On hypocrisy (anonymous)

Hypocrisy is the tribute that vice pays to virtue.

~ Unknown, possibly French proverb, or authored by François de La Rochefoucauld

Celia Green on committees

The psychology of committees is a special case of the psychology of mobs.

~ Celia Green

Lenin on propaganda

A lie told often enough becomes the truth.

~ Vladimir Lenin

Nouriel Roubini on financial sytem

Non-bank institutions do not have direct access to the Fed and other central banks liquidity support and they are now at risk of a liquidity run as their liabilities are short term while many of their assets are longer term and illiquid; so the risk of something equivalent to a bank run for non-bank financial institutions is now rising. And there is no chance that depository institutions will re-lend to these to these non-banks the funds borrowed by central banks as these banks have severe liquidity problems themselves and they do not trust their non-bank counterparties. So now monetary policy is totally impotent in dealing with the liquidity problems and the risks of runs on liquid liabilities of a large fraction of the financial system.

~ Nouriel Roubini, President, Global EconoMonitor, "Central Banks Are Getting Desperate", December 18, 2007

Stephen Roach on US economy

This recession will be deeper than the shallow contraction earlier in this decade. The dot-com-led downturn was set off by a collapse in business capital spending, which at its peak in 2000 accounted for only 13 percent of the country’s gross domestic product. The current recession is all about the coming capitulation of the American consumer — whose spending now accounts for a record 72 percent of G.D.P.

~ Stephen Roach, Asia Investment Chairman, New York Times, December 16, 2007

Howard Buffett on conscription

In its abolition of freedom, peacetime conscription overshadows all other collectivism and regimentation. When the American government conscripts a boy to go 10,000 miles to the jungles of Asia without a declaration of war by Congress…. what freedom is safe at home? Surely, the profits of U.S. Steel or your private property are not more sacred than a young man’s right to life.

~ Howard Buffett, "An Opportunity for the Republican Party," New Individualist Review, II, 2 (Summer 1962), p. 12.

Howard Buffett on anti-Communist cover for government spending

In the pattern developed through the war years [World War II] of deficit spending, this administration combination would dress up every spending scheme as vital in their anti-Communist program. Attempts at economy would again be smeared as reactionary efforts to save dollars at the cost of the lives of American boys. Patriots who try to bring about economy would be branded as Stalin lovers. The misery of the people, from continued militarism and inflation, would soon become unbearable. As their anguished protests became vocal, the shackles of regimentation and coercion, so lately thrown off, could be refastened in the name of stopping communism at home.

~ Congressman Howard Buffett, March 18, 1947