Rob Paris Blog

Rob writes about news, economics, politics and other things

Posts Tagged Quotes

The Declaration of Independence

Oct 5

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The Declaration of Independence is something that should be read every once in a while as a reminder.

Here are some of my favorite excerpts.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights

That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed

That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it

Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes

But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government

He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people and eat out their substance

He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures

For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent

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Walter Williams says Washington Lies, I agree

Sep 24

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Walter Williams’ Washington Lies gives some examples of horrible government “estimation”.

Walter Williams

At its start in 1966, Medicare cost $3 billion. The House Ways and Means Committee, along with President Johnson, estimated that Medicare would cost an inflation-adjusted $12 billion by 1990; however, by 1990 Medicare costs topped $107 billion. That’s nearly nine times greater than Congress’s prediction. Today’s Medicare tab comes to $420 billion with no signs of leveling off.

During the legislative debate before ratification of the Sixteenth Amendment, President Howard Taft and congressional supporters said that only the rich would ever pay federal income taxes. In 1916 only one half of 1 percent of income earners were affected. Those earning $250,000 a year in today’s dollars paid 1 percent, and those earning $6 million in today’s dollars paid 7 percent. The promise that only the rich would pay was simply a lie to exploit the politics of envy and dupe Americans into ratifying the Sixteenth Amendment.

Read the article for some more facts and figures.

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Bob Murphy on unemployment

Sep 16

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Bob Murphy shares some insight on unemployment and offers a very Keynesian solution.

Bob Murphy

Government efforts to “reduce unemployment” are, at best, like putting ice cubes on a thermometer to treat a fever.

For example, most pundits accept the claim that “World War II got us out of the Depression.” And it’s true that the official unemployment rate dropped like a stone with US entry into the war. But as economic historian Bob Higgs  points out, FDR had hardly “fixed” the economy: all he did was force millions of American men to leave the conventional workforce and jump into a slaughterhouse. By the same token, if President Obama made it mandatory for five million Americans to cross the ocean and paint the Great Wall of China, it’s possible that the official unemployment rate would drop.

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Government is not charity

Aug 19

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Great quote from Walter Williams article, The Founders’ Vision Versus Ours, on historical perspective and the role of government.

Madison

In 1794, when Congress appropriated $15,000 to assist some French refugees, James Madison, the acknowledged father of our Constitution, stood on the floor of the House to object, saying, “I cannot undertake to lay my finger on that article of the Constitution which granted a right to Congress of expending, on objects of benevolence, the money of their constituents.” He later added, “(T)he government of the United States is a definite government, confined to specified objects. It is not like the state governments, whose powers are more general. Charity is no part of the legislative duty of the government.” Two hundred years later, at least two-thirds of a multi-trillion-dollar federal budget is spent on charity or “objects of benevolence.”

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The Man versus the State by Herbert Spencer

Jul 9

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A powerful and time-relevant quote from Herbert Spencer… published in 1884Herbert Spencer

The extension of this policy, causing extension of corresponding ideas, fosters everywhere the tacit assumption that Government should step in whenever anything is not going right. “Surely you would not have this misery continue!” exclaims someone, if you hint a demurrer to much that is now being said and done. Observe what is implied by this exclamation. It takes for granted, first, that all suffering ought to be prevented, which is not true: much suffering is curative, and prevention of it is prevention of a remedy. In the second place, it takes for granted that every evil can be removed: the truth being that with the existing defects of human nature, many evils can only be thrust out of one place or form into another place or form often being increased by the change. The exclamation also implies the unhesitating belief, here especially concerning us, that evils of all kinds should be dealt with by the State. There does not occur the inquiry whether there are at work other agencies capable of dealing with evils, and whether the evils in question may not be among those which are best dealt with by these other agencies. And obviously, the more numerous governmental interventions become, the more confirmed does this habit of thought grow, and the more loud and perpetual the demands for intervention.

Read the book | Buy the book

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Paper money and the presidents on it

Jun 4

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The pictures of (mostly) former presidents on US currency implies the false notion that these presidents supported paper money, when in fact, they did not. Nor did the constitution.

