Fiorello H. La Guardia Quotes
The bastards broke the People's back with their usury.... Let them die; the People will survive.
Summarizing his conclusions of the Judiciary Committee investigations regarding Wall Street and the bankers' role in the Great Depression:
Fiorello H. La Guardia, 1882-1947, U. S. Congressman (Republican & Socialist, NY), New York City Mayor (Republican and Fusion Party), Remark, 1929, Quoted in Cuneo, Life with Fiorello H.
Sourced by: Eigen's Political and Historical Quotations
Although Fiorello La Guardia proposed an aggressive reform program for New York City, he did not go far enough for some.
There were few if any consumer protection laws in those days and many wealthy aristocrats made their money by taking advantage of the poor. They were the landowners, bankers, financiers and often the industrialists. Shaw was a sarcastic social critic and this is a typical line he gave his upper class characters. Today, we have more controls on business and finance, and many wealthy business people have gotten that way by providing great value to the consumers and being honest. However, we still have large numbers of wealthy members of society who do make their money from the poor and middle class by unethical and often illegal means. In the aftermath of the Meltdown of 2008. hundreds of thousands of the homes of the working poor and middle class were foreclosed by the major banks forging the legal documentation for the foreclusures. Millions of consumer contracts are issued that even a PhD cannot understand the terms of without special legal and financial training. There is even a legal definition of a salesperson lying to make a sale which is so commonplace that our law excuses it and calls it "puffing". However, there has been over time, improvement over Shaw's era.
Ingersoll was considered to be the greatest orator and political thinker of his day, but his overt atheistic views curtailed his elected political career.
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.
There were little controls over usury in his time in India. Villagers often paid 500% or more to borrow money in a necessity like needing critical health care.
Fiorello Henry La Guardia was an American attorney and politician who represented New York in the House of Representatives and served as the 99th Mayor of New York City from 1934 to 1945. Known for his irascible, energetic, and charismatic personality and diminutive stature, La Guardia is acclaimed as one of the greatest mayors in American history. Though a Republican, La Guardia was frequently cross-endorsed by other parties, including the rival Democratic Party, under New York's electoral fusion laws.
