Sigmund Freud on the age of illusion

Illusions commend themselves to us because they save us pain and allow us to enjoy pleasure instead. We must therefore accept it without complaint when they sometimes collide with a bit of reality against which they are dashed to pieces.

~Sigmund Freud

Ken Langone on stock market correction: So what?

[Tuesday's 200 point stock market drop is] a correction. It’s healthy. It’s no big thing. So what?

[I'd] buy the banks [because they've] cleaned their act up [and have low valuations.]  JPMorgan Chase [JPM  39.32    -1.08  (-2.67%)   ] has a balance sheet that's like a battleship.aid. Wells Fargo [WFC  30.105    -0.865  (-2.79%)   ] , the same thing. Bank of America [BAC  7.71    -0.26  (-3.26%)   ] is getting better, Citi's [C  32.12    -1.56  (-4.63%)   ] getting better.

~ Ken Langone, as appeared on CNBC

David Stockman on the Federal Reserve

The Fed is a patsy. It is a pathetic dependent of the big Wall Street banks, traders, and hedge funds. Everything it does is designed to keep this rickety structure from unwinding.

- David Stockman, Former Budget Director, Reagan Administration, March 4, 2012

Napolean Bonaparte on bankers

When a government is dependent upon bankers for money, they and not the leaders of the government control the situation, since the hand that gives is above the hand that takes. Money has no motherland; financiers are without patriotism and without decency; their sole object is gain.

~ Napolean Bonaparte

Einstein on socialism

I am convinced there is only one way to eliminate these grave evils, namely through the establishment of a socialist economy, accompanied by an educational system which would be oriented toward social goals. In such an economy, the means of production are owned by society itself and are utilized in a planned fashion. A planned economy, which adjusts production to the needs of the community, would distribute the work to be done among all those able to work and would guarantee a livelihood to every man, woman, and child. The education of the individual, in addition to promoting his own innate abilities, would attempt to develop in him a sense of responsibility for his fellow men in place of the glorification of power and success in our present society.

~ Albert Einstein

Mark Twain on elitists

When red-headed people are above a certain social grade their hair is auburn.

~ Mark Twain

Dan Rather on intellectuals

An intellectual snob is someone who can listen to the William Tell Overture and not think of The Lone Ranger.

~ Dan Rather