United States Constitution – Article One, Section Ten

No state shall… coin money; emit bills of credit; make anything but gold and silver coin a tender in payment of debts

The principal author and “Father of the Constitution” James Madison agrees.

Paper money is unjust; to creditors, if a legal tender; to debtors, if not legal tender, by increasing the difficulty of getting specie. It is unconstitutional, for it affects the rights of property as much as taking away equal value in land. It is pernicious, destroying confidence between individuals; discouraging commerce; enriching sharpers; vitiating morals; reversing the end of government; and conspiring with the examples of other states to disgrace republican governments in the eyes of mankind.

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George Washington

Paper money has had the effect in your State that it ever will have, to ruin commerce–oppress the honest, and open a door to every species of fraud and injustice.

George Washington letter to Jabez Bowen – 9 January 1787

Thomas Jefferson

Paper is poverty,… it is only the ghost of money, and not money itself.

Thomas Jefferson letter to Colonel Edward Carrington – 27 May 1788

Abraham Lincoln

No duty is more imperative on the government than the duty it owes the people of furnishing them with a sound and uniform currency.

Lincoln during the Log Cabin campaign – 1840

Alexander Hamilton

To emit an unfunded paper as the sign of value ought not to continue a formal part of the constitution, nor ever hereafter to be employed; being, in its nature, pregnant with abuses, and liable to be made the engine of imposition and fraud; holding out temptations equally pernicious to the integrity of government and to the morals of the people.

Alexander Hamilton – Resolutions - June, 1783

Andrew Jackson

In reviewing the conflicts which have taken place between different interests in the United States and the policy pursued since the adop tion of our present form of government, we find nothing that has produced such deep-seated evil as the course of legislation in relation to the currency. The Constitution of the United States unquestionably intended to secure to the people a circulating medium of gold and silver. But the establishment of a national bank by Congress with the privilege of issuing paper money receivable m the payment of the public dues, and the unfortunate course of legislation in the several States upon the same subject, drove from general circulation the con stitutional currency and substituted one of paper in its place.

Andrew Jackson -  Farewell Address – 1837

Thanks to Lawrence Parks and his lecture for the idea.

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Peter Schiff v. James Bullard and Alan Blinder

Apr 2

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Peter Schiff says that, “Ben Bernanke has never gotten anything right”  while on a panel with St. Louis Fed President James Bullard and former Fed Vice Chair Alan Blinder.

Alan Blinder then claims that “Ben Bernanke got a lot of things right”. When prompted by Schiff to name one thing that Bernanke got right, Blinder says that he doesn’t have enough time. That’s right, not enough time to name one.

Schiff then rattles off that,

he [Benanke] said that there was no housing bubble, and then that even if we have a decline in the housing market its not going to have a meaningful impact on employment. He said that the subprime mortgage problems were contained, that we didn’t have to worry about it. I can’t think of one thing that he got right. Not only was he wrong, he was as wrong as you can possibly be on a grand scale.

In this short video, Schiff also explains the effect of savings in China on spending in the US, a response to Bernanke’s Global Saving Glut.

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Quote on health care

Jan 13

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“Now, let me get this straight…We are going to pass a health care plan written by a committee whose chairman says he doesn’t understand it, passed by a Congress that hasn’t read it but exempts themselves from it, to be signed by a president that also hasn’t read it and who smokes, with funding administered by a treasury chief who didn’t pay his taxes…all to be overseen by a surgeon general who is obese, and financed by a country that’s nearly broke. What could possibly go wrong?”

 

 

I’m not sure who said it, but I like it.

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Bernanke quotes

Jan 4

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Here’s a select collection of Bernanke quotes from 2005-2008. For similar quotes from the Great Depressions, see my earlier post.

7/1/05  – Interview with CNBC

“We’ve never had a decline in house prices on a nationwide basis. So, what I think what is more likely is that house prices will slow, maybe stabilize, might slow consumption spending a bit. I don’t think it’s gonna drive the economy too far from its full employment path, though.”

10/20/05 –  Testimony before the Joint Economic Committee

“House prices have risen by nearly 25 percent over the past two years. Although speculative activity has increased in some areas, at a national level these price increases largely reflect strong economic fundamentals.”

