Quoticles

Disjointed but topical quotes I've run across recently:

The distribution of a trillion dollars by a political institution -- the federal government -- will be nonpolitical? How could it be? Either markets allocate resources, or government -- meaning politics -- allocates them
- George Will, NY Times Column
(right on G!)

The cause of the "bust" is the same as the cause of the previous "boom" - the willy-nilly creation of credit out of thin air, for the purposes of creating political and economic advantage in the short term.
- David McGregor, Sovereign Life
(where have I read that before? Oh yeah, on my blog!)

The statesman who should attempt to direct private people in what manner they ought to employ their capitals would not only load himself with a most unnecessary attention, but assume an authority which could safely be trusted, not only to no single person, but to no council or senate whatever, and which would nowhere be so dangerous as in the hands of a man who had folly and presumption enough to fancy himself fit to exercise it.
-Adam Smith

The real threat to the Republican Party is something we saw a lot of this past election cycle: libertarianism masked as conservatism. And it threatens to not only split the Republican Party, but render it as irrelevant as the Whig Party.
- Mike Huckabee, Do the Right Thing,
(uh, Mike you may have that backwards. As far as I'm concerned, the Republican party has abandoned its conservative, libertarian roots ... and in doing so, risks making itself irrelevant.)

The theorem of the economic impossibility of socialism: According to this theorem, it is impossible to organize society, in terms of economics, based on coercive commands issued by a planning agency, since such a body can never obtain the information it needs to infuse its commands with a coordinating nature. Indeed, nothing is more dangerous than to indulge in the fatal conceit of believing oneself omniscient or at least wise and powerful enough to be able to keep the most suitable monetary policy fine-tuned at all times
- Ludwig von Mises and Friedrich A. Hayek

[Competition] is a process of formation of opinion ... It creates views that people have about what is best and cheapest"
- Friedrich A. Hayek, the Meaning of Competition 1948

Rent extraction is the practice of using regulatory powers to pressure private interests into donating money to politicians or political parties.
- Economist Fred McChesney