Paraphrased, but accurate...

I'm still surprised at how many people cannot distinguish between the American economy and the American stock market.

The American economy is the sum of all the goods and services that are produced in this economy every day. Electronics, vehicles, chickens, cross country shipments. That's the American economy, and it's independently strong or weak from the stock market.

The stock market is something very different. There is no economy and no production of goods and services. There are only fantasies in which people from one hour to the next decide that this or that company is worth so many billions, more or less. It doesn't have a thing to do with reality or with the American economy.

It does not matter at all whether the stock market drops or rises. It only means that a bunch of heavy speculators are now moving their shareholdings from one place to another. In order to protect their clients' profit interests, they systematically and deliberately damage the American economy.

--Paraphrased from The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Steig Larsson

Quote of the Day

"Ain't it funny how many hundreds of thousands of soldiers we can recruit with nerve. But we just can't find one politician in a million with backbone." --American humorist Will Rogers (1879-1935)

Quote of the Day

"Since there are many more conservatives than liberals, and conservatives have so many guns, people often wonder why conservatives don't just round up all the liberals and ship them to Antarctica to be forced to mine for jewels and gold. Well, there is a very good reason for that: by a strict constructionist interpretation of the American Constitution, there is no support for being able to deport liberals to a mining camp. Now, if conservatives were a bit more flexible with their view of the Constitution, they would say things like, 'Well, we have to remember it's a living document, and the Founding Fathers hadn't even thought of the threat of hippies running around free when they wrote it.' And then they'd look to the Commerce Clause and say, 'Well, keeping liberals from meddling in America and forcing them do something useful like mining sure would help the economy, so it's within the government's power.' And then it'd just be a manner of scheduling all the boats to get liberals to Antarctica. But that would violate the spirit of the Constitution since, by plain English interpretations of the government's powers, we can't forcefully ship liberals to Antarctica no matter how much people may think that would help the country. And that's the point of the Constitution: people are constantly changing their ideas of what is good and bad, but the Constitution is much harder to change. It puts limits on what the government can do, and those limits can only be changed when huge majorities agree to it through the amendment process. And even after ObamaCare, there inexplicably isn't enough support for a 'Liberals Are to Be Sent to Mines in Antarctica' amendment." --humor columnist Frank J. Fleming

Quote of the Day

"But don't forget, the people who conclude that the actions of a lunatic prove that the Tea Party inspires violence are the same people who conclude that record cold winters are proof of global warming." --columnist Ross Kaminsky

Quote of the Day

"The Tucson atrocity has prompted the usual tedious calls for more gun laws. The distinguishing characteristic of every 'gun-free utopia' on earth is a mountain of bullet-riddled corpses. The great wisdom of our Second Amendment is that self-defense is an inalienable right of free men and women. Stripped of that right, they are sheep, whose 'protection' consists of endless attempts to outlaw wolves." --columnist John Hayward

Quote of the Day

"This shouldn't happen in this country or anywhere else, but in a free society, we're going to be subject to people like this. I prefer this to the alternative." --John Green, the father of 9-year-old Christina Green, who was murdered in Tucson

Quote of the Day

"Far from serving as fodder for the anti-gunners (save as they pervert the story to make it fit their template), the shooting in Tucson reminds us that when the criminal mind acts on its inclinations, its would-be victims must be prepared to take the necessary steps to stop the perpetrator in his tracks. Clearly, this is best achieved by lawfully carrying a handgun on our persons: a handgun with which we are familiar, and which we are willing to use to defend our own lives and the lives of other innocents." --columnist AWR Hawkins

Quote of the Day

"I contend that for a nation to try to tax itself into prosperity is like a man standing in a bucket and trying to lift himself up by the handle." -- Winston Churchill

Quote of the Day

"If you love wealth more than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, depart from us in peace. We ask not your counsel nor your arms. Crouch down and lick the hand that feeds you. May your chains rest lightly upon you and may posterity forget that you were our countrymen." --Samuel Adams

Quote of the Day

"The democracy will cease to exist when you take away from those who are willing to work and give to those who would not." --Thomas Jefferson

Quote of the Day

“In assembling a staff, the conservative leader faces a greater problem than does the liberal. In general, liberals want more government and hunger to be the ones running it. Conservatives want less government and want no part of it. Liberals want to run other people's lives. Conservatives want to be left alone to run their own lives.... Liberals flock to government; conservatives have to be enticed and persuaded. With a smaller field to choose from, the conservative leader often has to choose between those who are loyal and not bright and those who are bright but not loyal." --Robert A. Nisbet