Quotes of the day

Hedge funds don’t employ a lot of voters; they have small staffs.--Bill Ackman

... the bigger the unproductive firm, the more vital it is to let it fail--Don Boudreaux

But whatever your feeling about government intervention in the economy, or the correct level of income inequality, I think there's one thing we can all agree on: for the world to get better, things that don't work have to fail. We cannot keep alive every company, every car and every job that someone once liked, because that way lies stagnation and death. Places where production decisions are made based on how much labor they can consume, rather than how much value they can produce, make everyone in society worse off in the long run.--Megan McArdle

... happiness rises with money, good health and a successful marriage, but falls as a person’s “expected income” rises. Expected income is the income that another person of the same age, sex and education level would typically earn. In other words, more educated people have richer peers and so tend to be less satisfied.--Tim Harford

The U.S. Attorney thus exercised more prosecutorial restraint than Mr. Spitzer ever showed to his targets as he sought to build his political career.--WSJ Editorial Board

Here we finally have a technology [Blackberry] giving presidents the power to peer outside their protective bubble. And what do we do? We take it away amidst worries about security and lawsuits.--Stephen Green

The difference between death and taxes is death doesn’t get worse every time Congress meets.--Will Rogers

Genocide once, shame on you. Genocide twice, shame on me.--James Taranto, on Susan Rice

I have written for perhaps a dozen major publications over the span of my career, and the one with the most thorough fact-checking process is by some margin Sports Illustrated.--Nate Silver (via Chris Masse)

Almost every non-English speaking NATO soldier adds to the logistical problem while adding nothing to our combat power. --Stephen Green

Film reviewers will be quick to link the movie to current President George W. Bush - and his alleged high crimes and misdemeanors. No critic (outside of Dirty Harry) will connect the film’s content to a president who actually got impeached.--Christian Toto