Daily Quotes

[Tamrin]

A solid majority of economists is now of the opinion that, even in a capitalist system,
full employment may be secured by a government spending programme, provided there
is in existence adequate plan to employ all existing labour power, and provided adequate
supplies of necessary foreign raw-materials may be obtained in exchange for exports


If the government undertakes public investment (e.g. builds schools, hospitals, and high-
ways) or subsidizes mass consumption (by family allowances, reduction of indirect tax-
ation, or subsidies to keep down the prices of necessities), and if, moreover, this expend-
iture is financed by borrowing and not by taxation (which could affect adversely private
investment and consumption), the effective demand for goods and services may be increased
up to a point where full employment is achieved. Such government expenditure increases
employment, be it noted, not only directly but indirectly as well, since the higher incomes
caused by it result in a secondary increase in demand for consumer and investment goods


It may be asked where the public will get the money to lend to the government if they
do not curtail their investment and consumption. To understand this process it is best,
I think, to imagine for a moment that the government pays its suppliers in government
securities. The suppliers will, in general, not retain these securities but put them into
circulation while buying other goods and services, and so on, until finally these secur-
ities will reach persons or firms which retain them as interest-yielding assets. In any
period of time the total increase in government securities in the possession (transitory
or final) of persons and firms will be equal to the goods and services sold to the govern-
ment. Thus what the economy lends to the government are goods and services whose
production is 'financed' by government securities. In reality the government pays for
the services, not in securities, but in cash, but it simultaneously issues securities and
so drains the cash off; and this is equivalent to the imaginary process described above


'Full employment capitalism' will, of course, have to develop new social and
political institutions which will reflect the increased power of the working class.
If capitalism can adjust itself to full employment, a fundamental reform will have been
incorporated in it. If not, it will show itself an outmoded system which must be scrapped


Generally speaking, changes in the prices of finished goods are
"cost determined" while changes in the prices of raw materials
inclusive of primary foodstuffs are "demand determined"


The capitalists of a country which manages to capture foreign markets
from other countries are able to increase their profits at the expense of
the capitalists of the other countries. Similarly, a colonial metropolis
may achieve an export surplus through investment in its dependencies


It is the export surplus and the budget deficit which enable the capitalists
to make profits over and above their own purchases of goods and services.
The connection between 'external' profits and imperialism is obvious


Michal Kalecki
Polish economist (macroeconomics)
(Political Aspects of Full Employment)
(Born this day 1899)



An increase in the number of paupers does not broaden the market

[Tamrin]

Good communication is just as stimulating as
black coffee, and just as hard to sleep after


To give without any reward, or any notice, has a special quality of its own


When the wedding march sounds the resolute approach, the clock no longer ticks, it tolls
the hour. The figures in the aisle are no longer individuals, they symbolize the human race


Only in growth, reform, and change, paradoxically enough, is true security to be found


Grief can't be shared. Everyone carries It alone. His own burden in his own way


I do not believe that sheer suffering teaches. If suffering alone taught, all the world
would be wise, since everyone suffers. To suffering must be added mourning,
understanding, patience, love, openness and the willingness to remain vulnerable


Don't wish me happiness — I don't expect to be happy it's gotten beyond that, some-
how. Wish me courage and strength and a sense of humour — I will need them all


Anne Morrow Lindbergh
US aviator and author (Gift from the Sea)
(Born this day 1907)



The wave of the future is coming and there is no fighting it

[Tamrin]

Every one of us is sort of a figment of our own imaginations


Tell the truth. Sing with passion. Work with laughter. Love with heart.
'Cause that's all that matters in the end


When you're headed for the border, you're bound to cross the line


You don't paddle against the current, you paddle with it.
And if you get good at it, you throw away the oars


You always hear about famous actors and big rock people bitchin' endlessly
about payin' taxes and signin' autographs. Well, I think you got a respons-
ibility not to be that way — Hell, I can rent a car now, I can go wherever
I want on this earth. I can send all my kids to college on just a few songs


Nothing ain't worth nothing but it's free


I'd trade all my tomorrows for one single yesterday


Kris Kristofferson
US country music singer, songwriter, actor, Rhodes Scholar
(Born this day 1936)



Freedom's just another word for "nothing left to lose”

[Tamrin]

Be prepared, work hard, and hope for a little luck. Recognize that the harder
you work and the better prepared you are, the more luck you might have


