Benjamin R. Barber Quotes

Nineteen years is the term beyond which neither the representatives of a nation nor even the whole nation itself assembled can validly extend a debt ... one generation is to another as one independent nation to another.

Debt has become a part of who we are… Normal is broke in America.

For many countries, monetary sovereignty is nothing more than an unattainable ideal.

The debt and the deficit is just getting out of control, and the administration is still pumping through billions upon trillions of new spending. That does not grow the economy.

The U.K.'s debt belongs legally to Westminster, so Scotland, by definition, can't default on it.

The United States is a bankrupt nation. It owes the world 14 trillion dollars, and it is truly able to finance itself and the war and the supply of arms to Israel, through the money that is lent to the United States by rich countries, some of which are Muslim countries. And if you stop using the U.S. dollar... Even if you want to sell oil, you can continue to sell oil, but insist on being paid in euros, or yen, or whatever... If you do that, then the U.S. dollar will not be half the value that it has today, and if it doesn't have the value that it has today, it cannot spend money producing arms

The average standard of living of the average American is going to go down. That is the only way we can cope with our debt and trade deficit problems.

No nation can miss interest or principle payments without some negative impact on its credit standing.

National sovereignty should be supported by financial independence. The only power that will propel us to this goal is the economy. No matter how mighty they are, political and military victories cannot endure unless they are crowned by economic triumphs.

The biggest enemy of the United States is not some terrorist hiding in a cave in Afghanistan or Pakistan but our own fiscal irresponsibility

If a national debt in considered a national blessing, then we can get on by borrowing. But as I believe it is a natural curse, my vow shall be to pay the national debt, to prevent a moneyed aristocracy from growing up around our administration that must bend to its views, and ultimately destroy the liberty of our country.

As American freemen we can not but sympathize in all efforts to extend the blessings of civil and political liberty, but at the same time we are warned by the admonitions of history and the voice of our own beloved Washington to abstain from entangling alliances with foreign nations. In all disputes between conflicting governments it is our interest not less than our duty to remain strictly neutral

America can be a party to no permanent military alliance. It can enter into no political commitments, not assume any economic obligation or subject our decisions to any other than our own sovereignty.... We will accept no responsibility except as our own conscience and judgment, in each instance may determine.

No nation can survive politically free but economically enslaved.

Nothing is so well calculated to produce a death-like torpor in the country as an extended system of taxation and a great national debt

… she [America] goes not abroad, in search of monsters to destroy. She is the well-wisher to the freedom and independence of all. She is the champion and vindicator only of her own. She will commend the general cause by the countenance of her voice, and the benignant sympathy of her example. She well knows that by once enlisting under other banners than her own, were they even the banners of foreign independence, she would involve herself beyond the power of extrication

As austerity measures were foisted upon Greece, Ireland, Portugal, and other highly indebted countries, growth was rendered even more elusive, aggravating unemployment

The Greeks do not have the option of borrowing because nobody will lend to them.

This accumulated debt at all levels of our society poses an immediate existential threat to America. Now unlike the manufactured crises of global warming and healthcare, this is a true crisis. This crisis threatens the very sovereignty of our country.

The easiest thing that is done, unfortunately, in Washington is to spend money today and send the bill to our children and grandchildren.

The world is beset by challenges including the ongoing danger of international terrorism, and the significant political and economic threats posed by factors such as the high levels of corporate and sovereign debt and persistent unemployment.

We are mortgaging ourselves to foreigners on a scale that would make George Washington cry. Every day - every single day - we borrow a billion dollars from foreigners to buy petroleum from abroad, often from countries that hate us. We are the beggars of the world, financing our lavish lifestyle by selling our family heirlooms and by enslaving our progeny with the need to service the debt.

We are a debtor nation, and we owe now $19 trillion and it's going to go up very fast by the way from this point.

Public debt [is] a burden on all the people.

No matter how rich and prosperous, a nation without independence, cannot be subject to any behaviour before the humanity, at a higher level than serving.