Bill Clinton Quotes
From time to time, capitalism has a tendency to implode.
William Clinton, 42nd President of the United States (Democrat, AR), Interview with Wolf Blitzer, CNN International, June 9, 2012
Sourced by: Eigen's Political and Historical Quotations
Arguably, for most of American History, most of the “smartest” people contributed to manufacturing, construction, research and development—activities that produce things that are wanted and/or needed. However, Wall Street began attracting and paying for some of the smartest people in the society, who when they engaged in finance—not only contributed less to manufacturing, but began to create highly complex financial instruments and procedures that few people could understand and with which regulators have difficulty understanding. These and the other schemes of financing have been major factors in the economic problems that have beset the economy including the meltdown of 2008 and the subsequent Great Rescission.
Unmindful of the steady economic prosperity during the 1920s in America, Comintern “assured” American Communists that the economic growth was about to make an abrupt U-turn.
In a capitalistic system, if a company is very successful, it drives its competitors out of business and this leads to monopoly in that field which kills capitalism which depends on competition.
One fourth of the entire Spanish population was out of work in a depression what was in part caused by government austerity required by the other European capitalist nations in exchange for loans to keep the county from total financial collapse. The protesters tended to blame capitalism itself rather than the particular manifestation of capitalism that Spanish politicians and business leaders had implemented in the past and how Europe was currently reacting. Clearly one weakness of capitalism at the time was that recessions and depressions were too frequent, hard to recover from, with the pain borne by the poor and middle class while the rich and upper class was able to maintain their standard of living and in some cases make even more money.
The Grammar Curmudgeon
Essentially Mellon told the President to let the entire economy crash. With huge numbers of people out of work, labor would be more humble and not only settle for lower wages, but will work harder, and without "excess" income beyond their basic needs, they would not drink and engage in other immoral activities. President Hoover, a wealthy man himself, did not go along with Mellon's idea of making the situation worse, but his conservative philosophy of government would not allow the Government to "interfere" with the private economy or give any direct assistance to the citizens.
This is one of the FDR quotations, which his opponents then, and many conservatives later, characterized as “class warfare.” This type of accusation has in part protected business leaders and those who control wealth from public accountability. Similar business leader resentment was levied against President Obama when he criticized the Bankers and Wall Street leaders whose behavior, in great part, was the cause of the economic meltdown and recession of 2008.
This is essentially what happened in the Economic Meltdown of 2008 leading to the Great Recession.
This quotation amazes many people who believe that Hoover caused the Great Depression and that Roosevelt and the Democrats accused him of this. Actually, as Mrs. Roosevelt says here, the causes were the policies of the Republicans who preceded Hoover. Hoover was actually to blame for not doing much about the Depression. He believed philosophically that the Government should not “intervene” in the market place and that government assistance to individuals would damage their character. Most Americans saw this as uncaring and callous.
This was an honest theoretical belief of Mises. However, most of the criticism of capitalism in the industrial democracies is precisely the lack of unemployment and sustenance for all. When it does, even complaints about inequality tend to be minimal. But some capitalist societies never provided these, and by the 21st century, no capitalist nation was able to do so permanently without recessions and depressions.
He was one of the very few people who warned about the market crash of 1929 and the Great Depression.
William Jefferson "Bill" Clinton is an American politician who was the 42nd President of the United States from 1993 to 2001. Clinton was previously Governor of Arkansas from 1979 to 1981 and 1983 to 1992, and the Arkansas Attorney General from 1977 to 1979. Clinton was born William Jefferson Blythe III – he changed to his stepfather's name at age 15.
