth-century gold standard and passive central banks, with currency boards, or even with ‘free banking.’ The truly unique power of a central bank, after all, is the power to create money, and ultimately the power to create is the power to destroy." - Paul Volcker
(1927 - ), American economist. He was the Chairman of the Federal Reserve under United States Presidents Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan from August 1979 to August 1987. He is widely credited with ending the high levels of inflation seen in the United States in the 1970s and early 1980s. Quote from the Foreword of 'The Central Banks'.
Author's Info on Wikipedia - Author on ebay - Author on Amazon - More Quotes by this Author
Start Searching Amazon for Gifts
Send as Free eCard with optional Google Image

[Quote No.44114] Need Area: Money > General
"The acquisition of riches has been to many not an end to their miseries, but a change in them: The fault is not in the riches, but the disposition." - Seneca

Author's Info on Wikipedia - Author on ebay - Author on Amazon - More Quotes by this Author
Start Searching Amazon for Gifts
Send as Free eCard with optional Google Image

[Quote No.44228] Need Area: Money > General
"To live well differs from living extravagantly: for the first comes from moderation and sufficiency and good order and propriety and frugality; but the other comes from intemperance and luxury and want of order and want of propriety." - Epictetus

Author's Info on Wikipedia - Author on ebay - Author on Amazon - More Quotes by this Author
Start Searching Amazon for Gifts
Send as Free eCard with optional Google Image

[Quote No.44242] Need Area: Money > General
"While Fed[eral Reserve] Chairman Ben Bernanke has been hailed as a hero in the wake of the [2008] financial crisis for printing money, [businessman Lewis] Lehrman and [US Congressman Ron] Paul would label him no better than a counterfeiter who illegally prints money. Printing money to buy votes 'is the most immoral act of government short of deliberate war.' " - Douglas E. French
Senior Editor, The Laissez Faire Club. [http://lfb.org/today/a-new-case-for-gold/ ]
Author's Info on Wikipedia - Author on ebay - Author on Amazon - More Quotes by this Author
Start Searching Amazon for Gifts
Send as Free eCard with optional Google Image

[Quote No.44247] Need Area: Money > General
"[Deliberate government inflation or increases in the money supply through printing - also called quantitative easing - is a breach of trust between the government and its citizens, especially its savers and creditors.] Each peso [or dollar] is a contract between the government and the peso holder. That contract guarantees that each peso - as a unit of value that the holder has worked hard to get - will be worth as much tomorrow as today. If the government breaks the contract, it's breaking the law. The only role of government in the economy should be to guarantee the integrity of market transactions." - Domingo Cavallo
Finance Minister of Argentina
Author's Info on Wikipedia - Author on ebay - Author on Amazon - More Quotes by this Author
Start Searching Amazon for Gifts
Send as Free eCard with optional Google Image

[Quote No.44317] Need Area: Money > General
"I am indeed rich, since my income is superior to my expenses, and my expense is equal to my wishes." - Edward Gibbon
(1737 - 1794), English historian and Member of Parliament. His most important work, 'The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire', was published in six volumes between 1776 and 1788.
Author's Info on Wikipedia - Author on ebay - Author on Amazon - More Quotes by this Author
Start Searching Amazon for Gifts
Send as Free eCard with optional Google Image

[Quote No.44581] Need Area: Money > General
"I have been very lucky because I have had the opportunity to see what it's like to have little or no money and what it's like to have a lot of it. I'm lucky because people make such a big deal of it and, if I didn't experience both, I wouldn't be able to know how important it really is for me. I can't comment on what having a lot of money means to others, but I do know that for me, having a lot more money isn't a lot better than having enough to cover the basics. That's because, for me, the best things in life — meaningful work, meaningful relationships, interesting experiences, good food, sleep, music, ideas, sex, and other basic needs and pleasures — are not, past a certain point, materially improved upon by having a lot of money." - Ray Dalio
Billionaire founder of the highly successful hedge fund, Bridgewater Associates.
Author's Info on Wikipedia - Author on ebay - Author on Amazon - More Quotes by this Author
Start Searching Amazon for Gifts
Send as Free eCard with optional Google Image

