The Civil War was started over economic issues, not slavery. The War was not popular in the North until the issue of slavery was added at a later time to turn it into a moral crusade.
Give the Germans five deutschmarks and they will save it. But give the British £5 and they will borrow £25 and spend it.
If Lincoln's primary goal in the War was not the abolition of slavery but simply to preserve the Union, the question arises: Why did the Union need preserving? Or, more pointedly, why did the Southern states want to secede?
The difference between a white man and an Indian is this- A white man wants to leave money to his children. An Indian wants to leave forests.
Again, most of the chief distinctions marked by economic terms are differences not of kind but of degree.
I think in part the reason is that seeing an economy that is, in many ways, quite different from the one grows up in, helps crystallize issues: in one's own environment, one takes too much for granted, without asking why things are the way they are.
My mom liked to have us travel in first class with her. She's like, 'I work for my money, and I want my kids to live a certain kind of way.' My dad used to get so mad at my mom for flying us first class. So it was a clash on that.
World trade depends on differences among countries, not similarities. Different countries are in different stages of development. It is appropriate for them to have different patterns, different policies for ecology, labor standards, and so forth.
I dressed plain, but my partners were always spending more money on clothes than I could afford.
I love Europe, but I don't want America to become like Europe.
You can't entirely compare between the United States and Greece for a range of reasons, not just because of the size of the economy.
Thus, the questions we should ask here are what makes the current economic upswing different from the past two recoveries, and whether such differences are sufficient for the economy to reach the sustained growth path.
