Social Economics 101

Thought for Today

"That every person is desirous to obtain, with as little sacrifice as possible, as much as possible of the articles of wealth."

~~~~~ Nassau William Senior

Thought for Today

Paging Governor Moonbeam! Paging Governor Moonbeam!

"The rage for railroads is so great that many will be laid in parts where they will not pay."

~~~~~ George Stephenson (Letter to Joseph Sandars; December, 1824)

Thought for Today

"Most economic fallacies derive from the tendency to assume that there is a fixed pie; that one party can gain only at the expense of another."

~~~~~ Milton Friedman

Thought for Today

"Teach a parrot the terms 'supply and demand' and you've got an economist."

~~~~~ Thomas Carlyle

Thought for Today

"The first requisite of a sound monetary system is that it put the least possible power over the quantity or quality of money in the hands of the politicians."

~~~~~ Henry Hazlitt

Thought for Today

"Our economic freedom is founded on individual property rights; government should never be permitted to take those away."

~~~~~ Ernest Istook

Minnesota Majority: Obama TRAPPED in Keynesian Twilight Zone

Thought for Today

"The reality is that zero defects in products plus zero pollution plus zero risk on the job is equivalent to maximum growth of government plus zero economic growth plus runaway inflation."

~~~~~ Dixie Lee Ray

Thought for Today

"Government is not the generator of economic growth; working people are."

~~~~~ Phil Gramm

Thought for Today

"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."

~~~~~ Alan Greenspan

Thought for Today

"The developing world has been told that it's necessary to give up freedom in order to achieve progress. Nothing could be further from the truth. Freedom and economic advance go hand in hand; they are two sides of the same coin. The mainspring of human progress is found not in controlling and harnessing human energy but in setting it free. The most valuable resource is not oil or precious metals or even territory; it's the infinite richness of human potential. The creative genius and diligence unleashed when people are free and working to improve their lot and that of their families is the greatest force for good on this planet."

~~~~~ Ronald Reagan

Thought for Today

"Here is a math problem for you: Assume that the legislation establishing government control of medical care is passed and that it 'brings down the cost of medical care.' You pay $500 a year less for your medical care, but the new costs put on employers is passed on to consumers, so that you pay $300 a year more for groceries and $200 a year more for gasoline, while the new mandates put on insurance companies raise your premiums by $300 a year, how much money have you saved?"

~~~~~ Thomas Sowell

The Barber and the Kid

A young boy enters a barber shop and the barber whispers to his customer, "This is the dumbest kid in the world. Watch while I prove it to you."

The barber puts a dollar bill in one hand and two quarters in the other, then calls the boy over and asks, "Which do you want, son?" The boy takes the quarters and leaves.

"What did I tell you?" said the barber. "That kid never learns!"

Later, when the customer leaves, he sees the same young boy coming out of the ice cream store. "Hey, son! May I ask you a question? Why did you take the quarters instead of the dollar bill?"

The boy licked his ice cream cone and replied, "Because the day I take the dollar, the game's over!"

Hat tip: Patriot Humor, a publication of the Patriot Post.

Thought for Today

"Any serious discussion of government-run medical care would have to look at other countries where there is government-run medical care. As someone who has done some research on this for my book 'Applied Economics,' I can tell you that the actual consequences of government-controlled medical care is not a pretty picture, however inspiring the rhetoric that accompanies it. Thirty thousand Canadians are passing up free medical care at home to go to some other country where they have to pay for it. People don't do that without a reason. But Canadians are better off than people in some other countries with government-controlled medical care, because they have the United States right next door, in case their medical problems get too serious to rely on their own system. But where are Americans to turn if we become like Canada? Where are we to go when we need better medical treatment than Washington bureaucrats will let us have? Mexico? The Caribbean?"

~~~~~ Thomas Sowell

Thought for Today

"The statesman who should attempt to direct private people in what manner they ought to employ their capitals, would not only load himself with a most necessary attention, but assume an authority which could safely be trusted, not only to no single person, but to no council or senate whatever, and which would nowhere be so dangerous as in the hands of a man who had folly and presumption enough to fancy himself fit to exercise it."

~~~~~ Adam Smith (1723-1790)

Perhaps a man such as the one presently occupying the White House?

Thought for Today

"The economic freedom which is the prerequisite of any other freedom cannot be the freedom from economic care, which the socialists promise us and which can be obtained only by relieving the individual at the same time of the necessity and of the power of choice; it must be the freedom of our economic activity which, with the right of choice, inevitably also carries the risk and the responsibility of that right."

~~~~~ Friedrich Hayek (1899-1992)

Thought for Today

“The most dangerous myth is the demagoguery that business can be made to pay a larger share, thus relieving the individual. Politicians preaching this are either deliberately dishonest, or economically illiterate, and either one should scare us. Business doesn’t pay taxes, and who better than business to make this message known? Only people pay taxes, and people pay as consumers every tax that is assessed against a business. Begin with the food and fiber raised in the farm, to the ore drilled in a mine, to the oil and gas from out of the ground, whatever it may be – through the processing, through the manufacturing, on out to the retailer’s license. If the tax cannot be included in the price of the product, no one along that line can stay in business.”

~~~~~ Ronald Reagan

Thought for Today

“The Founding Fathers knew a government can’t control the economy without controlling people. And they knew when a government sets out to do that, it must use force and coercion to achieve its purpose. So we have come to a time for choosing. Public servants say, always with the best of intentions, ‘What greater service we could render if only we had a little more money and a little more power.’ But the truth is that outside of its legitimate function, government does nothing as well or as economically as the private sector.”

~~~~~ Ronald Reagan

Thought for Today

"I place economy among the first and most important virtues, and public debt as the greatest of dangers. We must make our choice between economy and liberty, or profusion and servitude. If we can prevent the government from wasting the labor of the people, under the pretense of caring for them, they will be happy."

~~~~~ Thomas Jefferson