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Citation de Steve Jobs, un homme qui doit être élevé au même rang que les Gutenberg, que devraient méditer les politiciens et tous ceux qui disent si la solution à un problème est trop simple, elle doit forcément être fausse:

« That’s been one of my mantras — focus and simplicity. Simple can be harder than complex: You have to work hard to get your thinking clean to make it simple. But it’s worth it in the end because once you get there, you can move mountains. »

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Extrait du roman Atlas Shrugged d’Ayn Rand qui décrit assez bien le Québec…

« When you see that trading is done, not by consent, but by compulsion–when you see that in order to produce, you need to obtain permission from men who produce nothing–when you see that money is flowing to those who deal, not in goods, but in favors–when you see that men get richer by graft and by pull than by work, and your laws don’t protect you against them, but protect them against you–when you see corruption being rewarded and honesty becoming a self-sacrifice–you may know that your society is doomed. »

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Stephen Wynn, CEO de Wynn Resorts (20 600 employés)

« And a lot of people don’t want to say that. They’ll say, God, don’t be attacking Obama. Well, this is Obama’s deal and it’s Obama that’s responsible for this fear in America. The guy keeps making speeches about redistribution and maybe we ought to do something to businesses that don’t invest, their holding too much money. We haven’t heard that kind of talk except from pure socialists. Everybody’s afraid of the government and there’s no need soft peddling it, it’s the truth. »

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George Buckley, CEO de 3M (67 000 employés)

« We know what [Obama’s] instincts are — they are Robin Hood-esque. He is anti-business. There is a sense among companies that this is a difficult place to do business. It is about regulation, taxation, seemingly anti-business policies in Washington, attitudes towards science. Politicians forget that business has choice. We’re not indentured servants and we will do business where it’s good and friendly. If it’s hostile, incrementally, things will slip away. We’ve got a real choice between manufacturing in Canada and Mexico – which tend to be pro-business – or America. »

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Jim McNerney, CEO de Boeing (164 495 employés)

« Its action [Obama's handpicked National Labor Relations Board's] is a fundamental assault on the capitalist principles that have sustained America’s competitiveness since it became the world’s largest economy nearly 140 years ago. U.S. tax and regulatory policies already make it more attractive for many companies to build new manufacturing capacity overseas. »

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Paul Otellini, CEO d’Intel (82 500 employés)

« The next big thing will not be invented here. Jobs will not be created here. The U.S. legal environment has become so hostile to business that there is likely to be an inevitable erosion and shift of wealth, much like we’re seeing today in Europe–this is the bitter truth. I think this group does not understand what it takes to create jobs. And I think they’re flummoxed by their experiment in Keynesian economics not working. If our tax rate approached that of the rest of the world, corporations would have an incentive to invest here. But instead, it’s the second highest in the industrialized world. »

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Bernie Marcus, co-fondateur d’Home Depot (321 000 employés)

« Home Depot would never have succeeded if we’d tried to start it today. Every day you see rules and regulations from a group of Washington bureaucrats who know nothing about running a business. With just ObamaCare by itself, you have a 2,000 page bill that’s probably going to end up being 150,000 pages of regulations. If we don’t lower spending and if we don’t deal with paying down the debt, we are going to have to raise taxes. Even brain-dead economists understand that when you raise taxes, you cost jobs. He’s [Obama] never really worked a day outside the political or legal area. He doesn’t understand the problems businesses face. »

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La réponse de Charles Koch, capitalisme et milliardaire, à Warren Buffet, crony-capitaliste et milliardaire:

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Une petite réflexion de l’immortel Frédéric Bastiat, que Jean François Lisée devrait méditer…

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Il n’y a rien de plus comique que d’entendre des chroniqueurs québécois, qui seraient incapables d’expliquer les mécanismes associés à l’inflation, dénoncer la critique que Rick Perry envers la réserve fédérale américaine. À ces illettrés économiques qui pullulent dans nos médias, je dédie la citation suivante de FA Hayek (prix Nobel d’économie):