11/15/05 -  Nomination of ben s. bernanke, of new jersey, to be a member and chairman of the board of governors of the federal reserve system

“With respect to their safety, derivatives, for the most part, are traded among very sophisticated financial institutions and individuals who have considerable incentive to understand them and to use them properly. The Federal Reserve’s responsibility is to make sure that the institutions it regulates have good systems and good procedures for ensuring that their derivatives portfolios are well-managed and do not create excessive risk in their institutions.”

2/15/06 – Hearing before the Committee on Financial Services

“Housing markets are cooling a bit. Our expectation is that the decline in activity or the slowing in activity will be moderate, that house prices will probably continue to rise.”

2/15/07 -  Semiannual Monetary Policy Report to the Congress

“Despite the ongoing adjustments in the housing sector, overall economic prospects for households remain good. Household finances appear generally solid, and delinquency rates on most types of consumer loans and residential mortgages remain low.”

3/28/07 -  Testimony before the Joint Economic Committee

“At this juncture, however, the impact on the broader economy and financial markets of the problems in the subprime market seems likely to be contained. In particular, mortgages to prime borrowers and fixed-rate mortgages to all classes of borrowers continue to perform well, with low rates of delinquency.”

5/17/07 -  At the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago’s 43rd Annual Conference on Bank Structure and Competition

“All that said, given the fundamental factors in place that should support the demand for housing, we believe the effect of the troubles in the subprime sector on the broader housing market will likely be limited, and we do not expect significant spillovers from the subprime market to the rest of the economy or to the financial system.  The vast majority of mortgages, including even subprime mortgages, continue to perform well.  Past gains in house prices have left most homeowners with significant amounts of home equity, and growth in jobs and incomes should help keep the financial obligations of most households manageable.”

8/31/07 -  At the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City’s Economic Symposium

“It is not the responsibility of the Federal Reserve–nor would it be appropriate–to protect lenders and investors from the consequences of their financial decisions.”

1/10/08 -  Q&A after speech

“The Federal Reserve is not currently forecasting a recession.”

2/27/08 -  Q&A after testimony to Senate Banking Committee

“I expect there will be some failures [referring to smaller regional banks]. Among the largest banks, the capital ratios remain good and I don’t anticipate any serious problems of that sort among the large, internationally active banks that make up a very substantial part of our banking system.”

6/10/08 -  Boston Federal Reserve’s 52nd annual economic conference

“The risk that the economy has entered a substantial downturn appears to have diminished over the past month or so.”


7/18/08 -  Remarks to the House Financial Services Committee

“The GSEs are adequately capitalized. They are in no danger of failing.”

Many of these quotes were found across the Internet and have been compiled before. Thanks to the following sites for source material:

The Market Oracle
Center for Economic and Policy Research
Bernie Sanders: US Senator for Vermont

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Select quotes from the Great Depression

Sep 23

Posted by robparis in General | 7 Comments

… and why I don’t believe a word Bernanke says.
According to Bernanke,
“…from a technical perspective the recession is very likely over at this point”
and
“… there is a reasonable prospect that the current recession will end in 2009 and that 2010 will be a year of recovery”

I’ve seen these quotes time and time again… from during the Great Depression. They were just as wrong then.

I planned on making this in flash and laying the quotes over the corresponding time on the chart, but due to limited flash abilities, I didn’t. Does anybody want to make it for me?

Before looking at the quotes below, take a look at the stock market performance during the time frame in which the quotes were made.

1928-1932

With a chart like this, you’d expect the economists too be pessimistic. That’s not the case.

These quotes are all over the Internet. I’ve found the original source for some, and for others, I’ve just posted the source where I found them. Collections of these types of quotes already exist, but I’ve chosen the ones that stood out the most to me. I’ve included the date and occupation of the person where I could.

Economist John Maynard Keynes in 1927

“We will not have any more crashes in our time.”

President Herbert Hoover on August 11, 1928

“Unemployment in the sense of distress is widely disappearing…We in America today are nearer to the final triumph over poverty than ever before in the history of any land. The poor-house is vanishing from among us. We have not reached the goal, but given a chance to go forward with the policies of the last eight years, and we shall soon with the help of God be in sight of the day when poverty will be banished from this nation. There is no guarantee against poverty equal to a job for every man. That is the primary purpose of the economic policies we advocate.”