[Quote No.44816] Need Area: Money > General
"It is impossible to grasp the meaning of the idea of sound money [as opposed to fiat currency] if one does not realize that it was devised as an instrument for the protection of civil liberties against despotic inroads on the part of governments. Ideologically, it belongs in the same class with political constitutions and bills of rights." - Ludwig von Mises
Austrian economist. Quote from his classic book 'The Theory of Money and Credit', 1912.
Author's Info on Wikipedia - Author on ebay - Author on Amazon - More Quotes by this Author
Start Searching Amazon for Gifts
Send as Free eCard with optional Google Image

[Quote No.44817] Need Area: Money > General
"The gold standard did not collapse. Governments abolished it in order to pave the way for [the hidden tax of] inflation. " - Ludwig von Mises
Austrian economist. Quote from his classic book 'The Theory of Money and Credit', 1912.
Author's Info on Wikipedia - Author on ebay - Author on Amazon - More Quotes by this Author
Start Searching Amazon for Gifts
Send as Free eCard with optional Google Image

[Quote No.44842] Need Area: Money > General
"The strength of capitalism [to provide a better living standard for the majority of the population than any other political economic system so far developed whether socialist, communist or fascist] can be attributed to an incentive structure based upon the three Ps: (1) prices determined by market forces, (2) a profit-and-loss system of accounting and (3) private property rights. The failure of socialism [and communism] can be traced to its neglect of these three incentive-enhancing components. --Prices: The price system in a market economy guides economic activity so flawlessly that most people don’t appreciate its importance. Market prices transmit information about relative scarcity and then efficiently coordinate economic activity. The economic content of prices provides incentives that promote economic efficiency. For example, when the OPEC cartel restricted the supply of oil in the 1970s, oil prices rose dramatically. The higher prices for oil and gasoline transmitted valuable information to both buyers and sellers. Consumers received a strong, clear message about the scarcity of oil by the higher prices at the pump and were forced to change their behavior dramatically. People reacted to the scarcity by driving less, carpooling more, taking public transportation, and buying smaller cars. Producers reacted to the higher price by increasing their efforts at exploration for more oil. In addition, higher oil prices gave producers an incentive to explore and develop alternative fuel and energy sources. The information transmitted by higher oil prices provided the appropriate incentive structure to both buyers and sellers. Buyers increased their effort to conserve a now more precious resource and sellers increased their effort to find more of this now scarcer resource. The only alternative to a market price is a controlled or fixed price which always transmits misleading information about relative scarcity. Inappropriate behavior results from a controlled price because false information has been transmitted by an artificial, non-market price. Look at what happened during the 1970s when U.S. gas prices were controlled. Long lines developed at service stations all over the country because the price for gasoline was kept artificially low by government fiat. The full impact of scarcity was not accurately conveyed. As [famed Nobel Laureate in economics] Milton Friedman pointed out at the time, we could have eliminated the lines at the pump in one day by allowing the price to rise to clear the market. From our experience with price controls on gasoline and the long lines at the pump and general inconvenience, we get an insight into what happens under socialism [in the sense of a complete government-controlled socialism, just short of Marx's Communism where there is no scarcity and then 'a dictatorship of the proletariat', rather than a mixed economy of capitalism and socialism] where every price in the economy is controlled. The collapse of socialism [as a pure system rather than mixed with capitalism] is due in part to the chaos and inefficiency that result from artificial prices. The information content of a controlled price is always distorted. This in turn distorts the incentives mechanism of prices under socialism [as a pure system rather than mixed with capitalism]. Administered prices are always either too high or too low, which then creates constant shortages and surpluses. Market prices are the only way to transmit information that will create the incentives to ensure economic efficiency. --Profits and Losses: Socialism [in the sense of a complete government-controlled socialism, just short of Marx's Communism where there is no scarcity and then a dictatorship of the proletariat, rather than a mixed economy of capitalism and socialism] also collapsed because of its failure to operate under a competitive, profit-and-loss system of accounting. A profit system is an effective monitoring mechanism which continually evaluates the economic performance of every business enterprise. The firms that are the most efficient and most successful at serving