Greg Raven

Collected posts and other items of interest.

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Fiat forever

These statements were made during hearings of the House Committee on Banking and Currency, September 30, 1941. Members of the Federal Reserve Board call themselves “Governors.” Governor Marriner Eccles was Chairman of the Federal Reserve Board at the time of these hearings.

Congressman Wright Patman: “How did you get the money to buy those two billion dollars worth of Government securities in 1933?”

Governor Marriner Stoddard Eccles: “Out of the right to issue credit money.”

Congressman Wright Patman: “And there is nothing behind it, is there, except our Government’s credit?”

Governor Marriner Stoddard Eccles: “That is what our money system is. If there were no debts in our money system, there wouldn’t be any money.”

Congressman Duncan Upshaw Fletcher: “Chairman Eccles, when do you think there is a possibility of returning to a free and open market, instead of this pegged and artificially controlled financial market we now have?”

Governor Marriner Stoddard Eccles: “Never, not in your lifetime or mine.”

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“In war, truth is the first casualty.”

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“The problem with getting older, is that you still remember how things used to be.”

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“The man who views the world at 50 the same way he did at 20 has wasted 30 years of his life.”

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“The holier-than-thou activists who blame the population for not spending more money on their personal crusades are worse than aggravating. They encourage the repudiation of personal responsibility by spreading the lie that support of a government program fulfills individual moral duty.”

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“Liberty lies in the hearts of men and women; when it dies there, no Constitution, no court, can even do much to help it.”

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“We must abandon the prevalent belief in the superior wisdom of the ignorant.”

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“There’s nothing so absurd that if you repeat it often enough, people will believe it.”

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“Finding the occasional straw of truth awash in a great ocean of confusion and bamboozle requires intelligence, vigilance, dedication, and courage. But if we don’t practice these tough habits of thought, we cannot hope to solve the truly serious problems that face us — and we risk becoming a nation of suckers, up for grabs by the next charlatan who comes along.”

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“Chase after the truth like all hell and you’ll free yourself, even though you never touch its coattails.”

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“Speech is not violence. The left conflates the two in order to justify its own violent reactions to differing points of view.”

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“Censorship always defeats its own purpose, for it creates, in the end, the kind of society that is incapable of exercising real discretion … In the long run it will create a generation incapable of appreciating the difference between independence of thought and subservience.”

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“Without seeking, truth cannot be known at all. It can neither be declared from pulpits, nor set down in articles, nor in any wise prepared and sold in packages ready for use. Truth must be ground for every man by itself out of it such, with such help as he can get, indeed, but not without stern labor of his own.”