Tidbits
Political Quotations
To Accompany the June 27, 2019 edition of Tidbits
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/tidbits/2019/Tidbits062719.htm
Bob Jensen at
Trinity University
My Latest Web Document
Over 400 Examples of Critical Thinking and Illustrations of How to Mislead With
Statistics ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/MisleadWithStatistics.htm
Animated Visualization of the United States’ Exploding Population Growth
Over 200 Years (1790 – 2010) ---
A Visualization of the United States’ Exploding Population Growth Over 200 Years
(1790 – 2010)
USA Debt Clock --- http://www.usdebtclock.org/
In September 2017 the USA National Debt exceeded $22 trillion for the first time
---
http://www.statedatalab.org/news/detail/national-debt-surpasses-20-trillion-for-the-first-time-in-us-history
Human Population Over Time on Earth ---
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PUwmA3Q0_OE
While a
move is underway to destroy the American Dream of rags to riches (by taxing away
the riches) the Chinese dream is on the rise.
The Chinese Dream
How a Chinese billionaire went from making $16 a month in a factory to being one
of the world's richest self-made women with an $8.3 billion real-estate empire
---
https://www.businessinsider.com/worlds-richest-self-made-woman-wu-yajun-net-worth-2019-2
Top 50 Billionaires in China ---
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Chinese_by_net_worth
Jensen
Comment
The question for students to debate is why a supposed
communist country allows so many billionaires to rise up from poverty.
That's supposed to happen in the USA where a child growing up in deep
poverty (think Oprah Winfrey or Howard Shultz) became a multi-billionaires.
But is it also supposed to happen under communism? If
so, why?
One reason is that many billionaires can afford to pour lots of money into high risk ventures. When's the last time you heard about a high risk (think Silicon Valley) venture in Europe?
Wikiquote from Wikipedia --- https://www.wikiquote.org/
History will prove former President Donald
Trump was correct about Mexico one day funding an impenetrable wall --- to keep
out over 2 billion starving green immigrants seeking to enter Mexico from the
north.
Bob Jensen
Some Fatherly Words of Wisdom from Jack Bogle, Founder
of Vanguard Investments, to My Sons ---
https://jborden.com/2019/06/16/some-fatherly-words-of-wisdom-from-jack-bogle-founder-of-vanguard-investments-to-my-sons/
The Young
Left’s Anti-Capitalist Manifesto: Its goal is to remake our economic system —
and the Democratic Party ---
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-young-lefts-anti-capitalist-manifesto/
I have a complaint about America today, and it
is simple: we don’t love business enough ---
Tyler Cowen
https://www.econlib.org/library/Columns/y2019/Klingbigbusiness.html
"In
Praise of Cheap Labor," by Paul Krugman,
Slate, March 21, 1997 ---
https://slate.com/business/1997/03/in-praise-of-cheap-labor.html
Corruption in general has a deleterious effect
on the readiness of economic agents to invest. In the long run, it leads to a
paralysis of economic life. But very often it is not that economic agents
themselves have had the bad experience of being cheated and ruined, they just
know that in this country, or in this part of the economy, or this building
scene, there is a high likelihood that you will get cheated and that free riders
can get away with it. Here again, reputation is absolutely essential, which is
why transparency is so important. Trust can only be engendered by transparency.
It's no coincidence that the name of the most influential non-governmental
organization dealing with corruption is Transparency International.
A Conversation with Karl Sigmund: When Rule of Law is
Not Working
https://www.edge.org/conversation/karl_sigmund-when-the-rule-of-law-is-not-working
Mortgage Backed Securities are like boxes
of chocolates. Criminals on Wall Street and one particular U.S. Congressional
Committee stole a few chocolates from the boxes and replaced them with turds.
Their criminal buddies at Standard & Poors rated these boxes AAA Investment Grade
chocolates. These boxes were then sold all over the world to investors.
