Quotes from the wise : Week ending January 18th

(Given that this is a historic weekend with Monday being the commemoration of a dream and Tuesday the fufillment of same, here are some quotes from the wayback machine...)

'I am a most unhappy man. I have unwittingly ruined my country. A great industrial nation is controlled by its system of credit. Our system of credit is concentrated. The growth of the nation, therefore, and all our activities are in the hands of a few men. We have come to be one of the worst ruled, one of the most completely controlled and dominated Governments in the civilized world - no longer a Government by free opinion, no longer a Government by conviction and the vote of the majority, but a Government by the opinion and duress of a small group of dominant men.' - President Woodrow Wilson reflecting upon his signing into law the Federal Reserve Act

'Owners of capital will stimulate the working class to buy more and more of expensive goods, houses and technology, pushing them to take more and more expensive credits, until their debt becomes unbearable. The unpaid debt will lead to bankruptcy of banks, which will have to be nationalised, and the State will have to take the road which will eventually lead to communism' -Karl Marx, Das Kapital, 1867

'After ten weeks of stormy trial, Chicago's John Bain, 64-year-old founder of a chain of twelve small banks that failed at one crack last year, was last week convicted of conspiracy to defraud depositors. Scottish immigrant, onetime plumber, Bankster Bain had prospered in real estate, then branched into banking. Bankster Bain was sentenced to the penitentiary for one to five years.' - Time Magazine Monday, Sep. 05, 1932 (first use of term bankster I could find outside of the Pecora Commission)

(fast-forward to present day ...)

'The ‘China-responsible theory’ is an attempt by major western economies to find an excuse for their own policy and regulatory failures. I’m afraid these countries are also finding an excuse to issue trade protection measures or impose pressure on China in the future. This view is extremely ridiculous and irresponsible and it’s ‘gangster logic,’' Zhang Jianhua, head of the People's Bank of China' research bureau