Michael Calma

“It’s something they teach you in the army. The only thing under your direct control is how hard you work. In other words, if you really, really buckle down today, and you get the intelligence, the planning, and the execution each a hundred percent exactly correct, then you are bound to prevail.” “Sounds empowering.” “It’s the army. What they really mean is, if you fail today, it’s completely your own fault.”
― Lee Child, Blue Moon

“The issue is not that the United States cannot pull its people above the poverty line, but that it does not want to.”
― Annie Lowrey, Give People Money: How a Universal Basic Income Would End Poverty, Revolutionize Work, and Remake the World

“The vast majority of families in poverty with children do not receive any help for child care. This again makes the United States a rarity: its public child care spending as a share of GDP is one-quarter of that of sixteen other OECD countries”
― Annie Lowrey, Give People Money: How a Universal Basic Income Would End Poverty, Revolutionize Work, and Remake the World

“Labor is prior to and independent of capital. Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if labor had not first existed. Labor is the superior of capital, and deserves much the higher consideration.”
― Doug Molitor, Confessions of a Time Traveler