Eventually somebody bites into a turd and discovers the crime. Suddenly nobody
trusts American chocolates anymore worldwide. Hank Paulson now wants the
American taxpayers to buy up and hold all these boxes of turd-infested
chocolates for $700 billion dollars until the market for turds returns to
normal. Meanwhile, Hank's buddies, the Wall Street criminals who stole all the
good chocolates are not being investigated, arrested, or indicted. Momma always
said: '"Sniff the chocolates first Forrest." Things generally don't pass the
smell test if they came from Wall Street or from Washington DC.
Forrest Gump as quoted at
http://newsgroups.derkeiler.com/Archive/Rec/rec.sport.tennis/2008-10/msg02206.html
It is not that machines are going to replace
chemists. It’s that the chemists who use machines will replace those that don’t
---
Derek Lowe
Gallup: Americans Say No. 1 Problem is
'Government,' No. 2 is 'Immigration' ---
https://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/michael-w-chapman/survey-americas-no-1-problem-government-no-2-problem-immigration
"If you open the borders, my God, there's a
lot of poverty in this world, and you're going to have people from all over the
world. And I don't think that's something that we can do at this point."
Bernie Sanders
https://www.businessinsider.com/bernie-sanders-says-he-does-not-support-open-borders-2019-4
Great fleas have little fleas upon their backs to bite 'em, And little fleas have lesser fleas, and so on ad infinitum ---
Augustus De Morgan
Prior to 1980 what was unique about the year of his birth in 1871?
http://www-groups.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/~history/Biographies/De_Morgan.html
12 inspiring quotes from Martin Luther King
Jr.---
https://www.businessinsider.com/inspiring-martin-luther-king-jr-quotes-2017-1
21 oustanding Warren Buffet quotations ---
https://www.businessinsider.com/warren-buffett-21-best-quotes-2019-2
The Atlantic: The Swiftly Closing
Borders of Europe ---
https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2018/12/europe-france-italy-immigration-border/578179/
Italian Minister tells NGO Italy doesn’t want migrants: “Our ports are closed!”
---
https://voiceofeurope.com/2018/12/italian-minister-tells-ngo-italy-doesnt-want-migrants-our-ports-are-closed/#.XB6WCZMs_Xo.twitter
The
enemy is fear
We think it's hate
But, it's fear
Gandhi
13 of the (alleged) most famous last words in
history ---
https://www.businessinsider.com/famous-last-words-in-history-2017-10
21 of Michelle Obama's most inspiring quotes
on work, success, and relationships ---
https://www.businessinsider.com/michelle-obama-most-inspiring-quotes-advice-becoming-2019-1
19 unforgettable quotes from legendary Marine
Gen. Jim 'Mad Dog' Mattis, who quit as Trump's defense secretary ---
https://www.businessinsider.com/general-mattiss-best-quotes-2016-11
Here are the Ten Best Pieces of Advice from
2018 Commencement Speakers ---
Click Here
Sometimes the grass is greener on the other side because it's been fertilized
with more bullshit.
Anonomous
The Lucretius Problem is a mental defect where
we assume the worst case event that has happened is the worst case event that
can happen ---
https://www.fs.blog/2015/04/lucretius-problem/
The worst form of inequality is to try to make
unequal things equal.
Aristotle
The Economic Ignorance of Bernie Sanders ---
http://reason.com/archives/2018/08/09/the-economic-ignorance-of-bernie-sanders
Bernie Sanders’ New Campaign Advisor David Sirota Once Touted
Hugo Chavez’s ‘Economic Miracle’ in Venezuela ---
http://reason.com/blog/2019/03/19/bernie-sanders-david-sirota-venezuela
How many times have we heard ‘free
tuition,’ ‘free health care,’ and free you-name-it? If a particular good or
service is truly free, we can have as much of it as we want without the
sacrifice of other goods or services. Take a ‘free’ library; is it really free?
The answer is no. Had the library not been built, that $50 million could have
purchased something else. That something else sacrificed is the cost of the
library. While users of the library might pay a zero price, zero price and free
are not one and the same. So when politicians talk about providing something
free, ask them to identify the beneficent Santa Claus or tooth fairy.