the public interest are rewarded with profits. Firms that operate inefficiently and fail to serve the public interest are penalized with losses. By rewarding success and penalizing failure, the profit system provides a strong disciplinary mechanism which continually redirects resources away from weak, failing, and inefficient firms toward those firms which are the most efficient and successful at serving the public. A competitive profit system ensures a constant reoptimization of resources and moves the economy toward greater levels of efficiency. Unsuccessful firms cannot escape the strong discipline of the marketplace under a profit/loss system. Competition forces companies to serve the public interest or suffer the consequences. Under [pure socialist and communist] central planning, there is no profit-and-loss system of accounting to accurately measure the success or failure of various programs. Without profits, there is no way to discipline firms that fail to serve the public interest and no way to reward firms that do. There is no efficient way to determine which programs should be expanded and which ones should be contracted or terminated. Without competition, centrally planned economies do not have an effective incentive structure to coordinate economic activity [- political and legal threats are not as effective]. Without incentives the results are a spiraling cycle of poverty and misery. Instead of continually reallocating resources towards greater efficiency, socialism falls into a vortex of inefficiency and failure. --Private Property Rights: A third fatal defect of socialism [in its pure expression along with Communism as its extreme expression] is its blatant disregard for the role of private property rights in creating incentives that foster economic growth and development. The failure of socialism around the world is a 'tragedy of commons' on a global scale. The 'tragedy of the commons' refers to the British experience of the sixteenth century when certain grazing lands were communally owned by villages and were made available for public use. The land was quickly overgrazed and eventually became worthless as villagers exploited the communally owned resource. When assets are publicly owned, there are no incentives in place to encourage wise stewardship. While private property creates incentives for conservation and the responsible use of property, public property encourages irresponsibility and waste. If everyone owns an asset, people act as if no one owns it. And when no one owns it, no one really takes care of it. Public ownership encourages neglect and mismanagement. Since socialism, by definition, [at least in its pure form along with communism] is a system marked by the 'common ownership of the means of production,' the failure ...is a 'tragedy of the commons' on a national scale. Much of the economic stagnation of socialism [again in its pure form along with communism] can be traced to the failure to establish and promote private property rights. As Peruvian economist Hernando de Soto remarked, you can travel in rural communities around the world and you will hear dogs barking, because even dogs understand property rights. It is only statist governments that have failed to understand property rights. Socialist [and communist] countries are just now starting to recognize the importance of private property as they privatize assets and property in Eastern Europe... By their failure to foster, promote, and nurture the potential of their people through incentive-enhancing institutions, centrally planned economies deprive the human spirit of full development. [Questions about caring for the under-privileged and disadvantaged in a true free-market capitalist system are the freely chosen responsibilities of caring individuals and groups rather than the forced and coercive acts of a government bureaucracy that redistributes wealth regardless of the free choice of those that earnt it.] ... " - Mark J. Perry
Quote from his article, 'Why Socialism Failed - Collectivism Is Based on Faulty Principles', published in 'The Freeman', June 1995, Volume 45, Issue 6.
Author's Info on Wikipedia - Author on ebay - Author on Amazon - More Quotes by this Author
Start Searching Amazon for Gifts
Send as Free eCard with optional Google Image

[Quote No.44859] Need Area: Money > General
"Stripped of its academic jargon, the welfare state is nothing more than a mechanism by which governments confiscate the wealth of the productive members of a society to support a wide variety of welfare schemes. A substantial part of the confiscation is effected by taxation. But the welfare statists [i.e. socialists and communists] were quick to recognize that if they wished to retain political power, the amount of taxation had to be limited and they had to resort to programs of massive deficit spending, i.e., they had to borrow money, by issuing government bonds, to finance welfare expenditures on a large scale." - Alan Greenspan
American economist and later Federal Reserve Chairman. Quote from his work, 'Gold and Economic Freedom', 1966.
Author's Info on Wikipedia - Author on ebay - Author on Amazon - More Quotes by this Author
Start Searching Amazon for Gifts
Send as Free eCard with optional Google Image

