Our public credit is good, but the abundance of paper has produced a spirit of gambling in the funds, which has laid up our ships at the wharves as too slow instruments of profit, and has even disarmed the hand of the tailor of his needle and thimble. They say the evil will cure itself. I wish it may; but I have rarely seen a gamester cured, even by the disasters of his vocation.
Interpretation
The quote reflects concerns about financial speculation and its negative effects on the economy and productivity.
In this quote, Thomas Jefferson critiques the speculative nature of finance driven by an excess of paper currency, suggesting that this has led to a neglect of productive work, symbolized by ships left idle and tailors unable to work. He expresses skepticism about the idea that these financial excesses will resolve themselves, pointing to the difficulty of reforming those who are addicted to gambling with money, thus highlighting the challenges posed by financial irresponsibility.
In practice
In a discussion about the impacts of financial markets on everyday life, one might say, 'As Thomas Jefferson warned, our public credit may be good, but speculation can lead to harmful neglect of real work.'
The firmness with which the (American) people have withstood the... abuses of the press, the discernment they have manifested between truth and falsehood, show that they may safely be trusted to hear everything true and false and to form a correct judgment between them.
I, place economy among the first & most important republican virtues, & public debt as the greatest of the dangers to be feared
We must make our choice between economy and liberty or confusion and servitude...If we run into such debts, we must be taxed in our meat and drink, in our necessities and comforts, in our labor and in our amusements...if we can prevent the government from wasting the labor of the people, under the pretense of caring for them, they will be happy.
Very many and very meritorious were the worthy patriots who assisted in bringing back our government to its republican tack. To preserve it in that, will require unremitting vigilance.
A nation, as a society, forms a moral person, and every member of it is personally responsible for his society.
Timid men prefer the calm of despotism to the tempestuous sea of liberty.
A universal basic income would be the best way to give everyone the opportunity to do more unpaid but incredibly important work, such as caring for children and the elderly.
People who live in poor countries have to be entrepreneurial even just to survive.
The widely accepted assertion that, only if you let markets be will everyone be paid correctly and thus fairly, according to his worth, is a myth. Only when we part with this myth and grasp the political nature of the market and the collective nature of individual productivity will we be able to build a more just society in which historical legacies and collective actions, and not just individual talents and efforts, are properly taken into account in deciding how to reward people.
The economic position is only flourishing on the surface. Germany is in fact dancing on a volcano. If the short-term credits are called in, a large section of our economy would collapse.
An economy hampered by restrictive tax rates will never produce enough jobs or enough profits
We can fight the global economy with a strong local economy.
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