— The Lessons of History P. 79 All deductions having been made, democracy has done less harm, and more good, than any other form of government. It gave to human existence a zest and camaraderie that outweighed its pitfalls and defects. It gave to thought and science and enterprise the freedom essential to other operation …
— The Lessons of History P. 78 Democracy is the most difficult of all forms of government, since it requires the widest spread of intelligence, and we forgot to make ourselves intelligent when we made ourselves sovereign. Education has spread, but intelligence is perpetually retarded by the fertility of the simple. A cynic remarked that …
— Bill Bonner Diary 9/1/2016 Americans know how it works, too. A politician plays to the masses to get votes. But he plays to the Establishment to get money. Their pockets full of nearly-free money provided by the Fed, rich and powerful insiders line up behind Ms. Clinton. That’s because they know she is someone …
– Bill Bonner Diary May 12, 2016 The problem with democracy,” we explained to a friend yesterday, as she looked at her watch and hoped her phone would ring, “is a matter of scale.” “We see the New England town meeting as a model,” we explained. “It’s a democracy that seems to work plausibly well. …
Palm Beach Letter April 2016 There are no real assets in the Social Security trust fund. Now, add a couple of more problems to the mix. Social Security has had two problems from the start. The first is retirement age. When the government designed the program in 1935, it set the retirement age at 65. …
Hunter S. Thompson The main problem in any democracy,” wrote Hunter S. Thompson in a lucid moment, “is that crowd pleasers are generally brainless swine who can go out on a stage and whup up their supporters into an orgiastic frenzy – then go back to the office and sell every one of the poor …