President Calvin Coolidge on December 4, 1928

“No Congress of the United States ever assembled, on surveying the state of the Union, has met with a more pleasing prospect than that which appears at the present time. In the domestic field there is tranquility and contentment…and the highest record of years of prosperity. In the foreign field there is peace, the goodwill which comes from mutual understanding.”

Financier, Bernard Baruch, June 1929

“The economic condition of the world seems on the verge of a great forward movement.”

Economist Irving Fisher on September 5, 1929

“There may be a recession in stock prices, but not anything in the nature of a crash. Dividend returns on stocks are moving higher. This is not due to receding prices for stocks, and will not be hastened by any anticipated crash, the possibility of which I fail to see. A few years ago people were as much afraid of common stocks as they were of a red-hot poker. In the popular mind there was a tremendous risk in common stocks. Why? Mainly because the average investor could afford to invest in only one common stock. Today he obtains wide and well managed diversification of stock holding by purchasing shares in good investment trusts.”

Economist Irving Fisher on October 17, 1929

“Stock prices have reached what looks like a permanently high plateau. I do not feel there will be soon if ever a 50 or 60 point break from present levels, such as (bears) have predicted. I expect to see the stock market a good deal higher within a few months.”

Banker Arthur Reynolds, October 24, 1929

“This crash is not going to have much effect on business.”

Financier, J. L. Julian, October 26, 1929

“The worst is over. The selling yesterday was panicky brought on by hysteria. General conditions are good. Our inquiries assure us that throughout the country business is sound.”

Analyst R. W. McNeel, October 30, 1929

“This is the time to buy stocks. This is the time to recall the words of the late J. P. Morgan… that any man who is bearish on America will go broke. Within a few days there is likely to be a bear panic rather than a bull panic. Many of the low prices as a result of this hysterical selling are not likely to be reached again in many years.”

Businessman J.D. Rockefeller, Sr., October 30, 1929

“Believing that the fundamental conditions of the country are sound and that there is nothing in the business situation to warrant the destruction of values that has taken place on the exchanges during the past week, my son and I have for some days been purchasing sound common stocks. We are continuing and will continue our purchases in substantial amounts at levels which we believe represent sound investment values.”

Newspaper, The Times of London, November 2, 1929

“Hysteria has now disappeared from Wall Street.”.

Magazine, Business Week, November 2, 1929

“Now that irrelevant, alien and hazardous adventure is over. Business has come home again, back to its job, providentially unscathed, sound in wind and limb, financially stronger than ever before.”

School, Harvard Economic Society (HES), November 2, 1929

“…despite its severity, we believe that the slump in stock prices will prove an intermediate movement and not the precursor of a business depression such as would entail prolonged further liquidation…”

Economist, Irving Fisher, November 14, 1929

“The end of the decline of the Stock Market will probably not be long, only a few more days at most.”

President, Herbert Hoover, December 1929

“I am convinced that through these measures we have reestablished confidence.”

Government agency, U.S. Dept. of Labor, December 1929

“[1930 will be] a splendid employment year.”

Treasury Secretary, Andrew W. Mellon, December 31, 1929

“I see nothing in the present situation that is either menacing or warrants pessimism… I have every confidence that there will be a revival of activity in the spring, and that during this coming year the country will make steady progress.”

Treasury Secretary, Andrew W. Mellon, February, 1930

“There is nothing in the situation to be disturbed about.”

President, Herbert Hoover, May 1, 1930

“While the crash only took place six months ago, I am convinced we have now passed through the worst — and with continued unity of effort we shall rapidly recover. There has been no significant bank or industrial failure. That danger, too, is safely behind us.”

President, Herbert Hoover, June, 1930

“Gentleman, you have come sixty days too late. The depression is over.”

Economist Irving Fisher in September, 1932

“As this book goes to press recovery seems to be in sight. In the course of about two months, stocks have nearly doubled in price and commodities have risen 5½. European stock prices were the first to rise, and European buyers were among the first to make themselves felt in the American market.”

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