QUOTE MACHINE

From Atlas Shrugged:

"Watch money. Money is the barometer of a society's virtue. When you see that trading is done, not by consent, but by compulsion - when you see that in order to produce, you need to obtain permission from men who produce nothing - when you see that money is flowing to those who deal, not in goods, but in favours - when you see that men get richer by graft and pull than by work, and your laws don't protect you against them, but protect them against you - when you see corruption rewarded and honesty becoming a self-sacrifice - you know that your society is doomed... Destroyers seize gold and leave to its owners a counterfeit pile of paper. This kills all objective standards and delivers men into the arbitrary power of an arbitrary setter of values. Gold was an objective value, an equivalent of wealth produced. Paper is a mortgage on wealth that does not exist, backed by a gun aimed at those who are expected to produce it. Paper is a check drawn by legal looters upon an account which is not theirs: upon the virtue of the victims. Watch for the day when it bounces, marked: "Account overdrawn".

I have to go see the movie version of Atlas Shrugged this summer. These are my four "must see" movies for they year. Never been a big movie buff before and I may cheat a little and get a DVD version for home viewing on a couple of them, but all four come highly recommended.

Atlas Shrugged
http://www.atlas-shrugged-movie.com/

The Cartel
http://www.thecartelmovie.com/

Waiting for Superman
http://www.waitingforsuperman.com/action/

Inside Job
http://www.insidejob.com/

Talent is like a marksman who hits a target that others cannot reach; genius is like the marksman who hits a target others cannot even see. (Schopenhauer).

Wise men talk because they have something to say; fools because they have to say something. (Plato)

Of all sad words of tongue or pen, the saddest are these: "It might have been". (John Greenleaf Whittier)

You see things; and you say, "Why?" But I dream things that never were; and I say, "Why not?" (George Bernhard Shaw)

Worse than being blind, is to see and have no vision. (Helen Keller)

When the only tool you own is a hammer, every problem begins to resemble a nail. (Abraham Maslow)

We are too busy mopping the floor to turn off the faucet. (Anon)

Zimmerman's Law of Complaints: Nobody notices when things go right.

There are two classes of forecasters: Those who don't know... and those who don't know they don't know. (John Kenneth Galbraith).

• If you think the world is all wrong, remember that it contains people like you. (Mahatma Gandhi).
• Everybody wants to save the world, but nobody wants to help Mum with the dishes. (P.J. O'Rourke).

The price of hating other humans is loving oneself less. (Eldridge Cleaver)

• The hottest places in hell are reserved for those, who in times of great moral crisis, maintain their neutrality. (Dante Alighieri)
• To know what is right and not to do it is the worst cowardice. (Confucius)

• The truth always turns out to be simpler than you thought. (Richard Feynman)
• When you have mastered numbers, you will in fact no longer be reading numbers, any more than you read words when reading books. You will be reading meanings. (W. E. B. Du Bois)

In science, "fact" can only mean "confirmed to such a degree that it would be perverse to withhold provisional assent." I suppose that apples might start to rise tomorrow, but the possibility does not merit equal time in physics classrooms. (Stephen Jay Gould)

Under capitalism, man exploits man. Under communism, it's just the opposite. (John Kenneth Galbraith)

• Democracy is a form of government that substitutes election by the incompetent many for appointment by the corrupt few. (George Bernard Shaw)
• Traditional human government consists of thieves and murderers. By adopting the electoral process, we have weeded out the murderers. This is actually about as good as it gets. (Anon)
• Government is like a baby. An alimentary canal with a big appetite at one end and no sense of responsibility at the other. (Ronald Reagan).

A developer is someone who wants to build a house in the woods. An environmentalist is someone who already has a house in the woods. (Dennis Miller)

• Those who can -- do. Those who can't -- teach. (H.L. Mencken).
• Those who cannot teach -- administrate. (Martin)

• To generalize is to be an idiot. (William Blake)
• A witty saying proves nothing. (Voltaire)
• There is nothing so absurd but some philosopher has said it. (Cicero)
• Almost every wise saying has an opposite one, no less wise, to balance it. (George Santayana)

THANK YOU BEN BERNANKE!!!

