Free Bazaar Blog

To be generically against markets would be almost as odd as being generically against conversations between people. . . The freedom to exchange words, or goods, or gifts does not need defensive justification in terms of their favorable but distant effects. . . . The contribution of the market mechanism to economic growth is, of course, important, but this comes only after the direct significance of the freedom to interchange— words, goods, gifts—has been acknowledged. - P 61- Development as freedom: Amartya Sen

When applied to the ultimate ends of [human] action, the terms rational and irrational are inappropriate and meaningless. The ultimate end of action is always the satisfaction of some desires of the acting man. Since nobody is in a position to substitute his own value judgments for those of the acting individual, it is vain to pass judgment on other people's aims and volitions. No man is qualified to declare what would make another man happier or less discontented. The critic either tells us what he believes he would aim at if he were in the place of his fellow; or, in dictatorial arrogance blithely disposing of his fellow's will and aspirations, declares what condition of this other man would better suit himself, the critic. - Mises - Human action

Found an awesome quote by F.A. Hayek's Nobel speech from 1974:

"The recognition of the insuperable limits to his knowledge ought indeed to teach the student of society a lesson of humility which should guard him against becoming an accomplice in men's fatal striving to control society -- a striving which makes him not only a tyrant over his fellows, but which may well make him the destroyer of a civilization"

If only the economists running the fed/treasury and the rest of the government were listening to Hayek...

Christmas is when kids tell Santa what they want, and adults pay for it.
Deficits are when adults tell the government what they want, and their kids pay for it.