Quotations with links

"In a worldwide capitalist system, different nations contend against each other to furnish the most congenial environment for investors. This intends that low tax is coerced, and consequently low province spending. This successively intends that public goods will be underestimated, and because welfare programs are so expensive they would besides should be confined in ambit, and so inequality gets worse. As capitalism goes more globalised, and wealthiness can be transferred even more promptly at lower cost, this outcome is getting stronger and stronger, so that antecedently successful assorted economies are now fighting excessively, and are being squeezed to react to the demands of capital and trim tax and outlay."--audrafrancopr

"Speaking of econs, mdm khoo today said that she received scripts stating that babies are merit goods because, like education, the government thinks that it is not enough and encourages people to have more babies. And she proceeded to say that this means that all of us are merit goods then. The way she said it was damn funny. Haha!"--Luo Zhi Qin

"I don't believe in libertarians. To describe that group of eccentric right-wingers and misanthropic ranters as 'libertarians' is to aid them in their undeserved appropriation of a word that does not belong to them and does not describe the intellectual history of their so-called movement."--Adrian Bleifuss Prados

"On a global level, many...workers have barely been 'freed' from the land by the first steps of primitive accumulation before finding themselves 'freed' again by the diminishing opportunities for wage slavery in the official economy of capitalism. "--C. Alexander

"The upshot is that connectivity is privilege. Not a privilege that should be abolished or rolled back, but one that should nevertheless be constantly recognized, addressed and struggled with in our daily lives. Disequilibria in connectivity leads to compounded relative inequality and implicit power dynamics, but because connectivity is what animates altruism (which provides absolute advances for all) the egalitarian solution in any context is always to expand connectivity for all."--William Gillis

"I fear that the irony-free security-culture that has been fostered since 9/11 is far more dangerous to America's survival as a free society than any terrorists-with-bombs could ever be."--Trish

"...[F]reedom is not a matter of making a selection from a menu provided by others, and not augmented by the expedient of being provided ever more items on the menu from which to make a selection."--Dale Carrico

"One thing about the 'rugged individual' paradigm is that it's bred & fed by a preoccupation with competition. Our culture is Way over the top in this particular proclivity- small towns, big towns, the countryside- it doesn't matter. Competition is great- but when 'it's the ONLY thing' (to paraphrase Vince Lombardi), without grounding, without balance, we're in trouble- because curiosity will be channeled into 'self-serving-ness' (or what Mr. Raban referred to as 'narcissism'). We lose by devaluing, dismissing, or even deriding Cooperation- in a number of ways and venues. However, ultimately it's Cooperation that builds communities; and Competition that fills prisons (when combined with the eternal pitch of 'Having = Being' aka 'go shopping- & everything will be alright)... ^..^"--Herbert Browne

"And, the last time I visited my local stationery store (to buy the supplies I needed to feed my own shameful paper habit), I discovered that the cost of recycled paper was actually 10-30% more than standard paper! I steadfastly bought the more expensive recycled pack, and when I got home, I made sure to hug my favourite trees, telling them what I went through on their behalf (they were not very sympathetic)."--Theo Bromine