#mic

The rites of passage in the academic world are arcane and, in their own way, highly romantic, and the tensions and unplesantries of dissertations and final oral examinations are quickly forgotten in the wonderful moment of the sherry afterward, admission into a very old club, parties of celebration, doctoral gowns, academic rituals, and hearing for the first time "Dr.," rather than "Miss" Jamison. ↗

— Kay Redfield Jamison

#romantic

Regular crises perpetuate the past by reinvigorating cycles which started long ago. In contrast, (capital-C) Crises are the past's death knell. They function like laboratories in which the future is incubated. They have given us agriculture and the industrial revolution, technology and the labour contract, killer germs and antibiotics. Once they strike, the past ceases to be a reliable predictor of the future and a brave new world is born. ↗

— Yanis Varoufakis

#cycles #economics #industrial-revolution #technology #death

There is one and only one social responsibility of business–to use it resources and engage in activities designed to increase its profits so long as it stays within the rules of the game, which is to say, engages in open and free competition without deception or fraud ↗

— Milton Friedman

#ethics #business

In regards to the price of commodities, the rise of wages operates as simple interest does, the rise of profit operates like compound interest. Our merchants and masters complain much of the bad effects of high wages in raising the price and lessening the sale of goods. They say nothing concerning the bad effects of high profits. They are silent with regard to the pernicious effects of their own gains. They complain only of those of other people. ↗

— Adam Smith

#class-warfare #economics #labor #money #profit

Crying about the economy is a strategy. It won’t get you a job, but it will keep Kleenex in business.
 ↗

— Jarod Kintz

#crying #depression #economic-depression #economy #job

To me, the poor are like Bonsai trees. When you plant the best seed of the tallest tree in a six-inch deep flower pot, you get a perfect replica of the tallest tree, but it is only inches tall. There is nothing wrong with the seed you planted; only the soil-base you provided was inadequate. Poor people are bonsai people. There is nothing wrong with their seeds. Only society never gave them a base to grow on. ↗

— Muhammad Yunus

#microfinance #poverty #social-business #society #business

I'm a quite serious actor who doesn't mind being ridiculously comic. ↗

— Alan Rickman

#being #comic #i #mind #quite

I believe in a benevolent God not because He created the Grand Canyon or Michelangelo, but because He gave us snacks. ↗

— Paul Rudnick

#grand-canyon #michelangelo #snacks #death

This plea comes from the bottom of my heart. Every friend of freedom, and I know you are one, must be as revolted as I am by the prospect of turning the United States into an armed camp, by the vision of jails filled with casual drug users and of an army of enforcers empowered to invade the liberty of citizens on slight evidence. A country in which shooting down unidentified planes "on suspicion" can be seriously considered as a drug-war tactic is not the kind of United States that either you or I want to hand on to future generations. ↗

— Milton Friedman

#economics #freedom

Th direct elimination of elimination of poverty should be the objective of all development aid. Development should be viewed as a human rights issue, not as a question of simply increasing the gross national product (GNP). ↗

— Muhammad Yunus

#economics #poverty #poverty-alleviation #social-change #change