« Inflation is probably the most important single factor in that vicious circle wherein one kind of government action makes more and more government control necessary. For this reason all those who wish to stop the drift toward increasing government control should concentrate their effort on monetary policy. »

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Les 10 commandements de William J. H. Boetcker, un penseur conservateur influant du début du 20^e sicècle:

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Écrite durant la grande dépression (1933), une citation du journaliste et satirise Américain H. L. Mencken, alias « le sage de Baltimore », qui résume assez bien pourquoi les États-Unis ont été décotés cette semaine:

« There is, indeed, no genuine disposition among American public officials, or indeed among public officials anywhere, to reduce public expenses. As I have pointed out in this place a hundred times, they always try to lay on at least $2 every time they save $1. The saving gets brilliant headlines in the newspapers, but the new waste is disguised as a scheme to end the Depression, or even as a scheme to reduce taxes. This last dodge is now being worked again, and before our very eyes. »

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Une excellente question de l’économiste Thomas Sowell à propos de le cupidité…

« I have never understood why it is ‘greed’ to want to keep the money you have earned but not ‘greed’ to want to take somebody else’s money. »

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Hilaire Belloc (1870–1953), écrivain franco-britannique, à propos du nationalisme. Sans le savoir, il a décrit le Québec avec une précision remarquable…

« Nationalism has, among other evils, bred that of a powerful bureaucracy in each state: a rigid centralization, and a deplorable uniformity within each frontier exactly corresponding to the violent contrast between either side of that frontier.

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Frédéric Bastiat à propos du gouvermanman:

« Eh quoi ! est-il donc si difficile de laisser les hommes essayer, tâtonner, choisir, se tromper, se rectifier, apprendre, se concerter, gouverner leurs propriétés et leurs intérêts, agir pour eux-mêmes, à leurs périls et risques, sous leur propre responsabilité ; et ne voit-on pas que c’est ce qui les fait hommes ? Partira-t-on toujours de cette fatale hypothèse, que tous les gouvernants sont des tuteurs et tous les gouvernés des pupilles ? »

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Extrait d’un discours de Rick Perry, gouverneur du Texas et candidat républicain pressenti pour les élections de 2012, lors d’une convention du parti républicain s’étant déroulée samedi dernier. Un message que les adéquistes devraient méditer…

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L’économiste Paul Romer à propos du progrès de notre niveau de vie:

« In most coffee shops these days, you’ll find that the small, medium, and large coffee cups all use the same size lid now, whereas even five years ago they used to have different size lids for the different cups. That small change in the geometry of the cups means that somebody can save a little time in setting up the coffee shop, preparing the cups, getting your coffee, and getting out. Millions of little discoveries like that, combined with some very big discoveries, like the electric motor and antibiotics, have made the quality of life for people today dramatically higher than it was 100 years ago. »

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Dans son oeuvre culte, De la démocratie en Amérique, Alexis de Tocqueville avait, dès 1830, compris comment le désir d’indépendance avait fait États-Unis une grande nation… On est loin , très loin, de la vision « péquouiste » de l’indépendance…

« L’habitant des États-Unis apprend dès sa naissance qu’il faut s’appuyer sur soi-même pour lutter contre les maux et les embarras de la vie; il ne jette sur l’autorité sociale qu’un regard défiant et inquiet, et n’en appelle à son pouvoir que quand il ne peut s’en passer. Ceci commence à s’apercevoir dès l’école, où les enfants se soumettent, jusque dans leurs jeux, à des règles qu’ils ont établies, et punissent entre eux des délits par eux-mêmes définis. Le même esprit se retrouve dans tous les actes de la vie sociale. Un embarras survient sur la voie publique, le passage est interrompu, la circulation arrêtée; les voisins s’établissent aussitôt en corps délibérant; de cette assemblée improvisée sortira un pouvoir exécutif qui remédiera au mal, avant que l’idée d’une autorité préexistante à celle des intéressés se soit présentée à l’imagination de personne. »

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Écrite en 1850, cette réflexion de Frédéric Bastiat n’a pas pris une seule ride…

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Jean-Baptiste Say (1767-1882), économiste français, à propos de la réglementation:

« Le travail des gens de loi, devenant plus considérable et plus difficile, occupe plus de monde et se paie plus cher. Qu’y gagne-t-on ? D’avoir ses droits mieux défendus ? Non, certes : la complication des lois est bien plutôt favorable à la mauvaise foi, en lui offrant de nouveaux subterfuges, tandis qu’elle n’ajoute presque jamais rien à la solidité du bon droit. On y gagne de plaider plus souvent et plus long-temps.

