"The old adage about giving a man a fish versus teaching him to fish has been updated by a reader: Give a man a fish and he will ask for tartar sauce and French fries! Moreover, some politician who wants his vote will declare all these things to be among his "basic rights."
"Considering how often throughout history even intelligent people have been proved to be wrong, it is amazing that there are still people who are convinced that the only reason anyone could possibly say something different from what they believe is stupidity or dishonesty."
"What makes the current reparations movement a fraud, whether at Brown University or in the country at large, is the attempt to depict slavery as something uniquely done to blacks by whites. Reparations advocates are doing this for the same reason that Willie Sutton robbed banks: That's where the money is."
"Even the Soviet Union, with its huge nuclear arsenal, was a threat that could be deterred by the prospect of retaliation. But suicide bombers cannot be deterred. They can only be annihilated -- pre-emptively and unilaterally, if necessary."
"(A) shortage is a sign that somebody is keeping the price artificially lower than it would be if supply and demand were allowed to operate freely."
"Does anyone seriously believe that, if we begin creating international trade restrictions to limit the outsourcing of American jobs, other countries will not pass similar restrictions on the outsourcing of their jobs to America?"
"Back during the Great Depression of the 1930s, when unemployment in the United States hit a high of 25 percent, one of the many foolish things the government did was create international trade restrictions designed to save American jobs. Other countries around the world created similar restrictions to save their own workers' jobs. Net result: world trade in 1933 was one-third of what it had been in 1929, making everybody poorer and therefore less able to create jobs. Many economists have blamed these restrictions for making the depression worse and longer lasting."
"The government can always save 10,000 jobs -- at a cost of 50,000 other jobs. If the jobs that are saved are in one industry, represented by vocal spokesmen, and the 50,000 lost jobs are spread thinly across the country in two's and three's here and there, then this is a good deal for the politician who becomes a hero to those 10,000 voters whose jobs he saved. This is obviously not a good deal for those who lose their jobs but they may not even know why. Moreover, when they are not concentrated in one place or in one industry, they are unlikely to come to the attention of the media. So they don't count politically."
"People who enjoy meetings should not be in charge of anything."
"It is amazing that people who think we cannot afford to pay for doctors, hospitals, and medication somehow think that we can afford to pay for doctors, hospitals, medication and a government bureaucracy to administer "universal health care."
"There are few talents more richly rewarded with both wealth and power, in countries around the world, than the ability to convince backward people that their problems are caused by other people who are more advanced."
"Those who pose as the biggest champions of the poor are almost invariably the biggest opponents of means tests. They want bigger government and the poor are just a means to that end. Whether the issue is housing, medical care or innumerable other things, the argument will be made that the poor are unable to get some benefit that the government ought to provide for them. But the minute you accept that, the switch takes place and suddenly we are no longer talking about some benefit confined to the poor but about "universal health care" or "affordable housing" as a "right" for everyone."
"Those who now talk about a need for "iron-clad proof" are talking election-year nonsense when it comes to national survival. When the planes flew into the World Trade Center, that was iron-clad proof. When the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, that was iron-clad proof. We cannot wait for iron-clad proof in a nuclear age."
"There are no solutions...(t)here are only trade-offs."
"This election year we are sure to hear a lot about "special interests." Candidates of both major parties, as well as candidates of third or fourth parties, are sure to denounce special interests both hotly and repeatedly. The secret of these verbal fireworks from all parts of the political spectrum is that only the groups supporting one's opponents are called special interests. Politicians do not call their own supporters special interests. Therefore every candidate can be against special interests, and they differ only in how often and how loudly they say it -- and in the particular groups to whom they apply that label."
"Over the years, trial lawyer John Edwards won more than $60 million in damage awards. Put differently, he alone added $60 million to the cost of medical care."
"(In America) obesity is even more common among low-income people than among high-income people."
"Those who vent their moral indignation over low pay for Third World workers employed by multinational companies ignore the plain fact that these workers' employers are usually supplying them with better opportunities than they had before, while those who are morally indignant on their behalf are providing them with nothing."
"Pay rates raised without regard to productivity are a virtual guarantee of unemployment, whether it is done in the name of ending "exploitation" in the Third World or providing "a living wage" in the United States."
"Back when Hong Kong was a British colony and its wage rates were set by supply and demand, the Wall Street Journal reported that its unemployment rate was less than 2 percent. Then, after China took over Hong Kong and mandated various worker benefits -- which add to labor costs, the same as higher wage rates -- Hong Kong's unemployment rate went over 8 percent. This was not high by European standards but it was unprecedented for Hong Kong. There is no free lunch in any part of the world."
"By and large, multinational companies pay about double the local wages in Third World countries. As for "exploitation," the vast majority of American investment overseas goes to high-wage countries, not low-wage countries."
"In (Peter) Drucker's words, "Nobody seems to realize that we import twice or three times as many jobs as we export. I'm talking about the jobs created by foreign companies coming into the U.S.," such as Japanese automobile plants making Toyotas and Hondas on American soil. "Siemens alone has 60,000 employees in the United States," Drucker points out. "We are exporting low-skill, low-paying jobs but are importing high-skill, high-paying jobs."