[Quote No.44861] Need Area: Money > General
"The increased dependence of the individual upon government which inflation produces and the demand for move government action to which this leads may for the socialist be an argument in its favor. Those who wish to preserve freedom should recognize, however, that inflation is probably the most important single factor in that vicious circle wherein one kind of government action makes more and more government control necessary. For this reason, all those who wish to stop the drift toward increasing government control should concentrate their efforts on monetary policy. There is perhaps nothing more disheartening than the fact that there are still so many intelligent and informed people who in most other respects will defend freedom and yet are induced by the immediate benefits of an expansionist policy to support what, in the long run, must destroy the foundations of a free society." - Friedrich A. Hayek
Famous Nobel Laureate in Economics. Quote from his, 'The Constitution of Liberty', 1960.
Author's Info on Wikipedia - Author on ebay - Author on Amazon - More Quotes by this Author
Start Searching Amazon for Gifts
Send as Free eCard with optional Google Image

[Quote No.44913] Need Area: Money > General
"If you are seeking a loan remember bankers are thought to consider credit requests using the 5 C's of credit: Cash Flow, Collateral, Capital, Character, Conditions. Keep in mind not to over-leverage yourself, so should interest rates rise or you lose your job or become ill that you will either be able to keep up your payments or sell the asset to pay back the loan. With that in mind it is not wise to borrow for depreciating assets or experiences like holidays. " - Seymour@imagi-natives.com

Author's Info on Wikipedia - Author on ebay - Author on Amazon - More Quotes by this Author
Start Searching Amazon for Gifts
Send as Free eCard with optional Google Image

[Quote No.44968] Need Area: Money > General
"A person who overcomes his desires for things he cannot afford or obtain [and truly feels, 'I am grateful for what I have and it is enough'] considers himself wealthy regardless of how others would rate him." - Rabbi Zelig Pliskin
Quote from his book, 'Gateway to Happiness', p.357.
Author's Info on Wikipedia - Author on ebay - Author on Amazon - More Quotes by this Author
Start Searching Amazon for Gifts
Send as Free eCard with optional Google Image

[Quote No.45013] Need Area: Money > General
"If money be not they servant, it will be thy master. The covetous man cannot so properly be said to possess wealth, as that may be said to possess him." - Francis Bacon

Author's Info on Wikipedia - Author on ebay - Author on Amazon - More Quotes by this Author
Start Searching Amazon for Gifts
Send as Free eCard with optional Google Image

[Quote No.45020] Need Area: Money > General
"[Charity and] Generosity lies less in giving much than in giving at the right moment." - Jean De La Bruyere

Author's Info on Wikipedia - Author on ebay - Author on Amazon - More Quotes by this Author
Start Searching Amazon for Gifts
Send as Free eCard with optional Google Image

[Quote No.45052] Need Area: Money > General
"The bad economist [politician, bureaucrat, businessperson, parent, friend] pursues a small present good [instant gratification], which will be followed by a great evil to come [often unseen or unappreciated at that instant], while the true economist [politician, bureaucrat, businessperson, parent, friend] pursues a great good to come, at the risk of a small present evil [delayed gratification]." - Frederic Bastiat
19th century French economist
Author's Info on Wikipedia - Author on ebay - Author on Amazon - More Quotes by this Author
Start Searching Amazon for Gifts
Send as Free eCard with optional Google Image

