Hillary Clinton Quotes

Business, too, need to mend its ways. For many years various sections of American industry have asked for special legislation which offered a temporary benefit at the expense of normal economic processes. Business has asked for special subsidies and special tariffs, for special protection against price cutters or low cost producers, for government appropriations for this or that special purpose. Business cannot ask for government interference at one time, and then indignantly reject it at another.

Every coercive monopoly was created by government intervention into the economy: by special privileges, such as franchises or subsidies, which closed the entry of competitors into a given field, by legislative action.

No government can give a selective advantage to a specific company, because that would make competition unfair.

With some notable exceptions, businessmen favor free enterprise in general but are opposed to it when it comes to themselves.

Too many business have successfully lobbied for special favors and treatment by seeking mandates for their products, subsidies (in the form of cash payments from the government), and regulations and tariffs to keep more efficient competitors at bay. Crony capitalism is much easier than competing in an open market. But it erodes our overall standard of living and stifles entrepreneurs by rewarding the politically favored rather than those who provide what consumers want.

Here, as everywhere, Protection involves this great disadvantage, that, once given, it is difficult to withdraw …. the system, once established, led to perpetual wrangling on the part of rival industries

I have a very strong tool in competitional enforcement: To do merger control, to look into cartels, misuse of dominant position - when member states hand out favors, for instance, in terms of tax breaks. But even though that's a strong tool, it cannot solve everything.

In areas where competitive markets work well beyond question, they are constantly under attack by government—members of both parties.

If, as you say, the success of commercial society depends upon the full play of competition, why do not you and your confreres turn your attention and direct the shafts of your attacks against the trusts and corporations

The monopoly problem mankind has to face today is not an outgrowth of the operation of the market economy. It is a product of purposive action on the part of governments. It is not one of the evils inherent in capitalism as the demagogues trumpet. .

it's not only companies who can undermine fair competition. Governments can do it, too. And governments do that when they hand out subsidies to just the favorite few, the selected. They may do that when they hand out subsidies -- and, of course, all financed by taxpayers -- to companies. That may be in the form of special tax treatments, like the tax benefits that firms like Fiat, Starbucks and Apple got from some governments in Europe. Those subsidies stop companies from competing on equal terms. They can mean that the companies that succeed, well, they are the companies that got the most subsidy, the ones that are the best-connected, and not, as it should be, the companies that serve consumers the best.

The minute you hear subsidies, I don't care what, if it's health care, buying cars, the minute you hear subsidies, you have to understand, whatever's going on here, it isn't market forces.

Manufacturing and commercial monopolies owe their origin not to a tendency imminent in a capitalist economy but to governmental interventionist policy directed against free trade and laissez faire.

Basically, the myth is that America has been founded on the free market; the government has done very little; it has thrived under free trade. But actually, if you look at the history, this is actually the country that has succeeded most with protectionist policies.

Anticompetitive practices hurt Chinese private firms nearly as much as foreign ones.

I do not believe that the government is in any position to say exactly how every single business and every single activity shall reach those performances.

Our role is to maintain and monitor a framework in which fair competition can flourish.

There's not a single country that actually approaches economics in a pure, free market, capitalist way. I like the free market - but it very much exists only in textbooks. If I had a choice, and we could live in a very pure world, I would be a supporter of the free markets.

Many markets work best with little or no outside interference. But others - especially those subject to big 'externalities' - need a helping hand.

I do not expect monopoly to restrain itself.

Unfair methods of competition in commerce are hereby declared unlawful. The commission is hereby empowered and directed to prevent persons, partnerships, or corporations, except banks, and common carriers subject to the Acts to regulate commerce, from using unfair methods of competition in commerce.

There must be reasonable restrictions upon competition else we shall see competition destroyed.

We discover that the fortunes realized by our manufacturers are no longer solely the reward of sturdy industry and enlightened foresight, but that they result from the discriminating favor of the government.

I have always opposed subsidies to private corporations.

It’s not the government’s job to bail out speculators.