Walter Williams
Every great cause begins as a movement,
becomes a business, and eventually degenerates into a racket.
Eric Hoffer.
The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal
sharing of blessings; the inherent virtue of socialism is the equal sharing of
miseries.
Winston Churchill
Shoot
for the space in between, because that's where the real mystery lies.
Vera Rubin
https://www.brainpickings.org/2016/12/28/remebering-vera-rubin/?utm_source=Brain+Pickings&utm_campaign=f053a9c4e2-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2017_01_07&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_179ffa2629-f053a9c4e2-234390133
Only those who will risk going
too far can possibly find out how far one can go.
T.S. Eliot
There is a crack in
everything, that’s how the light gets in.
Leonard Cohen
In honor of his centennial, the Top 10 Feynman
quotations ---
https://www.sciencenews.org/blog/context/top-10-richard-feynman-quotations
Thomas Sowell (controversial
conservative black economist) ---
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Sowell
The 30 Best Thomas Sowell Quotes ---
https://pjmedia.com/lifestyle/the-30-best-thomas-sowell-quotes/
Be brave enough to start a
conversation that matters.
Margaret Wheatley
Even conversations
that are not politically correct.
That government is best which governs the least,
because its people discipline themselves.
Thomas Jefferson
Why, we grow rusty and you
catch us at the very point of decadence --- by this time tomorrow we may have
forgotten everything we ever knew. That's a thought isn't it? We'd be back to
where we started --- improvising.
Tom Stoppard, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern
are Dead (Act I)
It's hard to beat a person who never gives up.
Babe Ruth,
Historic Home Run Hitter
What's sad is to witness what Syria has become because nobody gave up earlier.
And "because they're
nonstate actors, it's hard for us to get the satisfaction of [Gen.] MacArthur
and the [Japanese] Emperor [Hirohito] meeting and the war officially being
over," Obama observed, referencing the end of World War II.
President Barack Obama when
asked if the USA of the future will be perpetually engaged in war.
http://www.businessinsider.com/obama-on-americans-being-resigned-to-live-in-a-perpetual-war-2016-7
We must be willing to get rid of the
life we've planned, so as to have the life that is waiting for us.
Joseph Campbell
If everyone is thinking alike, then
somebody isn't thinking.
George S. Patton
And many writers have imagined for themselves
republics and principalities that have never been seen or known to exist in
reality; for there is such a gap between how one lives and how one ought to live
that anyone who abandons what is done for what ought to be done learns his ruin
rather than his preservation: for a man who wishes to profess goodness at all
times will come to ruin among so many who are not good.
Niccolo Machiavelli
If you don't know where you're going, you might
not get there.
Yogi
Berra
Happiness is like a butterfly: the
more you chase it, the more it will elude you, but if you turn your attention to
other things, it will come and sit softly on your shoulder.
Henry David
Thoreau
Today, humanity fabricates 1,000 times more
transistors annually than the entire world grows grains of wheat and rice
combined ---
https://www.realclearenergy.org/articles/2018/12/11/energy_and_the_information_infrastructure_part_3_the_digital_engines_of_innovation_jevons_delicious_paradox_110368.html
I learned long ago never to wrestle with a pig.
... You get dirty and besides the pig likes it ---
George Bernard Shaw
You can get a lot farther with a smile and a
gun than you can with just a smile.
Al Capone
21 quotes from self-made billionaires that
will change your outlook on money ---
https://www.businessinsider.com/self-made-billionaire-quotes-that-will-change-your-outlook-on-money-2016-12
The Best Advice from 2018's Celebrity
Commencement Speakers ---
https://moneyish.com/heart/the-best-advice-from-2018s-celebrity-commencement-speakers/
If the end brings me out all right, what is
said against me won’t amount to anything. If the end brings me out wrong, ten
angels swearing I was right would make no difference.