[Quote No.45142] Need Area: Money > General
"People who identify themselves as conservatives [Republicans] donate money to charity more often than people who identify themselves as liberals [Democrats]. They donate more money and a higher percentage of their incomes." - Thomas Sowell
(1930 - ), an American economist, social theorist, political philosopher, and author. A National Humanities Medal winner, he advocates laissez-faire economics and writes from a conservative and libertarian perspective. He is currently the Rose and Milton Friedman Senior Fellow on Public Policy at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University. He is considered a leading representative of the Chicago school of economics. Sowell was born in North Carolina, but grew up in Harlem, New York. He dropped out of high school, and served in the United States Marine Corps during the Korean War. He received a bachelor's degree from Harvard University in 1958 and a master's degree from Columbia University in 1959. In 1968, he earned his doctorate degree in Economics from the University of Chicago. Sowell has served on the faculties of several universities, including Cornell University and University of California, Los Angeles, and worked for think tanks such as the Urban Institute. Since 1980 he has worked at the Hoover Institution. He is the author of more than 30 books.
Author's Info on Wikipedia - Author on ebay - Author on Amazon - More Quotes by this Author
Start Searching Amazon for Gifts
Send as Free eCard with optional Google Image

[Quote No.45143] Need Area: Money > General
"[Free market] Prices are important not because money is considered paramount but because prices are a fast and effective conveyor of [supply and demand] information through a vast society in which fragmented knowledge must be coordinated [and are as such part of the self-organising genius of free market capitalism]." - Thomas Sowell
American economist and social theorist
Author's Info on Wikipedia - Author on ebay - Author on Amazon - More Quotes by this Author
Start Searching Amazon for Gifts
Send as Free eCard with optional Google Image

[Quote No.45149] Need Area: Money > General
"Those who rail against profits and 'greed' seldom stop to think through what they are saying, much less go check the facts. Most of the great American fortunes– Rockefeller, Ford, Carnegie, etc. — came from finding more efficient ways to produce a product or service at a lower cost, so that it could be sold at a lower price and attract more customers. If making a fortune represents greed, then greed is what drives prices down... The unspoken assumption — and fallacy — is that high profits mean high prices. But, back in the heyday of the A & P grocery chain, its profit rate never fell below 20 percent for a whole decade — and it was at that time the pre-eminent grocery chain in the country precisely because of its low prices and high quality... To the economically illiterate, if some company makes a million dollars in profit, this means that their products cost a million dollars more than they would have cost without profits. It never occurs to such people that these products might cost several million dollars more to produce than if they were produced by enterprises operating without the incentives to be efficient created by the prospect of profits." - Thomas Sowell
American economist and social theorist
Author's Info on Wikipedia - Author on ebay - Author on Amazon - More Quotes by this Author
Start Searching Amazon for Gifts
Send as Free eCard with optional Google Image

[Quote No.45151] Need Area: Money > General
"There are people in need of help. Charity is one of the nobler human motivations. The act of reaching into one's own pockets to help a fellow man in need is praiseworthy and laudable. Reaching into someone else's pocket is despicable and worthy of condemnation. " - Walter Edward Williams
(1936 - ), an American economist, commentator, and academic. He is the John M. Olin Distinguished Professor of Economics at George Mason University, as well as a syndicated columnist and author known for his libertarian views.
Author's Info on Wikipedia - Author on ebay - Author on Amazon - More Quotes by this Author
Start Searching Amazon for Gifts
Send as Free eCard with optional Google Image

[Quote No.45165] Need Area: Money > General
"Increases in money supply are what constitute inflation, and a general rise in prices is the symptom." - Walter Edward Williams
(1936 - ), an American economist, commentator, and academic. He is the John M. Olin Distinguished Professor of Economics at George Mason University, as well as a syndicated columnist and author known for his libertarian views.
Author's Info on Wikipedia - Author on ebay - Author on Amazon - More Quotes by this Author
Start Searching Amazon for Gifts
Send as Free eCard with optional Google Image

[Quote No.45246] Need Area: Money > General
"Wealth is a means to an end, not the end itself. As a synonym for health and happiness, it has had a fair trial and failed dismally." - John Galsworthy

