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Stupid people can cause problems, but it usually takes brilliant people to create a real catastrophe.

Thomas Sowell

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Thomas Sowell
Age: 94
Born: 1930
Born: June 30
Economist
University Teacher
Gastonia
North Carolina
Causes
Catastrophe
Problem
Brilliant
Real
Usually
People
Cause
Problems
Stupid
Takes
Create

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Politeness and consideration for others is like investing pennies and getting dollars back.
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People who know nothing about advertising, nothing about pharmaceuticals, and nothing about economics have been loudly proclaiming that the drug companies spend too much on advertising - and demanding that the government pass laws based on their ignorance.
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There is no bigger waste of time than doing 90% of what is necessary.
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Freedom is unlikely to be lost all at once and openly. It is far more likely to be eroded away, bit by bit, amid glittering promises and expressions of noble ideals.
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To say that 'wealth in America is so unfairly distributed in America,' as Ronald Dworkin does, is grossly misleading when most wealth in the United States is not distributed: at all. People create it, earn it, save it, and spend it.
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Has Obama ever grown even a potted plant, much less a business, a bank, a hospital or any of the numerous other institutions whose decisions he wants to control and override? But he can talk glibly about growing the economy. Arrogance is no substitute for experience. That is why the country is in the mess it is in now.
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Given that some social processes must convey inherent constraints, the choice is among various mixtures of persuasion, force, and cultural inducement. The less of one, the more of the others. The degree of freedom that is possible is therefore tied to the extent to which people respond to persuasion or inducement.
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If you can't beat them or join them, then do something weird. No matter how much the passengers eat, the weight of the plane stays the same. Do you sometimes feel that you are necessary but not sufficient?
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Much of the social history of the Western world, over the past three decades, has been a history of replacing what worked with what sounded good.
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The black family survived centuries of slavery and generations of Jim Crow, but it has disintegrated in the wake of the liberals' expansion of the welfare state.
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Despite a voluminous and often fervent literature on income distribution, the cold fact is that most income is not distributed: It is earned.
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If you have been voting for politicians who promise to give you goodies at someone else's expense, then you have no right to complain when they take your money and give it to someone else, including themselves
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'Fair' is one of the most dangerous concepts in politics. Since no two people are likely to agree on what is 'fair,' this means that there must be some third party with power - the government - to impose its will. The road to despotism is paved with 'fairness'.
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If you are not prepared to use force to defend civilization, then be prepared to accept barbarism.
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A moral monopoly is the antithesis of a marketplace of ideas.
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Egalitarians create the most dangerous inequality of all - inequality of power. Allowing politicians to determine what all other human beings will be allowed to earn is one of the most reckless gambles imaginable. Like the income tax, it may start off being applied only to the rich but it will inevitably reach us all.
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One of the beauties of an economy coordinated by price movements is that nobody has to understand it in order for it to work.
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The talkers and writers resent being left on the sidelines by the doers.
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Since the government creates no wealth, it can only transfer the wealth required to hire people. Even if the government creates a million jobs, that is not a net increase in jobs, when the money that pays for those jobs is taken from the private sector, which loses that much ability to create private jobs.
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One of the most fashionable notions of our times is that social problems like poverty and oppression breed wars. Most wars, however, are started by well-fed people with the time on their hands to dream up half-baked ideologies or grandiose ambitions, and to nurse real or imagined grievances.
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