Government Intervention Quotes

• There is no way to stabilize the markets other than through government intervention.

  Henry Paulson

  Government, Way, Conspiracy

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• Every government intervention [in the marketplace] creates unintended consequences, which lead to calls for further government interventions.

  Ludwig von Mises

  Government, Unintended Consequences, Marketplace

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• The great virtue of a free market is that it enables people who hate each other, or who are from vastly different religious or ethnic backgrounds, to cooperate economically. Government intervention can't do that.

  Milton Friedman

  Religious, Hate, Government

  Source: www.huffingtonpost.com

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• We are too solicitous for government intervention, on the theory, first, that the people themselves are helpless, and second, that the Government has superior capacity for action. Often times both of these conclusions are wrong.

  Calvin Coolidge

  Government, People, Firsts

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• When government takes away options, it is bound to make some people worse off, even with intrinsicallly good intentions behind that government intervention.

  Thomas Sowell

  Government, People, Liberty

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• What I object to the current government intervention in so-called 'solving the crisis', they haven't solved anything. They've just postponed it.

  Marc Faber

  Government, Currents, Crisis

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• Government planning not only fails; it tends to produce outcomes that are the opposite of what its proponents say that they favor. The only stable and productive social system is one that embraces human liberty in its totality, and defends the market economy, private property, sound money, and peaceful international relations, while opposing government intervention as economically and socially destructive.

  Llewellyn Rockwell

  Government, Opposites, Peaceful

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• Nothing rectifies out-of-control market failures like a healthy dose of
  government intervention and mountains of bureaucracy.

  George Carlin

  Government, Healthy, Mountain

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• All the evils, abuses, and iniquities, popularly ascribed to businessmen and to capitalism, were not caused by an unregulated economy or by a free market, but by government intervention into the economy.

  Ayn Rand

  Government, Evil, Abuse

  Ayn Rand, Nathaniel Branden, Alan Greenspan, Robert Hessen (1986). “Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal”, p.45, Penguin

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• People constantly requesting government intervention are casting their problems at society. And, you know, there's no such thing as society. There are individual men and women and there are families. And no government can do anything except through people, and people must look after themselves first. It is our duty to look after ourselves and then, also, to look after our neighbours.

  Margaret Thatcher

  Men, People, Looks

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• A Day never passes without some ardent reformer or group of reformers suggesting some new government intervention, some new statist scheme to fill some alleged 'need' or relieve some alleged distress.

  Henry Hazlitt

  Government, Groups, Needs

  Henry Hazlitt (1971). “Man Vs. the Welfare State”, p.204, Ludwig von Mises Institute

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• Government intervention in the economy - through taxes, regulation and, most importantly, currency inflation - causes distortions and misallocations of capital that must eventually be unwound. The distortions degrade the general standard of living, and the economy goes into a recession (call that an incomplete cleansing). Or it goes into a depression - wherein the entire sickly structure comes unglued.

  Doug Casey

  Government, Regulation, Cleansing

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• Contrary to the vision of the left, it was the free market which produced affordable housing - before government intervention made housing unaffordable.

  Thomas Sowell

  Government, Vision, Affordable Housing

  Thomas Sowell (2013). “Ever Wonder Why?: and Other Controversial Essays”, p.92, Hoover Press

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• The nature of the economic system should be a matter for public choice, and free market capitalism should not be accepted without any discussion of the rich variety of alternatives ... Unlike civil laws, economic laws are imposed on people with all the authority of immutable laws of nature. But the economy is created by people, supported by government intervention, regulation, statute and subsidy, and implemented in such a way that it gives substantial wealth and power to a privileged few, while the majority face a life of relentless work, stress and periodic financial insecurity.

  Tony Benn

  Stress, Acceptance, Law

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• The gap between what one knows and what one thinks one knows may be higher in the ranks of the elite. The result is supposedly-clever government interventions, introduced with excessive confidence, leading to disastrous results.

  Arnold Kling

  Clever, Thinking, Government

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• Let's face a historical truth: we have never had a "free market", we have always had government intervention in the economy, and indeed that intervention has been welcomed by the captains of finance and industry. They had no quarrel with "big government" when it served their needs.

  Howard Zinn

  Atheist, Government, Historical

  "From empire to democracy" by Howard Zinn, www.theguardian.com. October 2, 2008.

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• I'm a little embarrassed about how long it took me to see the folly of most government intervention. It was probably 15 years before I really woke up to the fact that almost everything government attempts to do, it makes worse.

  John Stossel

  Government, Years, Long

  "John Stossel: Not Afraid to Tell the Truth". Ed Sigall, NewsMax, June 3, 2006.

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• In a world dependent on international trade and commerce, and staggering under a heavy load of international debt, no policy is more destructive than protectionism. It cuts off markets, eliminates trade, causes unemployment in the export industries all over the world, depresses the prices of export commodities, especially farm products of the United States. It is the crowning folly of government intervention.

  Hans F. Sennholz

  Depressing, Cutting, Government

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• The FHA's success provides strong evidence that government can and should play a role in the nation's mortgage finance system. It also demonstrates that although government intervention in the economy during the Great Recession was messy, things would have been a lot messier without it.

  Mark Zandi

  Strong, Government, Play

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• ...free enterprise, [is] a term that refers, in practice, to a system of public subsidy and private profit, with massive government intervention in the economy to maintain a welfare state for the rich.

  Noam Chomsky

  Government, Practice, Political

  Noam Chomsky (2011). “How the World Works”, p.64, Soft Skull Press

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• Government intervention is not solving the problems, and in fact the governments around the world that are intervening the most in their economies are struggling more.

  Oliver DeMille

  Struggle, Government, World

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• We know that government intervention in the free market, and Argentine history has shown this, absolutely ends in a boomerang.

  Daniel Morgan

  Government, Boomerang, Ends

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• Both history and contemporary data show that countries prosper more when there are stable and dependable rules, under which people can make investments without having to fear unpredictable new government interventions before these investments can pay off.

  Thomas Sowell

  Country, Government, Data

  "An Economic 'Plan'?". www.creators.com. September 09, 2012.

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• We are watching industries crumble, Wall Street firms disappear, unemployment spike, and unprecedented government intervention. And our designated opinion leaders want to know: Is Obama up this week? Is he down? And is his leadership style more like Bill Clinton's, or Abraham Lincoln's?

  Thomas Frank

  Wall, Government, Opinion Leaders

  "Bipartisanship Is a Silly Beltway Obsession" by Thomas Frank, www.huffingtonpost.com. March 22, 2009.

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• This is not about abortion or the antics. This is about pro choice versus anti-choice and government intervention in a woman's personal decisions about her life.

  Kathleen Turner

  Women, Government, Hygiene

  "CNN Sunday Morning" with Catherine Callaway, www.cnn.com. April 25, 2004.

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