[I]t is of the greatest consequence that the debt should … be remoulded into such a shape as will bring the expenditure of the nation to a level with its income. Till this shall be accomplished, the finances of the United States will never wear proper countenance.
Category: economics
Debt overthrows public morality
Allow a government to decline paying its debts and you overthrow all public morality — you unhinge all the principles that preserve the limits of free constitutions. Nothing can more affect national prosperity than a constant and systematic attention to extinguish the present debt and to avoid as much as possible the incurring of any new debt.
Public debt is our greatest enemy
I place economy among the first and most important virtues and public debt as the greatest dangers to be feared … We must not let our rulers load us with perpetual debt. We must make our choice between economy and liberty or profusion and servitude … The same prudence which in private life would forbid our paying money for unexplained projects, forbids it in the disposition of public money. We are endeavoring to reduce the government to the practice of rigid economy to avoid burdening the people.
Enlightened free-market
I own myself the friend to a very free system of commerce, and hold it as a truth, that commercial shackles are generally unjust, oppressive and impolitic — it is also a truth, that if industry and labour are left to take their own course, they will generally be directed to those objects which are the most productive, and this in a more certain and direct manner than the wisdom of the most enlightened legislature could point out.
Inflation
Inflation is as violent as a mugger, as frightening as an armed robber, and as deadly as a hitman.
Taxation without representation
Inflation is taxation without representation.
The free market
The common man is the sovereign consumer whose buying or abstention from buying ultimately determines what should be produced and in what quantity and quality.
Economics 101
You don’t make the poor richer by making the rich poorer.
Virtue of free markets
By virtue of exchange, one man’s prosperity is beneficial to all others.
What is ‘just’
What’s ‘just’ has been debated for centuries, but let me offer you my definition of social justice: I keep what I earn and you keep what you earn. Do you disagree? Well then, tell me how much of what I earn ‘belongs’ to you — and why?