Dick Cheney Quotes
You know, I've got experiences going back to the wage price controls in the Nixon administration where, in effect, we had what I think was a terrible mistake, in that case a Republican administration, where moved in and tried to control the wages, prices and profits of every enterprise in America. It was a huge mistake.
Cheney, Dick. Interview by Chris Wallace. Fox News Sunday, Fox News, 28 Aug. 2011.
Manava Dharma Shastra. Ancient Hindu India had what may well have been the most regulated mercantile economy of any society in history. All prices for all goods were to be set by the king. In order to prevent the stultifying effect of price controls, the Hindus required that the prices be reset very frequently to reflect various market conditions. It was a highly regulated form of capitalism. This text is a part of the Hindu Holy Texts. Hindus believe that Manu was a prophet whose text is revealed or inspired.
To the modern reader utterances such as this from a Conservative Prime Minister seem astounding. However, the Great Depression existed in Canada as well as the United States, and Franklin Delano Roosevelt was not the only world leader who would reach the conclusion that business and capitalism must be profoundly regulated and the system changed if it was to be saved.
The Black Plague, which raged in Europe from 1347 to 1349, had left relatively few able bodied people alive. Given this shortage of labor there was a rapid inflation, especially to the distress of the landed class who had to pay much more for their food. The king therefore established what amounted to price controls, wage controls and forces labor. See {611125} and {611126}
Hoover was the Food Administrator at that time. Although he gave lip service to the free market economy concept, he was proposing government price controls and rationing. When the free market was not functioning, at this time in his career, he was willing to use government controls and regulation. By the end of 1918 over 250,000 food-handling corporations, firms, and individuals were under Food Administration licenses. Meat, fish, poultry, eggs, butter, milk, potatoes, fresh and dried vegetables, and fruits, canned goods, the coarse grains and rice, vegetable oils, coffee, and such various commodities accessory to food-handling, as ice, ammonia (for ice-making), arsenic (for insecticides), jute bags, sisal, etc., were under direct control. Ironically, later when he was President and faced with the Great Depression, he had become much more rigid and would not “interfere” with the free, private market and use government to solve the national problems. It was Franklin Delano Roosevelt who did that after Hoover would not. At the time he gave this speech, Hoover was not very political and was more of a technocrat. It may have been that by the time he became President he was intellectually and politically locked in to Republican Party conservative economic ideology.
Collection of Spoken Words of the Prophet. Ironically, despite the reverence with which words of the Hadith are accorded in Islam, from time to time Muslim theologians and authorities have attempted to establish “fair prices” despite this free market view of the Prophet.
Whenever price controls have been tried, there always seems to develop a black market. However, some argue that price controls can work very well for a modest period of time in a national emergency and give WWII as an example. Although there was a black market, very few Americans participated in it, and the effect was positive as a result of the patriotism that was so keenly felt by most Americans at that time. Further, capital punishment has rarely worked to prevent any illegal activity. In London, pickpockets were publicly hung while other pickpockets fleeced the crowd watching the hanging ostensibly to dissuade people from pickpocketing.
Lev Davidovich Bronstein. Before the Russian Revolution large factories did not have to be very efficient as the labor was paid so little. After the Revolution, the workers were paid more and the inefficient procedures became even more disorganized with the workers in control for the first time without any management experience. At the same time, the small privately owned manufacturing businesses were making a profit with no help from the government. This was an embarrassment that the Communists eventually solved by shutting down the private businesses that were such an embarrassment. Russian manufacturing was never world class and efficient under the Soviets even after the post Revolution crises.
Richard Bruce Cheney is an American politician and businessman who served as the 46th vice president of the United States from 2001 to 2009 under George W. Bush. He has been cited as the most powerful vice president in American history. He is also one of the most unpopular American politicians, holding an approval rating of just 13% upon leaving office. Cheney has been the oldest living former U.S. vice president since 2021, following the death of Walter Mondale.