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Extrait du discours prononcé par Danielle Smith, la cheffe du Wild Rose Alliance, lors du rassemblement du Réseau-Liberté Québec:

« What we have been told about our national past – about our common achievements, our founding attitudes and values, our economic development and constitutional purpose – is a systematic fabrication foisted upon us by the left-wing intelligentsia that took political control of our country in the 1960s during the ministries of Pearson, Lesage and Trudeau.

Good heavens, where did that spirit of liberty disappear to? What we now tout as traditional Canadian values and virtues – unearned entitlements, paying people not to work, paying regions not to succeed – and not to secede – all these were unthinkable to the stalwart people who founded and built Canada. Today’s celebration of the easy ride and what’s-in-it-for-me were not the essence of Canadian character, they were the complete antithesis of it. »

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Citation de Lysander Spooner (1808-1887), pionnier de la cause libertarienne aux États-Unis:

« A man’s natural rights are his own, against the whole world; and any infringement of them is equally a crime, whether committed by one man, or by millions; whether committed by one man, calling himself a robber, or by millions, calling themselves a government. [...]

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Ayn Rand sur la véritable nature du socialisme:

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P. J. O’Rourke à propos de la charité et du rôle du gouvernement:

« Charity is one of the great responsibilities of freedom. But, in order for us to be responsible – and therefore free – that responsibility must be personal.

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Citation de Rush Limbaugh à propos de la visite du président Hu Jintao aux États-Unis:

« The moral code, the moral compass of the state-controlled media is something to behold. Now, some of you may not know the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize winner hosted a state dinner last night (January 19) for Hu Jintao of China. Hu Jintao is holding the 2010 Nobel Peace Prize winner in prison in China. Not making it up. The 2009 Nobel Peace Prize winner hosted a dinner for the guy holding the 2010 Nobel Peace Prize winner in prison, and the media does not get the irony of this at all. They’re too busy running around chasing Sarah Palin and radio talk show hosts over ‘civility’. Our media is so fraudulent. »

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Citation de P.J. O’Rourke à propos de la liberté, des droits et de l’asservissement du peuple par les gouvernements:

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Un excellent discours de Barack Obama à propos de la tragédie de Tucson. Le président a pris le temps de remettre à leur place les gauchistes qui, écume à la bouche, blâment la droite, Sarah Palin et les Tea Party depuis samedi:

« Bad things happen, and we must guard against simple explanations in the aftermath.

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Citation d’Harry Browne, candidat libertarien lors des élections présidentielles américaines de 1996 et 2000, à propos du rôle joué par les gouvernements:

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Écrit en 1971, ce livre d’Ayn Rand n’a pas pris une seule ride:

"Observe that in all the propaganda of the ecologists—amidst all their appeals to nature and pleas for « harmony with nature »—there is no discussion of man’s needs and the requirements of his survival. Man is treated as if he were an unnatural phenomenon. Man cannot survive in the kind of state of nature that the ecologists envision—i.e., on the level of sea urchins or polar bears.

In order to survive, man has to discover and produce everything he needs, which means that he has to alter his background and adapt it to his needs. Nature has not equipped him for adapting himself to his background in the manner of animals. From the most primitive cultures to the most advanced civilizations, man has had to manufacture things; his well-being depends on his success at production. The lowest human tribe cannot survive without that alleged source of pollution: fire. It is not merely symbolic that fire was the property of the gods which Prometheus brought to man. The ecologists are the new vultures swarming to extinguish that fire."