Quotes of the day

Innocence is no defense against bureaucracy.--Rose Friedman

I believe that the financial crisis of 2008 was the mother of all frame jobs. The commercial bankers were framed, when it was really the central bankers that created the severe recession. --Scott Sumner

LIKE elaborately plumed birds…we preen and strut and display our t-values.--Ed Leamer

Like virtually every economist I know, I believe the right approach to limiting health spending is by reforming the tax rules. But if that is not going to happen, let's not destroy the high quality of the best of American health care by government rationing and misplaced egalitarianism.--Martin Feldstein

... if you are not a pivotal voter, announcing your true preferences and views does not necessarily help you get what you want.--Tyler Cowen

Direction–not intentions, hopes, dreams, prayers, beliefs, intellect, or education–determines destination.--Andy Stanley

Okay, what are the odds that half the people who signed up to boycott Whole Foods spend $200 a week there? The class of people who are most worked up over this is not necessarily contiguous with the class of people who drops $800 every single month at a single grocery store. --Megan McArdle

[Tom Brady has] probably toned it down a little this year. He hasn't had any sheep or farm animals in his shoots. From that, he's done pretty well.--Dan Koppen

The New York Times reported that Ms. Leibovitz didn’t have “a taste for luxuries” and wasn’t an “expensive liver” who went to parties. Apparently, owning a penthouse and sprawling townhouse in Manhattan, along with the former Astor compound in Rhinebeck, N.Y., and a place in Paris (not to mention the Range Rover, trips to Paris, chef, housekeeper, live-in nanny and personal yoga instructor) don’t count as “luxuries.”--Robert Frank