Author's Info on Wikipedia - Author on ebay - Author on Amazon - More Quotes by this Author
Start Searching Amazon for Gifts
Send as Free eCard with optional Google Image

[Quote No.45270] Need Area: Money > General
"Gold is the money of kings; silver is the money of gentlemen; barter is the money of peasants; but debt is the money of slaves." - Norm Franz

Author's Info on Wikipedia - Author on ebay - Author on Amazon - More Quotes by this Author
Start Searching Amazon for Gifts
Send as Free eCard with optional Google Image

[Quote No.45444] Need Area: Money > General
"If money be not thy servant, it will be thy master. The covetous man cannot so properly be said to possess wealth, as that may be said to possess him." - Francis Bacon
(1561-1626), essayist, philosopher and statesman
Author's Info on Wikipedia - Author on ebay - Author on Amazon - More Quotes by this Author
Start Searching Amazon for Gifts
Send as Free eCard with optional Google Image

[Quote No.45449] Need Area: Money > General
"[Governments like to manipulate and use inflation to their advantage and at the cost of the average citizen, as it is so subtle it is hard for voters to understand what is deliberately being done to them and then vote those manipulators out of power. The following article about US manipulation is an example:] Why Reported Inflation Seems Different Than Reality:- The subject of inflation has remained an emotionally charged topic of debate over the last several years. As rising prices for individuals, and businesses, has negatively impacted their prosperity; reported inflation has remained at very low levels. With the Fed pumping trillions of dollars into financial system the fear of much higher inflation, as the dollar is debased, has caused gold prices to soar in recent years. As we will discuss momentarily, the issues surrounding government spending, and the massive deficit, has brought the topic of inflation to the forefront of the political debate. However, a bit of history is needed for context. The government produces a measure of inflation called the consumer price index (CPI) which is generally broken down into two reports: Headline and Core. The only difference between the two measures is that the core reading strips out the volatile food and energy components. It is this core reading that economists, and the Fed, focus on much to the aggravation of average consumers who quickly point to the fact the food and energy are big part of their daily lives. The sole purpose in measuring inflation is to help businesses, individuals and government adjust their financial planning for the impact of inflation. Inflation erodes future purchasing power, and decreases economic prosperity, if not accurately accounted for. The accuracy of measuring inflation, and accounting for it properly, is essential to long term economic prosperity. The original calculation of CPI, which measured the change in the cost of an identical fixed basket of goods priced at prevailing market costs each period, worked reasonably well for the intended purpose into the early-1980’s. However, as the pressure of increasing deficits weighed on political parties, the need to find solutions to reducing spending, without actually cutting spending, led to several substantial changes in the calculation of inflation. Shortly after Clinton entered the White House the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) altered the calculation of inflation by changing the weighting of goods in the CPI fixed basket. Then, over subsequent years, the method of weighting the underlying components was changed from a straight arithmetic weighting method to geometric. The primary result of the switch to a geometric weighting was a lower weighting to CPI components that were rising in price, and a higher weighting to those items dropping in price which led to lower reported inflation. According to John Williams: ‘...the net effect was to reduce reported CPI on an annual, or year-over-year basis, by 2.7% from what it would have been based on the traditional weighting methodology. The results have been dramatic. The compounding effect since the early-1990s has reduced annual cost of living adjustments in social security by more than a third.’ But the manipulation of the data did not stop there. Aside from the weighting changes the BLS instituted a system of ‘hedonic’ adjustments. Hedonics adjusts the prices of goods for the increased pleasure the consumer derives from them. ‘That new washing machine you bought did not cost you 20% more than it would have cost you last year, because you got an offsetting 20% increase in the pleasure you derive from pushing its new electronic control buttons instead of turning that old noisy dial, according to the BLS [Bureau of Labor Statistics]. When gasoline rises 10 cents per gallon because of a federally mandated gasoline additive, the increased gasoline cost does not contribute to inflation. Instead, the 10 cents is eliminated from the CPI because of the offsetting hedonic thrills the consumer gets from breathing cleaner air. The same principle applies to federally mandated safety features in automobiles. I have not attempted to quantify the effects of questionable quality adjustments to the CPI, but they are substantial.’ Lastly, there is ‘intervention analysis’ in the seasonal adjustment process. Intervention analysis is critical to the highly volatile areas of food and energy. When a commodity, like gasoline, goes through periods of violent price swings the BLS steps in and uses ‘intervention analysis’ to smooth out the volatility. As a result, sharply rising gasoline prices are never fully reflected in the reported headline inflation number. However, declining prices, which are never adjusted, do show an impact to reducing inflation. The obvious problem with these manipulations is it changed the measure of inflation from a cost-of-living adjustment to a reduction-of-living adjustment. The original CPI calculation allowed individuals to understand the rate of return required on investments and incomes to maintain their current standard of living. However, by artificially suppressing the rate of inflation, the future standard of living is reduced to lower levels. The chart above [refer http://www.streettalklive.com/daily-x-change/1399-why-reported-inflation-seems-different-than-reality.html ] shows the original calculation of