I'd watch my father get up at 5 o'clock and go down to the Eastern
Market in Detroit to do the shopping for his restaurant, and get that
business going and then go out on his vending machine business


My mother worked in factories, worked as a domestic,
worked in a restaurant, always had a second job


You can work hard to sharpen your talent, to get better at what-
ever it is that you do, and I think that's what it comes back to


I will not go into a story unprepared. I will do my home-
work, and that's something I learned at an early age


We were the first and thank God we're still ticking. We were the first at what we did,
the first newsmagazine program. Today, the television landscape is littered with them


You know, I think I still have a sense that no matter what you do,
no matter what you achieve, no matter how much success you have,
no matter how much money you have, relationships are important


Ed Bradley, Jr.
American journalist (CBS News)
(Born this day 1941)



I stayed three weeks in Paris, fell in love with the city,
and decided that I was born to live in Paris

[Tamrin]

All that you touch you change. All that you change changes you.
The only lasting truth is change. God is change


Beware: Ignorance protects itself. Ignorance promotes suspicion. Suspicion engenders
fear. Fear quails, irrational and blind, or fear looms, defiant and closed. Blind,
closed, suspicious, afraid, ignorance protects itself, and protected, Ignorance grows


Beware: All too often, we say what we hear others say. We think what we are told
that we think. We see what we are permitted to see. Worse! We see what we are
told that we see. Repetition and pride are the keys to this. To hear and to see even
an obvious lie again and again and again may be to say it, almost by reflex then to
defend it because we have said it and at last to embrace it because we've defended it


Choose your leaders with wisdom and forethought.
To be led by a coward is to be controlled by all that the coward fears.
To be led by a fool is to be led by the opportunists who control the fool.
To be led by a thief is to offer up your most precious treasures to be stolen.
To be led by a liar is to ask to be lied to.
To be led by a tyrant is to sell yourself and those you love into slavery


To survive, let the past teach you — Past customs, struggles, leaders and
thinkers. Let these help you. Let them inspire you, warn you, give you
strength. But beware: God is change. Past is past. What was cannot come
again. To survive, know the past. Let it touch you. Then let the past go


People have the right to call themselves whatever they like.
That doesn't bother me. It's other people doing the calling that bothers me


To get along with God, consider the consequences of your behavior


Octavia E. Butler
American science fiction writer (Kindred)
(Born this day 1947)



In order to rise from its own ashes a phoenix first must burn

[Tamrin]

Markets work. Capitalism works with a set of rules. We can make the system
work with regulation. I'm not somebody who believes it's time to throw the whole
thing out. But regulation has got to support it. And the way it supports it, is it
increases transparency in this system, it increases honesty in the system. It increases
accountability in the system. When you get those things there's plenty of room to
make profits. There's plenty of room to be rich, I'm all for that. But it's got to be
profits that were made honestly. It's got to be profits made from bringing some-
thing new and valuable to the marketplace not just figuring out the newest trend


People feel like the system is rigged against them. And here's the painful part:
they're right. The system is rigged. Look around. Oil companies guzzle down
billions in subsidies. Billionaires pay lower tax rates than their secretaries.
Wall Street CEOs —the same ones who wrecked our economy and destroyed
millions of jobs — still strut around Congress, no shame, demanding favors, and
acting like we should thank them. Anyone here have a problem with that? Well I do


There's been such a sense that there's one set of rules for trillion-dollar financial instit-
utions and a different set for all the rest of us. It's so pervasive that it's not even hidden


It is impossible to buy a toaster that has a one-in-five chance of bursting into flames
and burning down your house. But it is possible to refinance an existing home with
a mortgage that has the same one-in-five chance of putting the family out on the
street — and the mortgage won't even carry a disclosure of that fact to the home-
owner. Similarly, it's impossible to change the price on a toaster once it has been pur-
chased. But long after the papers have been signed, it is possible to triple the price
of the credit used to finance the purchase of that appliance, even if the customer meets
all the credit terms, in full and on time. Why are consumers safe when they purchase
tangible consumer products with cash, but when they sign up for routine financial
products like mortgages and credit cards they are left at the mercy of their creditors?


