Quotes of the Week

From the Light:

"If you made this presentation to get a bank loan, I suspect any sensible banker would systematically reject your request." Sen. Richard Shelby, R-Ala, in response to the most recent begging of the Big 3 dinosaurs. [Proof that even corrupt politi-gangsters can have brief bouts of clear thinking.]

“For those who reside within the bunkers and gated communities of the Power Elite, the rest of us are useful only as something to be consumed: We are producers whose earnings can be taxed, whose properties can be seized, whose children can be conscripted.”

Will Grigg

“And then there’s this business of having a black president. It seemed like a good idea. We’ve had white ones forever and it hasn’t worked, so a black one made sense. We have now established that a black president is exactly like a white one. Next time, maybe a Melanesian or Lao. I hoped O’Bama would stand in the Rose Garden and holler, “You blue-eyed muhfuhs done got it all wrong, and I’m gonna unscrew things.” No. Smart guy, decent guy, guy you could heist a brew with and tell dirty stories, but it’s business as usual. Same tired hacks.”

“I don’t get it. This is the country that produced Peggy Lee and Tampa Red and the ’fitty-sedden Chevy, the country that spits techno-whizz golf carts onto Mars just like it was even possible, that brought the hamburger to gorgeous bejuiced perfection and invented most of the modern world. It’s the home of sand-lot baseball and Little Peggy March and BB guns and Tasty Freeze. It is, in a phrase, one fine place.
How did it sink to being a proto-Soviet surveillance state that builds vast awful Visitor Centers in the style of a Hitlerian mauseoleum? You can’t go to the john without a photo ID anymore. Something ain’t right.”
Fred Reed

“Virtue is not advanced by written laws but by the habits of everyday life; for the majority of men tend to assimilate the manners and morals amid which they have been reared. Furthermore, where there is a multitude of specific laws, it is a sign that the state is badly governed.”
Isocrates

From the Darkness:

"So what we have tried to do, in contrast, is be aggressive as possible, to use all the tools we have to try to stabilize the financial system, to try and prevent the system from - from breaking down."
Ben Bernanke

"I may make my own mistakes, but I don't want to make somebody else's mistakes. And I've tried to learn that from the historical experience."

Ben Bernanke, who’s “historical experience” must not go back very far.

“We're here today because we made mistakes, which we're learning from; because forces beyond our control have pushed us to the brink. Most importantly we're here because saving General Motors, and all this company represents, is a job worth doing."
GM CEO Rick Wagoner

"We won't just throw money at the problem, We'll measure progress by the reforms we make and the results we achieve — by the jobs we create, by the energy we save, by whether America is more competitive in the world."
The Man With Melanin promoting his Soviet style economic central planning.