Lincoln on How to Handle Criticism ---
https://www.brainpickings.org/2019/03/27/abraham-lincoln-criticism/?mc_cid=855d203b71&mc_eid=4d2bd13843
The Economist: A new kind of left-wing
doctrine is emerging. It is not the answer to capitalism’s problems ---
https://www.economist.com/leaders/2019/02/14/millennial-socialism?cid1=cust/ednew/n/bl/n/2019/02/14n/owned/n/n/nwl/n/n/na/202273/n
14 of George H.W. Bush's most presidential
quotes ---
https://www.businessinsider.com/george-hw-bush-best-quotes-2018-4
Minneapolis Is Using Zoning to Tackle Housing
Affordability and Inequality ---
https://ash.harvard.edu/minneapolis-using-zoning-tackle-housing-affordability-and-inequality
How Oakland Cops Gamed the System To Earn $30
Million in Overtime Pay ---
https://reason.com/2019/06/12/how-oakland-cops-gamed-the-system-to-earn-30-million-in-overtime-pay/
Trading a Greener USA for a Browner Chile
Saving the Planet With Electric
Cars Means Strangling This Desert: Mining lithium and copper to supply the
battery boom and fight climate change is wrecking a fragile ecosystem in Chile
---
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2019-06-11/saving-the-planet-with-electric-cars-means-strangling-this-desert
Resource Allocations: The Math That Could Bring the
World to a Halt ---
http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20190606-the-maths-problem-that-modern-life-depends-on
Rent Control Returns to the State of New York
https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2019/06/rent-control-returns-to-new-york.html
Jensen Comment
Building new rental properties in New York (like in Oregon) becomes a bad
investment
Homelessness and the Failure of Urban Renewal ---
https://mises.org/wire/homelessness-and-failure-urban-renewal
China's Father of Electric Cars Says
Hydrogen Is the Future ---
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-06-12/china-s-father-of-electric-cars-thinks-hydrogen-is-the-future?cmpid=BBD061419_WKND&utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter&utm_term=190614&utm_campaign=weekendreading
Taxpayers Will Pay for Sex-change Surgery for
Minors In Vermont ---
https://translifezine.com/tag/thailand/
12 white men sue San Francisco PD for racial,
gender bias in promotions ---
https://www.foxnews.com/us/12-white-men-sue-san-francisco-pd-for-racial-gender-bias-in-promotions
Trump warns of 'market crash' if he loses in 2020
---
https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/448719-trump-warns-of-market-crash-if-he-loses-in-2020
Jensen Comment
You can't take $100 trillion from investors for green initiatives,
Medicare-for-All, free college, guaranteed minimum income for 350 million USA
residents, etc.and not have a stock market
and pension funding crash in the USA. I shudder at voting for Trump, but
progressive candidates for the 2020 presidency are bent on destroying the USA
economy.
Tennessee Volkswagen plant rejects unionization
---
https://www.apnews.com/69fe70c9471048fe8da74076f715fec4
Criminals may now drive (not even speed) away
from Kentucky crime scenes without worrying about a police chase ---
https://www.kentucky.com/news/politics-government/article231523308.html
Jensen
Comment
I wonder if this included following suspects during surveillance.
Book Recommendation
The Great Successor: The Divinely Perfect Destiny of
Brilliant Comrade Kim Jong Un
https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2019/06/the-great-successor.html
The Trump Tax Reform Is Generating Good Results
---
https://finance.townhall.com/columnists/danieljmitchell/2019/06/18/the-trump-tax-reform-is-generating-good-results-n2548464?utm_source=thdaily&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=nl&bcid=b16c6f948f297f77432f990d4411617f
Award-Winning Feminist Author Says Parents With 'Bad
Genes' Should Be Banned From Reproducing ---
https://townhall.com/tipsheet/timothymeads/2019/06/18/awardwinning-feminist-author-says-parents-with-bad-genes-should-be-banned-from-reproducing-n2548490?utm_source=thdaily&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=nl&newsletterad=06/19/2019&bcid=b16c6f948f297f77432f990d4411617f&recip=17935167
Jensen
Comment
It's not too much of a leap from here to the "Master Race."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Master_race
PG&E Corp. has agreed to pay $1 billion
to compensate more than a dozen California cities, counties and agencies for
losses resulting from deadly wildfires sparked by its equipment ---
https://www.wsj.com/articles/pg-e-settles-with-some-california-communities-on-wildfire-claims-11560894354?mod=djemCFO
Jensen Comment
Who really pays the $1 billion? Not the bankrupt PG&E, The custormers of PG&E
pay the $1 billion.