inflation (which was based on a basket of goods), data sourced from John Williams, versus the current measure of CPI. It is quite apparent that inflation, as reported by the Consumer Price Index (CPI), is understated by roughly 7% per year. The deviation between the two measures is strictly due to the redefinitions of the series and adjustments to price measures utilized. These changes to the CPI have detached the cost-of-living adjustments from the real cost-of-living experienced by those dependent upon a fixed income stream for survival. According to John Williams: ‘In particular, changes made in CPI methodology during the Clinton Administration understated inflation significantly, and, through a cumulative effect with earlier changes that began in the late-Carter and early Reagan Administrations have reduced current social security payments by roughly half from where they would have been otherwise. That means Social Security checks today would be about double had the various changes not been made. In like manner, anyone involved in commerce, who relies on receiving payments adjusted for the CPI, has been similarly damaged. On the other side, if you are making payments based on the CPI (i.e., the federal government), you are making out like a bandit.’ This is why the average American has repeatedly lashed out at the current measure of inflation as it doesn't represent the inflation rate that they are personally experiencing. Rising food and energy costs are consuming more and more of a declining level of incomes. For those individuals dependent on a fixed stream of welfare payments the lower rate of inflation adjustments, while putting more money in the coffers of the government, has led to a steadily declining standard of living for the elderly. The Chained CPI ‘Fiscal Cliff’ Farce:- In the latest attempt to save the economy from the ‘fiscal cliff’ a grand bargain is being crafted that will possibly include a relic from the debt ceiling debate in 2011 called ‘Chained CPI.’ As with the Clinton Administration, once again the need to reduce government spending has given rise to a proposal to further suppress the measure of inflation to reduce the cost of living adjustments for social security recipients. The issue with ‘Chained CPI,’ as with the current measure of CPI, is that it will further misrepresent what the average consumer is living with from day to day. The Washington Post stated: ‘Economics and policymakers generally make the assumption that when prices rise, people will turn to a less expensive product. They’ll buy chicken instead of more expensive beef, iceberg lettuce instead of arugula, store-brand, instead of name-brand cereal. The chained CPI attempts to account for how people react to inflated prices. It’s an arcane detail in the ongoing budget debate, but the chained CPI is appealing to budget experts and some Republicans and Democrats, because it only slightly tweaks the inflation formula, while building significant savings over time, perhaps more than $100 billion over a decade. Making such a change also means paying out less in Social Security benefits over time — something liberal Democrats can’t stomach. Imagine, for example, a person born in 1935 who retired to full benefits at age 65 in 2000. People in that position had an average initial monthly benefit of $1,435, or $17,220 a year, according to the Social Security Administration. Under the cost-of-living-adjustment formula and 2012 inflation, that benefit would be up to $1,986 a month in 2013, or $23,832 a year. But if payouts were adjusted using chained CPI, the sum would be around $1,880 a month, or $22,560 a year — a cut of more than 5 percent and more as the years go by.’ When it is known in advance that tweaking the math will create a ‘permanent’ reduction in the measure of inflation then it is no longer an accurate assessment of inflationary pressures in the economy. If adopted across the government, the change would have far-reaching effects on the many programs that are adjusted each year based on year-to-year changes in consumer prices. The groundswell of aging ‘boomers’ that will are rapidly approaching the point of become welfare program recipients will find that the fixed stream of income payments will not be sufficient to maintain their current standard of living in the future. This will continue to push an ever aging population into working much longer into their retirement years. Furthermore, a side effect of artificially suppressing inflation is that taxes would slowly increase because annual adjustments to income tax brackets would be smaller. This would eventually push more people into higher tax brackets allowing fewer people to be eligible for anti-poverty programs like Medicaid, food stamps and school lunches. While the annual adjustments will eventually remove individuals from poverty on a statistical basis – it doesn’t mean that would be any more capable of supporting themselves. Lastly, one reason why there has been such a disconnect between reported GDP, and the way that average Americans feel about the economy, is due to the way CPI affects the GDP calculation. Although the CPI is not used in the actual GDP calculation, there are relationships with the price deflators used in converting GDP data and growth to inflation-adjusted numbers. The more inflation is understated, the higher the inflation-adjusted rate of GDP growth that gets reported. The problem is that real inflationary pricing pressures is simultaneously eroding the real prosperity of the average consumer. While going to ‘Chained CPI’ will save the government over $100 billion during the next decade in payments to individuals - this is not a good thing for those dependent upon those payments. Furthermore, the assumptions for budgeting will also be grossly flawed which means that when we get to the end of this decade it is likely that we will be in worse shape than was estimated. Hopefully, those in Congress will opt not to further suppress the inflation calculation for political gain at the expense of the average American..." - Lance Roberts
Thursday, December 20, 2012. [http://www.streettalklive.com/daily-x-change/1399-why-reported-inflation-seems-different-than-reality.html ]
Author's Info on Wikipedia - Author on ebay - Author on Amazon - More Quotes by this Author
Start Searching Amazon for Gifts
Send as Free eCard with optional Google Image

