Economic Collapse Quotes

“Only a psychopath would ever think of doing these things, only a psychopath would dream of abusing other people in such a way, only a psychopath would treat people as less than human just for money. The shocking truth is, even though they now have most if not all of the money, they want still more, they want all of the money that you have left in your pockets, they want it all because they have no empathy with other people, with other creatures, they have no feeling for the world which they exploit, they have no love or sense of being or belonging for their souls are dead, dead to all things but greed and a desire to rule over others.”
― Arun D. Ellis, Corpalism

“You have to distinguish between two things - the Swedish economy and the Swedish stock market. The Swedish economy is the sum of all the goods and services that are produced in this country every day. There are telephones from Ericsson, cars from Volvo, chickens from Scan, and shipments from Kiruna to Skovde. That's the Swedish economy, and it's just as strong or weak today as it was a week ago...

The Stock Exchange is something very different. There is no economy and no production of goods and services. There are only fantasies in which people from one hour to the next decide that this or that company is worth so many billions, more or less. It doesn't have a thing to do with the Swedish economy.”
― Stieg Larsson, The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo

“Man steps on an ant when he can't catch the fly.”
― Bill Gaede

“If people feel lost and alone and helpless and broken and hopeless today, what will it be like if the world really begins to come apart at the hinges?”
― Brandon Andress, And Then the End Will Come!: But Five Things You Need to Know in the Meantime

“Oil may run out, liquidity may dry up, but as long as ink flows freely, the next chapter of Life will continue to be written.”
― Alex Morritt, Impromptu Scribe

“If you owe ten pounds to the Bank of England, you get thrown in jail, but if you owe a million pounds, they invite you to sit on the Board”
― Philippe Riès

“Today, the rich are the haves and the poor are the have-nots. Tomorrow, the rich will be the have-food and the poor will be the have-not food.”
― Bill Gaede, Why God Doesn't Exist

“Their conversation ceased abruptly with the entry of an oddly-shaped man whose body resembled a certain vegetable. He was a thickset fellow with calloused and jaundiced skin and a patch of brown hair, a frizzy upheaval. We will call him Bell Pepper. Bell Pepper sidled up beside The Drippy Man and looked at the grilled cheese in his hand. The Drippy Man, a bit uncomfortable at the heaviness of the gaze, politely apologized and asked Bell Pepper if he would like one.

“Why is one of your legs fatter than the other?” asked Bell Pepper.

The Drippy Man realized Bell Pepper was not looking at his sandwich but towards the inconsistency of his leg sizes.

“You always get your kicks pointing out defects?” retorted The Drippy Man.

“Just curious. Never seen anything like it before.”

“I was raised not to feel shame and hide my legs in baggy pants.”

“So you flaunt your deformity by wearing short shorts?”

“Like you flaunt your pockmarks by not wearing a mask?”

Bell Pepper backed away, kicking wide the screen door, making an exit to a porch over hanging a dune of sand that curved into a jagged upward jab of rock.

“He is quite sensitive,” commented The Dry Advisor.

“Who is he?”

“A fellow who once manipulated the money in your wallet but now curses the fellow who does.”
― Jeff Phillips, Turban Tan

“I propose that the forces of corporate totalitarianism are deliberately destroying this entire world in order to sell their simulated version of it back to us at a profit.”
― Diane Harvey

“Embracing/attacking other communities won't change the facts. Our people are in this quagmire because we ignored education & elected clueless despots who inturn have presided over the worst economic crimes in the history of the continent. Whom did you elect?”
― DON SANTO

“We all know that 97% of the money in the world doesn't exist and that's thanks to Fractional Reserve Banking, or should I say fictional reserve banking." He grinned at his own joke, his smile partly hidden by his hair, "Money is no longer attached to the Gold Standard, therefore, it isn't based on anything. So when it says, 'I promise to pay the bearer on demand ten pounds,' I have to ask, ten pounds of what?" Silence. "The world is owned by the rich shareholder, the rich superstar, the rich industrialist, the rich aristocracy." He was now marching around the stage, "It doesn't matter who or what they are, if they're rich then they own a part of the world, but they only own it because they've got lots of money. Which means they own part of the 97% of the world’s fictional money, the pretend money that only exists on a computer." He stopped abruptly and stared out at the audience, "Which means that if they cashed in their fictional nonexistent money they'd get something like this ten pound note offering to pay the bearer the sum of ten pounds of nothing." He held the note aloft, "Which means the rich have managed to buy the entire world with paper nothing that has a value of nothing and we've let them do it.”
― Arun D. Ellis, Daydream Believers

