purchasing power

"We can guarantee cash benefits as far out, and at whatever size you like, but we cannot guarantee their purchasing power."
--Alan Greenspan, testimony to Congress (Feb. 15, 2005)

free market

"I have abandoned free-market principles to save the free-market system."
-- George W. Bush

prolonged depression

Attempts to interfere with free and flexible prices, wages, and interest rates prevent recovery and prolong the depression period.
-- Percy L. Greaves, Mises Made Easier

boom and bust

The "depression" is actually the process by which the economy adjusts to the wastes and errors of the boom and reestablishes efficient service of consumer desires. The adjustment process consists in rapid liquidation of the wasteful investments.
-- Murray N. Rothbard, America's Great Depression

a change is gonna come

I was born by the river in a little tent
And just like the river, I've been running ever since
It's been a long time coming
But I know a change is gonna come

It's been too hard living, but I'm afraid to die
I don't know what's up there beyond the sky
It's been a long time coming
But I know a change is gonna come

I go to the movie, and I go downtown
Somebody keep telling me "Don't hang around"
It's been a long time coming
But I know a change is gonna come

Then I go to my brother and I say, "Brother, help me please"
But he winds up knocking me back down on my knees

There've been times that I've thought I couldn't last for long
But now I think I'm able to carry on
It's been a long time coming
But I know a change is gonna come

-- Sam Cooke (1964)

a change is gonna come

I keep on thinkin' it's wrong
So I'm chiding you in a song
It's comin' your way
You shouldn't feel this way

You think it's a sin
I ain't your color of skin
It's comin' your way
You shouldn't feel this way

I keep on losin' my feet
When I walk down the street
I keep on thinkin' it's you
Guess it makes me feel blue
You say it's broken your dreams
They fall apart at the seams
It's comin' our way

-- Adam Franklin (Swervedriver) 1993

central banking

The central bank is an institution of the most deadly hostility existing against the Principles and form of our Constitution.... I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies. If the American People ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation and then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around them will deprive the People of all Property until their Children wake up homeless on the continent their Fathers conquered.... The issuing power should be taken from the banks and restored to the People, to whom it properly belongs.
-- Thomas Jefferson (1802)

inflation confiscation

"By a continuing process of inflation, government can confiscate, secretly and unobserved, an important part of the wealth of their citizens."
-- John Maynard Keynes

throwing the election

Don't even waste the man-hours on us
We are finding no solution
Call all the boys in from the fighting fronts
We have lost the revolution
None of the soaring flight we dreamed
Is any closer to perfection

Make me an offer, I don't waste them now
We have no more fixed intentions
Give all the faithful a deserved rest
We've abandoned our dissensions

I've got a feeling it's all rigged
I've got a feeling it ended a long time ago
But nobody tells me
I've got a feeling it's over now

-- Scott Miller (Game Theory) 1988

free market is dead

"The free market for all intents and purposes is dead in America.... The American taxpayer has been misled throughout this economic crisis. The government on all fronts has failed the American people miserably."
-- U.S. Senator Jim Bunning (R-Ky)

emerging socialist state

"Ben Bernanke, the chairman of the Federal Reserve and Hank Paulson, the Goldman Sachs tycoon who became US Treasury secretary, have done more for socialism in the past seven days than anybody since Marx and Engels."
--Larry Elliott, The Guardian (UK)

printing money

"The inflationism of the currency... has proceeded to extraordinary lengths. The various belligerent Governments, unable, or too timid or too short-sighted to secure from loans or taxes the resources they required, have printed notes for the balance."
-- John Maynard Keynes (re: Weimar Republic hyperinflation)

risk

"Risk comes from not knowing what you're doing."
-- Warren Buffet

margin

"When the tide goes out, you see who's been swimming naked."
-- Warren Buffett

no surprises

A heart that's filled up like a landfill
A job that slowly kills you
Bruises that won't heal.
You look so tired, unhappy
Bring down the government
They don't, they don't speak for us.

-- Thom Yorke (Radiohead) 1997

credit expansion

"There is no means of avoiding the final collapse of a boom brought about by credit expansion. The alternative is only whether the crisis should come sooner as the result of a voluntary abandonment of further credit expansion, or later as a final and total catastrophe of the currency system involved."
-- Ludwig von Mises

older, more conservative

"If you're not a liberal when you're 25, you have no heart. If you're not a conservative by the time you're 35, you have no brain."
-- variously attributed to Winston Churchill, George Bernard Shaw, Benjamin Disraeli, Otto von Bismarck, and others

deficit spending

"...Reagan proved that deficits don't matter."
-- Vice President Dick Cheney (Jan. 11, 2004)

America rules!

