Dear neo-Keynesians:

There is only one difference between a bad economist and a good one:

the bad economist confines himself to the visible effect;

the good economist takes into account both the effect that can be seen
and those effects that must be foreseen…

the bad economist pursues a small present good that will be followed by a great evil to come,
while the good economist pursues a great good to come,
at the risk of a small present evil.

Frederic Bastiat

"The decline of great powers
is caused by simple economic over extension."

Paul Michael Kennedy
British historian, and author of “The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers”

The fellow that can only see a week ahead is always the popular fellow,
for he is looking with the crowd.

But the one that can see years ahead,
he has a telescope but he can't make anybody believe that he has it.

Will Rogers

"We were taught in Economics 101
that countries could not for long sustain large ever-growing trade deficits.

…our country has been behaving like an extraordinarily rich family
that possesses an immense farm.

In order to consume 4% more than they produce,
that's the trade deficit,
we have, day by day been both selling pieces of the farm
and increasing the mortgage on what we still own."

Warren Buffett

If some lose their whole fortunes,
they will drag many more down with them.

…the whole system of credit and finance…here at Rome
…is inextricably bound up with the revenues of the Asiatic province.

If those revenues are destroyed,
our whole system of credit will come down with a crash.

…The national budget must be balanced.

The public debt must be reduced.

The arrogance of the authorities must be moderated and controlled.

Payments to foreign governments must be reduced
if the nation doesn't want to go bankrupt.

People must again learn to work, instead of living on public assistance.

Marcus Tullius Cicero
Roman Constitutionalist

"Athenian money…defined a pattern
which was to repeat in other empires which were to follow,
dominance of trade,
influx of gold to balance exports,
public wealth,
liberty,
overconfidence,
the discovery of loosely managed money
as a stimulating solution to stagnation in an economy near its zenith…,
before finally the emptiness of the monetary promise was exposed,
leading to rapid national collapse."

Paul Tustain

When national debts have once been accumulated to a certain degree,
[there has never been] a single instance
of their having been fairly and completely paid.

The liberation of the public revenue...
has always been brought about by bankruptcy,
though frequently by a pretended payment [through inflation].

Adam Smith
Moral philosopher and Father of Modern Economics

"…the earth belongs to each of these generations during its course,
fully and in its own right.

The second generation receives it clear
of the debts and incumbrances of the first, the third of the second, and so on.

For if the first could charge it with a debt,
then the earth would belong to the dead and not to the living generation.

Then, no generation can contract debts greater than may be paid
during the course of its own existence."

Thomas Jefferson to James Madison, 1789