Jean-Baptiste Say Quotes
The command of a large sum is a dangerous temptation to a national administration. Though accumulated at their expense, the people rarely, if ever profit by it: yet in point of fact, all value, and consequently, all wealth, originates with the people.
This is a an interesting political and historical quotation because it shows how left and right gets redefined in each age. Here we have a quotation of two sentences. By 21st century American definitions, the first statement would line Say up with the Right Wing. The second clause of the second sentence could have been written by an extreme Marxist and would be Left Wing. Definitions and norms change and individuals even change their positions as they have more experience and reflect more on their views.
Jean-Baptiste Say, 1767-1832, French economist and journalist, A Treatise On Political Economy: or the Production, Distribution, and Consumption of Wealth
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Although the Professor was often right about this technique, at the time he made this statement, the Clinton administration was actually cutting spending and using much of the revenue to pay for the deficit—just the opposite of what the Professor was worried about. It was successful and the deficit was eliminated and surpluses were projected. However the succeeding administration more closely followed the professor’s pattern and increased spending enormously for serious needs, but also cut taxes, so that we went during the Bush administration from the largest projected surplus in American history to the greatest deficit in American history.
The Emperor of Japan and his family at the time controlled a large part of Japanese wealth. There were some criticisms emerging.
The Dutch King’s brother, Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte Bonaparte, insisted on Dutch contributions to his war effort in the way of Dutch troops, ships and provisions. Yet there was not enough possible revenue to pay for such a war effort. Gogel was able to introduce efficiencies in many areas but still more taxes were needed. War expenditures took all the resources of the state and progress stopped and the kingdom was almost destroyed by the economic crisis.
He was a conservative, Republican Congressman from Georgia when he made this statement complaining about the wast of mmoney by Federal Officials and bureaucrats. The thing that made this common complaint memorable is that several years later, he was appointed by President Donald Trump as Secretary of Health and Human Services. In less than a year in the office, he was forced to resign [fired] in disgrace for wasting hundreds of thousands of dollars chartering private airplanes for himself and his staff including one where he spent $25,000 to charter a plane from Washington DC to Philadelphia -- a two hour drive in his government car, less than $100 for the Amtrak train or $10 by the Greayhound bus. The scandal that erupted was made worse by the hypocricy.
Jean-Baptiste Say was a liberal French economist and businessman who argued in favor of competition, free trade and lifting restraints on business. He is best known for Say's law—also known as the law of markets—which he popularized. Scholars disagree on the surprisingly subtle question of whether it was Say who first stated what is now called Say's law. Moreover, he was one of the first economists to study entrepreneurship and conceptualized entrepreneurs as organizers and leaders of the economy.
