Quotes of Interest---Missionary's Position

I love quotes, and they do not have to be from famous people but, in truth, many of the best ones come for the famous and the infamous. Capitalism has been under attack in recent years because of its habit of exploiting every resource on the face of earth---and just maybe, in the end,  being our down fall.  It appears to be a form of economics that just may have to go, so we now hear of Biophysical Economics and Stable State Economics. Here are a few comments on Capitalism from the famous.

Here is Al Capone."Capitalism is the legitimate racket of the ruling class."  

Then we have Milton Friedman of the Chicago School of Disaster Economics  (read The Shock Doctrine), "The problem of social organization is how to set up an arrangement under which greed will do the least harm, capitalism is that kind of a system." He is the love child of the conservatives along with Ayn Rand. He also is the economic cause of hundreds of thousands of deaths----but still loved.

John Maynard Keynes said, "Capitalism is the astounding belief that the most wickedest of men will do the most wickedest of things for the greatest good of everyone." But when it is not doing the greatest good, then what---ooops!

The odd part of their view is that, even though they might have won Pulitzers none of them, except Capone ever considered resources to be finite. They honestly thought the stuff was endless---never took a course in science, or math (exponential function important) . Wow! "Mother nature bats last, dude".

I love the language use of James Kuntzler. "The religious nuts and Dixieland ignoranti will demand the expulsion of all non-extremists and Karl Rove will be left at the Nascar track with Honey Boo Boo on his lap and a dwindling "base" of shrieking microcephalics awaiting the second coming of Adolf Hitler in a green satin Mountain Dew race-day jumpsuit." Beautiful if I don't say. A wonderful image. 

Meadows (author of Limits to Growth): "The problem that faces our societies is that we have developed industries and policies that were appropriate at a certain moment, but now start to reduce human welfare, like for example the oil and car industry. Their political and financial power is so great and they can prevent change. It is my expectation that they will succeed. This means that we are going to evolve through crisis, not through proactive change."

 "I am using oil because I don’t want dinosaurs to have died in vain." Smart ass individual of an unknown source

 “When you are surrounded by something so big that requires you to change everything about the way you think and see the world, then denial is the natural response. But the longer we wait, the bigger the response required.”  Paul Guilding

“We have become a Nazi monster in the eyes of the world-a nation of bullies and bastards who would rather kill than live peacefully. We are not just Whores for power and oil, but killer Whores with hate and fear in our hearts. We are human scum and that is how history will remember us.” (Hunter S. Thompson) To think that I sat in his favorite stool at the Woody Creek Bar in the Aspen Valley. I believe his ashes were sent into space or did his friends send them skyward along with a bottle of Wild Turkey using a bazooka.