Why it is OK for Congress to waste taxpayer money at the rate of 1% but when AIG wastes it at the rate of 0.10% the hypocrites on the public payroll get their little panties in a twist? It seems like the crooks at AIG are at least ten times better at avoiding wasteful spending then Congress.

Maybe Congress should learn some lessons here on how to waste less of our money. Another dog and pony show meant to distract attention and confuse the masses about where the blame lies for some of this economic mess we are in.

From Chuck Schumer (D-NY) in the debate about passage of the $787 Billion stimulus package which included approximately $8 Billion in "pork" spending or earmarks.

“And let me say this to all of the chattering class that so much focuses on those little, tiny, yes, porky amendments, the American people really don’t care.”
------------------
These idiots showed the ultimate contempt for the taxpayer as well as no inclination to tighten their belts or balance their budget during a crisis. But it doesn't stop them from asking others to do so.

AIG received about $170 billion in government funds under the Troubled Asset Relief Program, or TARP. The company is under fire because of $220 million paid out as retention bonuses, including $165 million recently paid under contracts concluded last year.

From Rep. Paul Kanjosrksi (D-PA):

"Something is seriously out of whack and AIG needs to fix it now. We face the most challenging economy since the Great Depression [of the 1930s]. Many have made personal sacrifices to survive these difficult times. AIG and its employees should do the same," he said.

WORDS TO LIVE BY, PERHAPS CONGRESS SHOULD LOOK IN THE MIRROR.

And it wouldn't hurt for Congress to admit to a mea culpa here and there for their role in getting into this mess. To hear most of them talk, they made absolutely no mistakes. NOT ONE.

Thankfully Ben Bernanke seems to be taking the reins. I'm starting to gain more confidence in him then the numb skulls in Congress and the Administration.

Philosophically, I am nearly violently opposed to the Fed. But in this crisis, it seems like Bernanke is the veteran leader that can steer the ship through these turbulent waters.

GOD BLESS BEN BERNANKE AND GOD BLESS AMERICA.

Excuse me, the Comedian in Chief is taking credit for Bernanke's aggressive action in response to the crisis. By the way, action that the market immediately saluted.

That's how it works, the stock market looks forward not backward. And it weighs measures without regard to party. Most of these guys would get in bed with either party that could make them money. They don't see red or blue, or black or white. They just see green. And they react accordingly.

I believe John Galt is about to re-enter the building.

RICK SANTELLI'S CHICAGO TEA PARTY - ALL ABOARD

Rick Santelli hit the nail on the head with this analysis of the Administration's foreclosure mitigation plans.

A Chicago Tea Party in July. I'M THERE. They should throw some of these idiot politicians in Lake Michigan instead of tea though.

Santelli is a straight shooter who doesn't sugarcoat it.

We the people, are subsidizing the banks, the auto companies and now the morons who got in over their heads to own a home and should have remained renters.

This isn't T-Ball people, we keep score and there are winners and losers in life.

This middle class that Obama/Biden seemed so concerned about during the campaign is getting no relief from any of these packages and will instead be asked to pay the bill.

People are getting fed up with bailing out all these losers. It's way past time that Washington gets their finger on the true pulse of the American public.

Where have you gone John Galt?

OBAMA WINS - NOW WHAT??

MCCAIN CONCEDES:



Very graceful and dignified exit. McCain and his staff ran one of the worst Presidential campaigns in history. Weak message early, disjointed response to the financial crisis. He should have stood alongside the Repubs who opposed the measure. The market was at 11,750 when they voted, it's been down 20% since then. The campaigns misuse of the Palin bounce was the baseball equivalent of pinch-hitting for your cleanup hitter in the third inning. They certainly didn't deserve to win.

AND OBAMA ACCEPTS VICTORY:






--------------
On a historic night for Obama, I can't say much in the way of negatives. However, it is difficult to believe that Dems expect Repubs to hold hands with them and sing Koom by Yah after eight years of foot-dragging against a Republican administration. For two terms, they've acted the part of petulant, sore losers and now they want the other side to behave like adults. Fortunately, they probably will.

