Lack of Investment Quotes

Brazil is not a serious country.

In a society of little economic development, universal inactivity accompanies universal poverty. You survive not by struggling against nature, ... or by relentless labor; instead you survive by expending as little energy as possible...

The reason I'm patriotic about Scotland is because I think it's been dealt a really hard hand. It's marketed the world over as . . . haggis . . . bagpipes. But no one ever puts anything back into it.

Mexico has lost its leadership, and a lot of that has to do with its poor performance and the lack of better results in our country.

It's about very talented writers, directors, producers, and actors being in a position for their projects to be supported, but there's just not enough black projects being made.

For the better part of two centuries, outsiders have been offering explanations that range from racist to learned-sounding - the supposed inferiority of blacks, the heritage of slavery, overpopulation - for why Haiti remains the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere.

This kingdom [Colombia] … does not enjoy an active commerce. It’s subsistence consists of gold taken from its mines, without trade, export of its agriculture and manufactures…. The local officials everywhere are indifferent and careless as to their duty; the people are steeped in poverty; trade is almost extinct; capital is lacking, and there are no opportunities for its investment; the only source of support is the cultivation of small patches of ground. Every one seeks to subsist on the government by procuring some little office.

After a generation of misrule under Mr. Hussein, who built a huge military infrastructure while neglecting civilian investment, and a dozen years of United Nations sanctions, Iraq's unemployment rate tops 50 percent.

Democratic Latin America limps sideways because it can't run ahead. There are too many entry barriers to the poor, the innovative, and those without access to credit.

I saw exhausted soil, old and decaying towns, wretchedly-neglected roads, and, in every respect, an absence of enterprise and improvement, distinguish the region through which we have come, in contrast to that in which we live. Such has been the effect of slavery.

Just the fact that we can't pass budgets in our Congress, just the fact that we are gridlocked in our own democracy, the fact that everybody who travels can see that we're not investing in our airports, in our rail, in our infrastructure and so forth, people are noticing a United States that is not getting the job done in some ways.

I love being British but our railways are shocking. We are so inured to how appalling our railways are. And the idea in almost any other country in the world that leaves on the line would be a problem!

Poor countries are poor because they are wasting their resources.

If you look at how the US economy has suffered over the last 15 or 20 years, it's in significant part because we haven't done the investments in research and development and infrastructure and other public goods that are necessary for our growth. And, unfortunately, we're going to be feeling that overhang for a long time to come, because it's the investments we made in the 1950s and '60s and '70s that result in some of the greatest technological breakthroughs that we enjoy today.

More of the same will just produce more of the same: less competitiveness, less growth, fewer jobs.

I worry for Scottish football.

I did sign to Ruthless Records, but they didn't really support me.

The cost of war impacts all of us - both in the human cost and the cost that's being felt frankly in places like Flint, Michigan, where families and children are devastated and destroyed by completely failed infrastructure because of lack of investment.

So Bush certainly wasn't the greatest, and Obama has not done the job. And he's created a lot of disincentive. He's created a lot of great dissatisfaction. Regulations and regulatory is going through the roof. It's almost impossible to get anything done in the country.