Good public schools, good public universities, and good technical training
can give us a workforce better than any in the world. Well-trained workers
are cost effective, and they can give us a powerful competitive advantage
in world markets. Investments in our people pay the highest dividends


Too many have been using scare tactics when it comes to Social Security.
Social Security can pay 100% of benefits for at least the next 20 years. Instead
of taking on special interests, too many politicians have proposed privatizing
Medicare, turning it into a voucher program, or cutting it altogether. I will not
support privatizing Medicare, turning it into a voucher program, or cutting benefits


We need to make it easier for workers who want to organize to have the chance to do so.
If people want to work together for better wages, for better health care,
and for better working conditions, they should have the right to do so


Elizabeth Warren
American Senator, attorney, educator and author
(Born this day 1949)



There is nobody in this country who got rich on their own. Nobody.
You built a factory out there — good for you. But I want to be clear. You moved your
goods to market on roads the rest of us paid for. You hired workers the rest of us paid
to educate. You were safe in your factory because of police forces and fire forces that
the rest of us paid for. You didn't have to worry that marauding bands would come and
seize everything at your factory... Now look. You built a factory and it turned into some-
thing terrific or a great idea — God bless! Keep a hunk of it. But part of the underlying
social contract is you take a hunk of that and pay forward for the next kid who comes along

[Tamrin]

Science, I am told, is making great strides, experimenting, groping after things
which no sane man has ever dreamed of before — without being burned alive for it


Once a man strays out of the common herd,
he's more likely to meet wolves in the thickets than angels


It is very seldom that one encounters what would appear to be sheer unadult-
erated evil in a human face; an evil, I mean, active, deliberate, deadly,
dangerous. Folly, heedlessness, vanity, pride, craft, meanness, stupidity — yes.
But even Iagos in this world are few, and devilry is as rare as witchcraft


I believe in the devil, in the Powers of Darkness, Lawford, as firmly as I believe
he and they are powerless — in the long run. They — what shall we say? —
have surrendered their intrinsicality. You can just go through evil, as you can
go through a sewer, and come out on the other side. A loathsome process too


Lear, Macbeth. Mercutio – they live on their own as it were. The newspapers
are full of them, if we were only the Shakespeares to see it. Have you ever been
in a Police Court? Have you ever watched tradesmen behind their counters? My
soul, the secrets walking in the streets! You jostle them at every corner. There's
a Polonius in every first-class railway carriage, and as many Juliets as there are
boarding-schools ... How inexhaustibly rich everything is, if you only stick to life


The time's gone by for sentiment and all that foolery.
Mercy's all very well but after all, it's justice that clinches the bargain


What a haunting, inescapable riddle life was


Walter de la Mare, OM, CH
English poet, short story writer, and novelist
(Died this day 1956)



Hi! handsome hunting man fire your little gun. Bang!
Now the animal is dead and dumb and done. Nevermore to peep again,
creep again, leap again, Eat or sleep or drink again. Oh, what fun!

[Tamrin]

Telling someone about what a symbol means is like
telling someone how music should make them feel


Our minds sometimes see what our hearts wish were true


It seemed there was always a close correlation
between true believers and high body counts


The Bible is the product of man, my dear. Not of God. The Bible did not
fall magically from the clouds. Man created it as a historical record of tum-
ultuous times, and it has evolved through countless translations, additions,
and revisions. History has never had a definitive version of the book


Most Christians want it both ways. They want to be able to proudly
declare they are believers in the Bible and yet simply ignore those
parts they find too difficult or too inconvenient to believe


Those who truly understand their faiths understand the stories are metaphorical


Throughout history, every period of enlightenment has been accompanied
by darkness, pushing in opposition. Such are laws of nature and balance


Dan Brown
American author (The Da Vinci Code, The Lost Symbol)
(Born this day 1964)



The only difference between you and God is that you have forgotten you are divine

[Tamrin]

Problems are inevitable. Misery is a choice


When life's problems seem overwhelming, look around and see what
other people are coping with. You may consider yourself fortunate


Class is an aura of confidence that is being sure without being cocky. Class has
nothing to do with money. Class never runs scared. It is self-discipline and self-
knowledge. It's the sure-footedness that comes with having proved you can meet life


There are really only three types of people: those who make things happen,
those who watch things happen, and those who say, “What happened?”


Keep in mind that the true measure of an individual is
how he treats a person who can do him absolutely no good


If you have love in your life it can make up for a great many things you lack.
If you don't have it, no matter what else there is, it's not enough


Don't accept your dog's admiration as conclusive evidence that you are wonderful


Ann Landers (Ruth Crowley)
American advice columnist (Chicago Sun-Times)
(Died this day 2002)



The naked truth is always better than the best-dressed lie

[Tamrin]