Quotes

"Fascism and communism both promise "social welfare," "social justice," and "fairness" to justify authoritarian means and extensive arbitrary and discretionary governmental powers." - F. A. Hayek"

"Life is a Bungling process and in no way educational." in James M. Cain

Jean Giraudoux who first said, “Only the mediocre are always at their best.”

If you have ten thousand regulations, you destroy all respect for the law. Sir Winston Churchill

"summum ius summa iniuria" ("More laws, more injustice.") Cicero

As Christopher Hitchens once put it, “The essence of tyranny is not iron law; it is capricious law.”

"Government’s view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases: If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it." Ronald Reagan

"Law is where you buy it." Raymond Chandler

"Why did God make so many damn fools and Democrats?" Clarence Day

"If I feel like feeding squirrels to the nuts, this is the place for it." - Cluny Brown

"Oh, pshaw! When yu' can't have what you choose, yu' just choose what you have." Owen Wister "The Virginian"

Oscar Wilde said about the death scene in Little Nell, you would have to have a heart of stone not to laugh.

Thomas More's definition of government as "a conspiracy of rich men procuring their own commodities under the name and title of a commonwealth.” ~ Winston S. Churchill, A History of the English Speaking Peoples

“Laws are like cobwebs, which may catch small flies, but let wasps and hornets break through.” ~ Jonathon Swift

Thursday, May 3, 2012

Why Would Anyone Imitate FDR?

Why indeed!
Why Would Anyone Imitate FDR?

by BURT on MAY 1, 2012
To many observers, the presidency of FDR was a disaster. He had double-digit unemployment throughout the 1930s, and he doubled the size of the national debt in his first two terms. The League of Nations rated the U.S. recovery as one of the worst in the world. Economic stagnation was a cloud over the entire FDR presidency during the 1930s.
Why imitate him? But two presidents in the last forty years have done that–Jimmy Carter and Barack Obama. When unemployment soared in the 1970s, President Carter looked to FDR for inspiration. He promoted the Humphrey-Hawkins bill–a modified WPA–to put government in the job-creating business. When OPEC jacked up the price of oil, Carter followed FDR’s approach during World War II: put price controls on oil and slap an excess-profits tax on U.S. oil companies. As a result, oil output in the U.S. dropped, imports increased, and the price of oil tended to remain high. What a disaster! Inflation hit 14%, unemployment 7%, and mortgage interest rates 21.5%.
Ronald Reagan defeated President Carter in 1980 in large part because Reagan argued that freedom, not more government, was the way out of our economic mess. 
Posted by at

No comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)