"The American way of life is not negotiable."
-- President George H. W. Bush, Earth Summit (Rio de Janeiro) 1992

American way of life

"[I]t should be the goal of policy makers to protect the American way of life. The American way of life is a blessed one. "
-- Ari Fleischer, White House Press Secretary (May 7, 2001)

dollar inflation

"U.S. dollars have value only to the extent that they are strictly limited in supply. But the U.S. government has a technology, called a printing press (or, today, its electronic equivalent), that allows it to produce as many U.S. dollars as it wishes at essentially no cost. By increasing the number of U.S. dollars in circulation, or even by credibly threatening to do so, the U.S. government can also reduce the value of a dollar in terms of goods and services, which is equivalent to raising the prices in dollars of those goods and services."
-- Ben Bernanke, speech to National Economists Club (Wash., DC) Nov. 21, 2002

debt ascendant

"Financial innovation has been responsible for reducing the previously direct relationship between consumption and income."
-- Stephen Cecchetti, Financial Times

airwaves

they seem near, but they are far away.
they knew last year what you'd want today.
they're controlling everything you do.
all your dreams, all your ambitions
are sent to you in their transmissions.
airwaves -- everything you know is in the air

they will always find you where you are.
if it's peaceful, they can start a war.
they're translating everything you feel.
they will make your troubles fade away.
when you're sad, they'll make you feel so gay.
airwaves -- everything you know is in the air.

-- Action Plus (1996)

blind faith

"I think we should just trust our president in every decision he makes and should just support that, you know, and be faithful in what happens."
-- Britney Spears (2003)

mass stupidity

"The average man is no genius.
And half the population is even dumber."
-- Bill Bonner, Daily Reckoning (after George Carlin)

All I Want is You

I've been hurt and I've been hurtful
Been used and I have used
I've been tired and I've been tiresome
I've lied and been lied to

Believe me when I tell you
I don't know where to start
I've got a secret
You have got my heart

I guess it may seem funny
Perhaps a little strange
To feel so close to someone
You've known only a day

There's so much I'd like to ask you
So much I'd like to say
Well I'm gonna miss your smile when you're gone
The one that got away

Believe me when I tell you
I don't know what to do
I've got a secret
All I want is you

-- Scout (1999)

democracy

"Show us a human being...
and we will show you why democracy is a bad idea...."
-- Bill Bonner, Daily Reckoning

doubt

"Yesterday, we were full of doubts...
But today, we're not so sure."
-- Bill Bonner, Daily Reckoning

carpe diem

The best time to plant a tree is 20 years ago.
The next best time is now.
-- African Proverb

life's what you make it

Life's what you make it -- celebrate it, anticipate it
Yesterday's faded, nothing can change it -- life's what you make it.

-- Mark Hollis (Talk Talk) 1985

tomorrow is a new day

Finish every day and be done with it.
You have done what you could;
some blunders and absurdities crept in;
forget them as soon as you can.
Tomorrow is a new day;
You shall begin it serenely and
with too high a spirit to be encumbered
with your old nonsense.

-- Ralph Waldo Emerson

inflation effects

[Inflation] discourages all prudence and thrift. It encourages squandering, gambling, reckless waste of all kinds. It often makes it more profitable to speculate than to produce. It tears apart the whole fabric of stable economic relationships. Its inexcusable injustices drive men toward desperate remedies. It plants the seeds of fascism and communism. It leads men to demand totalitarian controls. It ends invariably in bitter disillusion and collapse.

-- Henry Hazlitt, Economics in One Lesson (1946)

man of peace

I am a man of peace;
But when I speak, they are for war.
-- Psalm 120:7

throwing stones

Picture a bright blue ball, just spinning, spinning free
Dizzy with eternity
Paint it with a skin of sky
Brush in some clouds and sea
Call it home for you and me

A peaceful place, or so it looks from space
A closer look reveals the human race
Full of hope, full of grace is the human face
But afraid we may lay our home to waste

-- John Perry Barlow (Grateful Dead) 1982

shrunken man

Just an imperfect man
Trapped in an imperfect body
Ain’t happy or sad, lonely or sorry

-- Matt Johnson (The The) 2000

happiness is easy

Litle ships of Galilee
sailing on the sea.
Jesus tried to love us all
and be a friend to me.
Joy be written on the earth
and the sky above.
Jesus star that shines so bright
gather us in love.
--Tim Friese-Greene / Mark Hollis (Talk Talk) 1986

happiness is easy

If one only wished to be happy,
this could be easily accomplished;
but we wish to be happier than other people,
and this is always difficult,
for we believe others to be happier than they are.

-- (Charles-Louis Secondat) MONTESQUIEU (1689-1755)

subterranean homesick alien

The breath of the morning
I keep forgetting the smell of the warm summer air
I live in a town where you can't smell a thing
You watch your feet for cracks in the pavement

High up above, aliens hover
Making home movies for the folks back home
Of all of these weird creatures who lock up their spirits
Drill holes in themselves, and live for their secrets.

I wish that they'd swoop down in a country lane
Late at night when I'm driving
Take me onboard their beautiful ship
Show me the world as I'd love to see it

I'd tell all my friends, but they'd never believe me
They'd think that I've finally lost it completely
I'd show them the stars and the meaning of life
They'd shut me away, but I'd be alright

--Radiohead (1997)

solar angels

Golden halos radiating higher
Diamond visions softly breathing fire
Sky processions -- we are watching you arrive

Silver crystals arching beams below
White light spirals lifting up to go
Glass formations -- solar angels spread their wings

-- Judas Priest (1981)

every brother is a star

"One man's freedom fighter is another's terrorist."
-- Bobby Gillespie (Primal Scream) 1997