Quotes of the day

Complexity is an ally of bureaucracy because anything that the public cannot figure out is effectively autonomous and removed from public scrutiny--John Carney

I diversify widely as an admission of ignorance.--Less Antman

We’re in a government-dependent financial system; I never thought I’d see the day.--Paul Volcker

We have no rule of law in this country. We slammed Russia for years, saying we would not do business there because there was no rule of law. Look what’s happening here. We don’t know what Congress will do next. They’re ignoring all the old rules, and they’re making new rules whenever they want.--Wall Street executive

Dr. Goolsbee: I’ll Stop Impersonating an Economist If You Quit Underwriting Mortgage Loans--Tanta

I am beginning to consider the possibility that [Maxine Waters'] entire career on the House Financial Services Committee is some sort of elaborate performance art.--Megan McArdle

Securities based on risky mortgages are what toppled financial institutions but it was the government that made the mortgages risky in the first place, by making home-ownership statistics the holy grail, for which everything else was to be sacrificed, including commonsense standards for making home loans.--Thomas Sowell

Public Outrage as a Systemic Risk: without bankruptcy, it is hard to avoid rewarding failure.--Philip Levy

[Mark Haines and his CNBC colleagues] want rapid action on money issues when everything works out but condemn the action when it doesn’t.--Stan Collender

Even if it’s a totally different situation, you have to get the financial system in order and in order to do that you have to get confidence. Franklin Roosevelt did it by closing all the banks and reopening the sound ones, we did it with a blanket guarantee to creditors and depositors. And Japan, well, they didn't do anything, to be honest. Now the question is what can be done in the US. You don't need the same techniques, but you need to restore confidence.--Bo Lundgren, architect of the Swedish bank nationalization

Obama comes from the tradition that thinks you can get your way on social justice and economic issues without affecting productivity very much—and that's simply living in a dream world. [Obama and his economics team] are very smart, but the problem is these high-IQ guys always think they can square the circle; they always believe they can beat the system with a cleverer system, and they always fail.--Richard Epstein

Using sex as a basis for charging a person with a felony is a slippery slope to go down. The truth is, currently, boys and men are being punished in our society for their gender as payback by feminists and their enablers, and no one cares except for their families, the men and boys who are harmed by this, and a few good men and women.--Helen Smith