John Law Quotes


Let's call down God's power on the media.


Context

The cardinal was distressed that the media had carried stories of priests who were pediphiles.


Citations

John Law, Catholic Cardinal of Boston, Sermon, Quoted on ABC Primetime Live, July 2, 1992

Sourced by: Eigen's Political and Historical Quotations

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Vladimir Lenin. Lenin was echoing criticisms that were made the world over and even by some in the United States. However, his solution to have the press controlled by the ruling party just changed the cast of characters who were propagandizing and distorting the truth. Lenin was not able to offer a better solution nor were others. However, with enough affluence the capitalist society produced enough different publishers all competing that one did not dominate public opinion. With technology of TV and the Internet, the bar to entry is so small that almost anyone can be a publisher and find an interested market. In a way technology has solved much of the problem for capitalistic and totalitarian societies alike. In the latter, even censorship is not easy or feasible on a large scale.


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Since so many politicians have lied to the public and the press, denials, the press is very suspicious of any denials. In this particular case they were concerned that this denial is stated in the present, but is not a denial about the past including the recent past. So they continued to press him.


John Law
John Law
  • Born: April 21, 1671
  • Died: March 21, 1729
  • Nationality:
  • Profession: Economist, Banker, Financier, Author, Controller-general Finances

John Law was a Scottish economist who distinguished money, a means of exchange, from national wealth dependent on trade. He served as Controller General of Finances under the Duke of Orleans, who was regent for the juvenile Louis XV of France. In 1716, Law set up a private Banque Générale in France. A year later it was nationalised at his request and renamed as Banque Royale. The private bank had been funded mainly by John Law and Louis XV; three-quarters of its capital consisted of government bills and government-accepted notes, effectively making it the nation's first central bank. Backed only partially by silver, it was a fractional reserve bank. Law also set up and directed the Mississippi Company, funded by the Banque Royale. Its chaotic collapse has been compared to the 17th-century tulip mania in Holland. The Mississippi bubble coincided with the South Sea bubble in England, which allegedly took ideas from it. Law as a gambler would win card games by mentally calculating odds. He originated ideas such as the scarcity theory of value and the real bills doctrine. He held that money creation stimulated an economy, paper money was preferable to metal, and dividend-paying shares a superior form of money. The term "millionaire" was coined for beneficiaries of Law's scheme.