“People were lost and people were scared and their lynch ropes couldn't reach bankers or stockbrokers, so they looked for targets closer to home.”
― Dennis Lehane, Live by Night

“Why did I start duck farming? Because these are the days of decay, after the days of decadence. The first is a result of the second.”
― Jarod Kintz, Music is fluid, and my saxophone overflows when my ducks slosh in the sounds I make in elevators.

“I predicted The Financial Crisis of 2008 way back in 2010. In about a month it will be 2024, and you won't believe what I see coming.”
― Jarod Kintz, Powdered Saxophone Music

“How can HOW help us repair our faltering global economy?
Only by getting our "hows" right can we ensure that we are sustainable. This can only be achieved when we are rooted in, and inspired by, sustainable values. The global economic meltdown supplied a perfect, but painful, example of how sustainability cannot be guided by situational values. The economic crash occurred because too many financial companies became disconnected from fundamental values and long-term sustainable thinking. Instead of nurturing sustainable collaborations, banks, lenders, borrowers and shareholders pursued short-term relationships founded on situational values. More than ever we need to get out of this cycle of crises and build long-term success and deep human connections so that we achieve enduring significance in today's globally interconnected world.”
― Dov Seidman

“The American share of the crisis began with grossly improper mortgages provided to wholly unqualified borrowers, all directly caused and encouraged by government distortion of and interference in the market. The government’s market deformation and market intervention was in turn the result of two factors: political favouritism and Leftist ideology, on the one hand; and upon the other, corruption: the blatant cooption of such Friends of Angelo as Mr Dodd and of such bien-pensant Lefties as Mr Frank. The stability and efficiency of any market is directly proportional to the amount and trustworthiness of market information. The Yank Congress, for blatantly partisan and ideological reasons, gave out false information to the market, pushing lenders into making bad loans and giving out, with the appropriate winks and nudges, that Fannie (will Americans ever realise how that sounds) and Freddie, imperfectly quangoised, were ‘really just as good as the Treasury’ and were in any case ‘too big to [be let] fail’: which, as it happens, was untrue. Similarly, this moronic mantra of ‘too big to fail’ was chanted desperately and loudly to drown out the warning sounds of various financial institutions on the brink and of the automobile industry. Incomprehensible sums of public money were thrown at these corporations so that they could avoid bankruptcy, and have succeeded only in privatising profit whilst socialising risk.”
― G.M.W. Wemyss

“The world was different. The world feared touch.”
― R.M. James, Hear Me Scream

“When people believe that the local government and economy serve their needs. There is little desire to protest.”
― Oscar Auliq-Ice

“The corporate system is interconnected and now share a common invested interest, the ability to control through business, the people. It is an inevitable path the parameters set will take the beast down following the easiest way to collective profits, to control the ones that provide them. It is also logical to protect your own, from ones that are shedding light through Art on the grey water they may have stepped into to reach their fullest profit potentials. It is the logical solution to what would be, just business. So the Matrix story albeit written to lift for all the ceiling of what is possible, has inevitably shined a light on the entire path that was chosen and the pre-chosen road ahead that collective corporations were on creating a separate state of politically connected elite and those seeking award through serving them. A natural progression of what was set in place from the beginning. The flaw was in the design of the collective corporate system, globally intertwined now, and immersed in politics, protecting its own, making the question real this time, how to balance the equation.”
― Tom Althouse, The Frowny Face Cow

“Financial Times commentator Martin Wolf concluded in 2010: "We already know that the earthquake of the past few years has damaged Western economies, while leaving those of emerging countries, particularly Asia, standing. It has also destroyed Western prestige. The West has dominated the world economically and intellectually for at least two centuries. That epoch is now over. Hitherto, the rulers of emerging countries disliked the West's pretensions, but respected its competence. This is true no longer. Never again will the West have the sole word."