Former Obama Press Secretary Slams Alexandria
Ocasio-Cortez (AOC) For ‘Making Stuff Up’ About Amazon ---
https://www.blabber.buzz/conservative-news/595801-former-obama-press-secretary-slams-aoc-for-making-stuff-up-about-amazon?utm_source=c-pm&utm_medium=c-pm-email&utm_term=c-pm-GI
Corrupt Clinton Foundation Foreign Policy
Director Amitabh Desai Appears to Have Vanished ---
https://www.blabber.buzz/conservative-news/597421-exclusive-corrupt-clinton-foundation-foreign-policy-director-amitabh-desai-appears-to-have-vanished-special?utm_source=c-alrt&utm_medium=c-alrt-email&utm_term=c-alrt-GI
San Francisco May Ban Sales of E-Cigarettes (Yeah
right! The City that does virtually nothing to ban the sale of hard drugs) ---
https://www.webmd.com/smoking-cessation/news/20190619/san-francisco-may-ban-sales-of-e-cigarettes
Gulf on Edge as Conflicting Accounts of Tanker Attacks Swirl
---
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-06-14/u-s-says-video-shows-iran-was-involved-in-an-attack-on-tanker?cmpid=BBD061419_BIZ&utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter&utm_term=190614&utm_campaign=bloombergdaily
Jensen
Comment
It's possible that we're witnessing an upgrade of what in the terrorism strategy
is known as the Lone Wolf Terrorism. Nations that can no longer risk
declarations of war can inspire and otherwise aid lone wolf or independent gang
attacks. Such attacks can take on many forms from human smugglers funded
secretly by central governments to murderous hits (think of the killing of Kim
Jong's half brother in Malaysia) to alleged tanker hits in the Persian Gulf.
The famed assassinations carried out by the KGB, CIA, and Mossad my be a thing of the past because these government intelligence agencies are too traceable to governments. The future of terror wars my be more like assassinations of John and Robert Kennedy. Of course the sinking of oil tankers and downing of airliners take more sophisticated weaponry than an handgun or a rifle. But more sophistication weaponry (think drones and dirty bombs) are or will soon be available on the black market.
Lone Wolf Terrorism seems to be on the rise and eventually will lead to elimination of individual freedoms. George Orwell's universal surveillance may become inevitable for sustaining what's left of human life on earth.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nineteen_Eighty-Four
Iran fast-boats preventing towing of damaged
Altair (Norweigian) tanker ---
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-mideast-attacks-usa-tugboats/iran-fast-boats-preventing-towing-of-damaged-altair-tanker-source-idUSKCN1TF2AP
Disinvited Speakers Get a Platform to Talk About Being Denied One ---
https://www.chronicle.com/article/Disinvited-Speakers-Get-a/246518?utm_source=at&utm_medium=en&cid=at
Jensen Comment
Your academic life is doomed forever if sometime in your past (maybe when you
were in middle school) you were pictured in black face or did not follow the
liberal dogma on socialism, feminism, gay rights, transgender rights, abortion,
minority intellectual equality, poverty, universal medical insurance, destroying
Wall Street, animal rights, confiscation of guns, etc. As the article points you
you may be invited to speak on a neutral topic (like cancer) but will be
disinvited in if you're wearing a controversial red letter from your past
mistakes of not being sufficiently liberal from date of birth.