[Quote No.45451] Need Area: Money > General
"It is impossible to grasp the meaning of the idea of sound money [not fiat money] if one does not realize that it was devised as an instrument for the protection of civil liberties against despotic inroads [printing money to increase inflation which is just a hidden tax hitting the poor the hardest] on the part of governments. Ideologically, it belongs in the same class with political constitutions and bills of rights." - Ludwig von Mises
Austrian economist. Quote from his book, 'The Theory of Money and Credit', (1912).
Author's Info on Wikipedia - Author on ebay - Author on Amazon - More Quotes by this Author
Start Searching Amazon for Gifts
Send as Free eCard with optional Google Image

[Quote No.45531] Need Area: Money > General
"And this is a tremendous merit. When a country is not on a gold standard, when its citizens are not even permitted to own gold, when they are told that irredeemable paper money is just as good, when they are compelled to accept payment in such paper of debts or pensions that are owed to them, when what they have put aside, for retirement or old age, in savings banks or insurance policies, consists of this irredeemable [fiat] paper money, then they are left without protection as the issue of this paper money is increased [quantitative easing] and the purchasing power of each unit falls [as inflation rises]; then they can be completely impoverished by the [unrestricted fiscal, monetary and] political decisions of the 'monetary managers'." - Henry Hazlitt
'The Freeman', October 1965
Author's Info on Wikipedia - Author on ebay - Author on Amazon - More Quotes by this Author
Start Searching Amazon for Gifts
Send as Free eCard with optional Google Image

[Quote No.45607] Need Area: Money > General
"A billion is a big number. A billion seconds takes just under 32 years. [There are 86,400 seconds in a day and 31,536,000 seconds in one year.]" - unknown

Author's Info on Wikipedia - Author on ebay - Author on Amazon - More Quotes by this Author
Start Searching Amazon for Gifts
Send as Free eCard with optional Google Image