I still don't get the dichotomy in his message. We're not red-states or blue-states, we're the United States on one hand. But Wall Street bad, Main Street good on the other hand. I guess the class warfare struggle continues.

Who is John Galt, where is John Galt indeed.

This may be the second time in my lifetime we elected a President more for what or who he was not. Obama is clearly not George W. Bush as we were repeatedly told. If the transformative figure argument were the overriding theme, he would have beaten Hillary Clinton by more than he did in the primaries.

The last time we did this was Jimmy Carter, who was all that Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford were not. He was not stained by Watergate, not a Washington insider. However, Carter ended up being clearly in over his head in the job. And he had a world of intelligence, great moral character and executive experience as well.

My hope is that Obama ends up governing more like Bill Clinton than Carter for obvious reasons, the stakes are too high at this point.

My fear is that along with Reid and Pelosi and with a perceived mandate, that for at least the first two years, they govern like a bunch of drunken students at a frat party. We seem to have a plethora of constituents that are lining up to get paid back for services rendered during the campaign and who feel they have been under served under previous administrations.

Clinton did not move to the center until the mid term elections of his first term when the Gingrich bunch came in and provided a counterweight of ideas.

Some post-mortem comments from the Cato Institute that are important to note.
--------------------------------------------
http://www.cato.org/pressroom.php?display=ncomments&id=162

Cato Scholar Comments on Election Landslide

Wednesday, November 5, 2008

Michael D. Tanner, senior fellow:

Yesterday's massive Democratic landslide cannot be seen as anything but a repudiation of George Bush and the current Republican congressional leadership. But to suggest that in electing Barack Obama and a Democratic congressional majority, voters were choosing big-government over small-government would imply that either the Bush administration, the current Republican congressional leadership, or, for that matter, John McCain actually supported smaller government. In reality, by almost every measure, government grew bigger, more expensive, and more intrusive under President Bush and the Republican Congress.

Exit polls show that Republican losses were heaviest among upscale suburban voters who tend to be economically conservative but socially moderate. These formally reliable Republican voters did not suddenly decide that they wanted a bigger, more expensive, and more intrusive government. But, faced with the big-government status quo or big-government "change," they opted for change.

Republicans now have two more years in the wilderness to decide whether or not they actually stand for limited government and individual liberty. One wonders, whether they will hear the message.
-------------------------------


Not Just the First African-American President

For two years now, everyone has talked about Barack Obama becoming the first black president, barely 40 years after the civil rights revolution. Obama himself has often said, “I don’t look like I came out of central casting when it comes to presidential candidates.”

But his achievement is even more striking than “first African-American president.” There are tens of millions of white Americans who are part of ethnic groups that have never produced a president. The fact is, all 42 of our presidents have been of British, Irish, or Germanic descent. We’ve never had a president of southern or eastern European ancestry. Despite the millions of Americans who came to the New World from France, Italy, Poland, Spain, Scandinavia, Russia, and other parts of Europe–not to mention Asia and the Arab world and Latin America–we’ve never had a president who traced his ancestry to those parts of the world. Indeed, it’s often been said that “we’ve never had a president whose name ended in a vowel” (except for a silent ”e” such as Coolidge, and with the exception of Kennedy), which is another way of saying “not of southern or eastern European heritage”).

As Philip Q. Yang put it in his book Ethnic Studies: Issues and Approaches, “There have been no presidents of southern and eastern European descent; and none of Jewish, African, Latino, Asian, or Indian descent.” We’ve had 37 presidents of British (English, Scottish, or Welsh) or Irish descent; three of Dutch descent (Van Buren and the two Roosevelts); and two of Swiss/German descent (Hoover and Eisenhower). Of course, these categories usually refer to the president’s paternal line; Reagan, for instance, was Irish on his father’s side but not on his mother’s. But that doesn’t change the overall picture.

In this light, Obama’s achievement is even more remarkable. He has achieved something that no American politician even of southern or eastern European heritage has managed. But I think we can assume that from now on there won’t be any perceived disadvantage to candidates of Italian, French, Asian, or other previous genealogies not previously seen in the White House. For that, congratulations to Barack Obama.