In fact the universities are now denying admission as a first-year student if
you were not sufficiently liberal in your childhood ---
https://www.cnn.com/2019/06/18/us/harvard-rescind-admission/index.html
Ironically, universities are now taking pride in admitting ex-convicts but not unless they were incarcerated on the assumption that incarceration washes away all sin.
Harvard considers applicants to be of "low moral character" if they favor gun
rights such as gun rights activist Kyle Kashuv from Parkland High School ---
https://www.cnn.com/2019/06/18/us/harvard-rescind-admission/index.htm
Harvard told Kashuv in a May letter that it "reserves the right to withdraw an offer of admission under various conditions, including 'if you engage or have engaged in behavior that brings into question your honesty, maturity, or moral character.'"
You cannot even imagine being granted tenure at
Harvard if you're a conservative thinker ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/HigherEdControversies.htm
A third disgrace in the hiring bias of faculty in higher education. It's not at all uncommon for over 90+% of the faculty on campus to be members of the Democratic Party. Harvard's conservative political scientist Harvey Mansfield once warned a non-tenured Harvard professor who whispered to Harvey that he too was conservative. Harvey advised that non-tenured professor against "raising the jolly Roger" until after attaining tenure. Harvey was serious in this instance. Fifty years ago college campuses had conservative thought in the curriculum and focused on the writings of such conservative theorists as Friedrich Hayek and Milton Friedman. Now such writings are not politically correct. Bravo to the University of Colorado for creating a professorship for a conservative thinker so there could be at least one on campus.
Bob Jensen's threads on political correctness ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/HigherEdControversies2.htm#PoliticalCorrectness
Health Insurance
Bob Jensen's
Tidbits Archives ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/tidbitsdirectory.htm
Bob
Jensen's Pictures and Stories
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/Pictures.htm
Summary of Major Accounting Scandals --- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accounting_scandals
Bob Jensen's threads on such scandals:
Bob Jensen's threads on audit firm litigation and negligence ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/Fraud001.htm
Current and past editions of my
newsletter called Fraud Updates ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudUpdates.htm
Enron --- http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudEnron.htm
Rotten to the Core --- http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudRotten.htm
American History of Fraud --- http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudAmericanHistory.htm
Bob Jensen's fraud
conclusions ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudConclusion.htm
Bob Jensen's threads on
auditor professionalism and independence are at
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/Fraud001c.htm
Bob Jensen's threads on
corporate governance are at
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/Fraud001.htm#Governance
Shielding
Against Validity Challenges in Plato's Cave ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/TheoryTAR.htm
· With a Rejoinder from the 2010 Senior Editor of The Accounting Review (TAR), Steven J. Kachelmeier
· With Replies in Appendix 4 to Professor Kachemeier by Professors Jagdish Gangolly and Paul Williams
· With Added Conjectures in Appendix 1 as to Why the Profession of Accountancy Ignores TAR
· With Suggestions in Appendix 2 for Incorporating Accounting Research into Undergraduate Accounting Courses
Shielding
Against Validity Challenges in Plato's Cave ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/TheoryTAR.htm
By Bob Jensen
What went
wrong in accounting/accountics research? ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/theory01.htm#WhatWentWrong
The Sad State of Accountancy Doctoral Programs That Do Not Appeal to Most
Accountants ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/theory01.htm#DoctoralPrograms
AN ANALYSIS OF THE EVOLUTION OF RESEARCH CONTRIBUTIONS BY THE ACCOUNTING REVIEW:
1926-2005 ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/395wpTAR/Web/TAR395wp.htm#_msocom_1
Bob Jensen's threads on accounting theory
---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/theory01.htm
Systemic problems of accountancy (especially the vegetable nutrition paradox)
that probably will never be solved
---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudConclusion.htm#BadNews
Bob Jensen's economic crisis messaging http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/2008Bailout.htm
Bob Jensen's threads --- http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/threads.htm
Bob Jensen's Home Page --- http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/