I was reminded of the Asian financial crisis in 1997. When Asian economies were devastated by similarly foolish borrowing the West – including the International Monetary Fund and World Bank – prescribed bitter medicine. They extolled traditional free market principles: Asia should raise interest rates to support sagging currencies, while state spending, debt, subsidies should be cut drastically. Banks and companies in trouble should be left to fail, there should be no bail-outs. South Korea, Thailand, Indonesia were pressured into swallowing the bitter medicine. President Suharto paid the ultimate price: he was forced to resign. Anger against the IMF was widespread. I was in Los Angeles for a seminar organised by the Claremont McKenna College to discuss, among other things, the Asian crisis. The Thai speaker resorted to profanity: F-- the IMF, he screamed. The Asian press was blamed by some Western academics. If we had the kind of press freedoms the West enjoyed, we could have flagged the danger before the crisis hit.

Western credibility was torn to shreds when the financial tsunami struck Wall Street. Shamelessly abandoning the policy prescriptions they imposed on Asia, they decided their banks and companies like General Motors were too big to fail. How many Asian countries could have been spared severe pain if they had ignored the IMF? How vain was their criticism of the Asian press, for the almost unfettered press freedoms the West enjoyed had failed to prevent catastrophe.”
― Cheong Yip Seng, OB Markers: My Straits Times Story

“A regulator's greatest fear is the sequential collapse of hedge funds, banks, and brokerages. That process is hard to spot and even harder to stop.
...
There are two sides to every trade. In a crash there can be just as many winners as losers. The problem arises when the losers go out of business. At that point the winners can't collect so they become losers too. It's as if you were a big winner at roulette and went to the cashier to collect your winnings only to find the cashier window closed and the casino had just filed for bankruptcy. All you have left is a pocketful of worthless chips. At that point, even the market winners can fall into financial distress. Because of leverage, total losses can exceed the size of the market itself. It's like a minefield. Banks running from panic start stepping on mines.”
― James Rickards, MoneyGPT: AI and the Threat to the Global Economy

“You have to distinguish between two things - the Swedish economy and the Swedish stock market. The Swedish economy is the sum of all the goods and services that are produced in this country every day. There are telephones from Ericsson, cars from Volvo, chickens from Scan, and shipments from Kiruna to Skövde. That's the Swedish economy, and it's just as strong or weak today as it was a week ago...

The Stock Exchange is something very different. There is no economy and no production of goods and services. There are only fantasies in which people from one hour to the next decide that this or that company is worth so many billions, more or less. It doesn't have a thing to do with the Swedish economy.”
― Stieg Larsson

“I’ll bet you didn’t think a handful of economists could save the world, did you? You thought the world would end with nuclear war or something? No, it’s much more basic than that. It’s more likely going to be from a disruption in the water supply, power, and from lack of food due to an economic collapse. Either that or a financial war.”
― Kenneth Eade, Terror on Wall Street, a Financial Metafiction Novel

“I believe that the banks and the financial services industry take more than their fair share of our profits by using unfair business tactics. It now appears that our entire financial system has taken far more risk than is warranted by its capital structure and that this will lead to a market crash affecting economies worldwide. Gordon L. Eade”
― Kenneth Eade, Terror on Wall Street, a Financial Metafiction Novel

“Where affluence is the rule, the true threat is the loss of desire.(...) What is new is not that prosperity depends on stimulating demand. It is that it cannot continue without inventing new vices.”
― John Gray

“Our world has now reached the stage where it must choose either to believe and trust entirely in the Supreme Force behind our lives or not.”
― Peter Strother, Spiritual Beings or Economic Tools: Just Who Are We?

“Who we are as spiritual beings must be allowed to guide the way we conduct our lives.”
― Peter Strother, Spiritual Beings or Economic Tools: Just Who Are We?

“If a nation is not able to monetize its assets, then it’ll have to beg for money from the developed parts of the world.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Mad About Humans: World Maker's Almanac

“once the corruption decides there's a them and an us, and the us wants to have more and they can never have enough cuz they're stuck in their egos and the ego always wants more so it always gets more. nothing is ever enough for a big ego....”
― Chris Martenson

“And then they were left looking at each other like a husband and wife with very few secrets left between them.”
― Matt Taibbi