Presidents’ Day Quotes

submitted by jwithrow.George Washington

For your reading pleasure, here is a compilation of pertinent quotes from the first four American Presidents in honor of Presidents’ Day.

George Washington:

  • “If the freedom of speech is taken away then dumb and silent we may be led, like sheep to the slaughter.”
  • “Government is not reason; it is not eloquent; it is force. Like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master.”
  • “The very atmosphere of firearms anywhere and everywhere restrains evil interference – they deserve a place of honor with all that’s good.”
  • “The marvel of all history is the patience with which men and women submit to burdens unnecessarily laid upon them by their governments.”
  • “Happiness and moral duty are inseparably connected.”
  • “It will be found an unjust and unwise jealousy to deprive a man of his natural liberty upon the supposition he may abuse it.”
  • “Truth will ultimately prevail where there is pains to bring it to light.”
  • “Labor to keep alive in your breast that little spark of celestial fire, called conscience.”
  • “Over grown military establishments are under any form of government inauspicious to liberty, and are to be regarded as particularly hostile to republican liberty.”
  • “Observe good faith and justice toward all nations. Cultivate peace and harmony with all.”

John Adams:John Adams

  • “Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passions, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence.”
  • “All the perplexities, confusions, and distress in America arise, not from defects in their constitution or confederation, not from want of honor or virtue, so much as from the downright ignorance of the nature of coin, credit, and circulation.”
  • “Democracy… while it lasts is more bloody than either aristocracy or monarchy. Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There is never a democracy that did not commit suicide.”
  • “Power always thinks… that it is doing God’s service when it is violating all his laws.”
  • “Liberty cannot be preserved without general knowledge among the people.”
  • “Abuse of words has been the great instrument of sophistry and chicanery, of party, faction, and division of society.”
  • “Fear is the foundation of most governments.”
  • “Liberty, according to my metaphysics is a self-determining power in an intellectual agent. It implies thought and choice and power.”

Thomas Jefferson:Thomas Jefferson

  • “If we can but prevent the government from wasting the labours of the people, under the pretence of taking care of them, they must become happy.”
  • “I never considered a difference of opinion in politics, in religion, in philosophy, as cause for withdrawing from a friend.”
  • “Honesty is the first chapter in the book of wisdom.”
  • “Nothing can stop the man with the right mental attitude from achieving his goal; nothing on earth can help the man with the wrong mental attitude.”
  • “The glow of one warm thought is to me worth more than money.”
  • “I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies.”
  • “Experience hath shewn, that even under the best forms of government those entrusted with power have, in time, and by slow operations, perverted it into tyranny.”
  • “Our greatest happiness does not depend on the condition of life in which chance has placed us, but is always the result of a good conscience, good health, occupation, and freedom in all just pursuits.”
  • “To compel a man to furnish funds for the propagation of ideas he disbelieves and abhors is sinful and tyrannical.”
  • “It is incumbent on every generation to pay its own debts as it goes. A principle which if acted on would save one-half the wars of the world.”
  • “The constitutions of most of our States assert that all power is inherent in the people; that… it is their right and duty to be at all times armed.”

James Madison:James Madison

  • “If Tyranny and Oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy.”
  • “It will be of little avail to the people that the laws are made by men of their own choice if the laws be so voluminous that they cannot be read, or so incoherent that they cannot be understood.”
  • “Americans have the right and advantage of being armed – unlike the citizens of other countries whose governments are afraid to trust the people with arms.”
  • “I believe there are more instances of the abridgement of freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments by those in power than by violent and sudden usurpations.”
  • “No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare.”
  • “The means of defense against foreign danger historically have become the instruments of tyranny at home.”
  • “Where an excess of power prevails, property of no sort is duly respected. No man is safe in his opinions, his person, his faculties, or his possessions.”
  • “In Republics, the great danger is, that the majority may not sufficiently respect the rights of the minority.”

Sound Money

submitted by jwithrow.CurrenciesinGold100years

The most important facet of free market capitalism is sound money. If you don’t have sound money then you don’t have free market capitalism – you have something else.

Sound money is simply money that serves as a reliable store of value. Put another way, sound money is money that does not constantly lose its purchasing power. Sound money affords one a reasonable expectation that one unit of money today will buy the same amount of goods and services as one unit of money tomorrow. And next month. And ten years from now.

What a novel concept!

Anyone who has taken a finance course is familiar with the time value of money principle. In finance class, we learn to discount our money over time based on the inflation rate. We are taught, correctly, that present dollars are worth more than future dollars.

What we are not taught is that this is a deformation of free market capitalism!

The general market has chosen gold and silver to serve as money throughout most of history because the precious metals are particularly well suited for this purpose: they are limited in supply, they have functional utility outside of the monetary system, and, unlike our money today, they cannot be created from nothing.

Make no mistake about it, that’s where our money comes from today: nothing. It is created from nothing and then loaned into existence at interest. See the Hidden Secrets of Money video series for a more thorough examination of our money.

You see, money should not be a function of government nor should it be a function of a central bank behind closed doors. And it certainly shouldn’t be created from nothing. This is why the U.S. Constitution only authorizes gold and silver as legal tender; the Founders knew well the virtues of sound money and the dangers of fiat currency.

Did you know that the U.S. dollar was defined by the Coinage Act of 1792 to be 371.25 grains of fine silver? This act set the standard weight and measure of the dollar in terms of silver and individuals in the market were still free to accept or reject coins of differing weights and measures as they saw fit.

But we digress.

Here is why sound money is important to you:Thomas Jefferson Money Quote

Every dollar to your name is constantly losing value and there is no way for you to predict how much value your savings will lose over time.

This is a direct result of the monetary system that is in place whereby central banks create money from nothing and then lend that money to governments and to commercial banks at interest. That money then enters the economy when governments spend it and when commercial banks lend it out to customers. This is done constantly and it is why your money constantly loses value. Such a system has a profound impact on people from every walk of life.

How can we accurately plan for anything long-term if our money is constantly losing value? We can only guess.

What we do know from history is that sound money leads to a stable economy while fiat money leads to booms and busts.

The general market prefers the former while big government prefers the latter.

For more information on the sound money principle see the article links below. For a lot more information on sound money and monetary history see the book links below.

The Principle of Sound Money

The Simplicity of Sound Money

An Introduction to Sound Money