“Nothing stokes human creativity like the desire to kill a motherfucker you don’t like.” – The Fat Electrician, “America’s Secret Weapon That Won WW2 – VT Fuze”
Category: Economics
“How full of briers is this working-day world!” – William Shakespeare, As You Like It 1.3
“With the greater part of rich people, the chief enjoyment of riches consists in the parade of riches, which in their eye is never so complete as when they appear to possess those decisive marks of opulence which nobody can possess but themselves. In their eyes the merit of an object which is in any degree either useful or beautiful, is greatly enhance by its scarcity, or by the great labour which it requires to collect any considerable quantity of it, a labour which nobody can afford to pay but themselves. Such objects they are willing to purchase at a higher price than things much more beautiful and useful, but more common.”– Adam Smith, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, Vol. One
“Human food seems to be the only produce of land which always and necessarily affords some rent to the landlord.” – Adam Smith, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, Vol. One
“A good rice field is a bog at all seasons, and at one season a bog covered with water.” – Adam Smith, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, Vol. One
“The vine is more affected by the difference of soils than any other fruit tree. From some it derives a flavour which no culture or management can equal, it is supposed, upon any other. This flavour, real or imaginary, is sometimes peculiar to the produce of a few vineyards; sometimes it extends through the greater part of a small district, and sometimes through a considerable part of a large province.” – Adam Smith, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, Vol. One
“Good roads, canals, and navigable rivers, by diminishing the expence of carriage, put the remote parts of the county more nearly upon a level with those in the neighbourhood of the town. They are upon that account the greatest of all improvements.” – Adam Smith, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, Vol. One
“As men, like all other animals, naturally multiply in proportion to their means of subsistence, food is always, more or less, in demand.” – Adam Smith, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, Vol. One
“Before the invention of the art of printing, a scholar and a beggar seem to have been terms very nearly synonymous.” – Adam Smith, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, Vol. One
“The property which every man has in his own labour, as it is the original foundation of all other property, so it is the most sacred and inviolable. The patrimony of a poor man lies in the strength and dexterity of his hands; and to hinder him from employing this strength and dexterity in what manner he thinks proper without injury to his neighbour, is a plain violation of this most sacred property. It is a manifest encroachment upon the just liberty both of the workman, and of those who might be disposed to employ him. As it hinders the one from working at what he thinks proper, so it hinders the others from employing who they think proper. To judge whether he is fit to be employed, may surely be trusted to the discretion of the employers whose interest it so much concerns. The affected anxiety of the law-giver lest they should employ an improper person, is evidently as impertinent as it is oppressive.” – Adam Smith, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, Vol. One
“In opulent countries the market is generally so extensive, that any one trade is sufficient to employ the whole labour and stock of those who occupy it. Instances of people’s living by one employment, and at the same time deriving some little advantage from another, occur chiefly in poor countries.” – Adam Smith, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, Vol. One
“The famous have an exclusive legal right during life to control and profit from the commercial use of their name and personality.” – Circuit Judge Merritt, United States Court of Appeals, Sixth Circuit, Memphis Development Foundation v. Factors Etc., Inc., 616 F.2d 956 (1980)
“The gist of this claim is that Carson is embarrassed by and considers it odious to be associated with the appellee’s product. Clearly, the association does not appeal to Carson’s sense of humor.” – Senior Circuit Judge Bailey Brown, United States Court of Appeals, Sixth Circuit, Carson v. Here’s Johnny Portable Toilets, Inc., 698 F.2d 831 (1983).
“An essential element of individual property is the legal right to exclude others from enjoying it. If the property is private, the right of exclusion may be absolute; if the property is affected with a public interest, the right of exclusion is qualified. But the fact that a product of the mind has cost its producer money and labor, and has a value for which others are willing to pay, is not sufficient to ensure to it this legal attribute of property. The general rule of law is, that the noblest of human productions—knowledge, truths ascertained, conceptions, and ideas—become, after voluntary communication to others, free as the air to common use. Upon these incorporeal productions the attribute of property is continued after such communication only in certain classes of cases where public policy has seemed to demand it. These exceptions are confined to productions which, in some degree, involve creation, invention, or discovery. But by no means all such are endowed with this attribute of property. The creations which are recognized as property by the common law are literary, dramatic, musical, and other artistic creations; and these have also protection under the copyright statutes. The inventions and discoveries upon which this attribute of property is conferred only by statute, are the few comprised within the patent law.” – Justice Brandeis, Supreme Court of the United States, International News Service v. Associated Press, 248 U.S. 215 (1918).
“Property, a creation of law, does not arise from value . . . . Property depends upon exclusion by law from interference.” – Justice Holmes, Supreme Court of the United States, International News Service v. Associated Press, 248 U.S. 215 (1918).
“The right of the purchaser of a single newspaper to spread knowledge of its contents gratuitously, for any legitimate purpose not unreasonably interfering with complainant’s right to make merchandise of it, may be admitted; but to transmit that news for commercial use, in competition with complainant—which is what defendant has done and seeks to justify—is a very different matter.” – Justice Pitney, Supreme Court of the United States, International News Service v. Associated Press, 248 U.S. 215 (1918).
“The peculiar value of news is in the spreading of it while it is fresh; and it is evident that a valuable property interest in the news, as news, cannot be maintained by keeping it secret.” – Justice Pitney, Supreme Court of the United States, International News Service v. Associated Press, 248 U.S. 215 (1918).
“The news element—the information respecting current events contained in the literary production—is not the creation of the writer, but is a report of matters that ordinarily are publici juris; it is the history of the day. It is not to be supposed that the framers of the Constitution, when they empowered Congress ‘to promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries’ (Const. art. 1, § 8, par. 8), intended to confer upon one who might happen to be the first to report a historic event the exclusive right for any period to spread the knowledge of it.” – Justice Pitney, Supreme Court of the United States, International News Service v. Associated Press, 248 U.S. 215 (1918).
“The Defendants’ bar serves a wide variety of food and liquor, including premium scotches and bourbons. The menu items range from appetizers to full entrees. Live music is regularly featured at the bar, and the bar claims to be the first cigar bar in Houston. Its decor includes velvet paintings of celebrities and female nudes, including ones of Elvis and a bare-chested Mona Lisa. Other ‘eclectic’ decorations include lava lamps, cheap ceramic sculptures, beaded curtains, and vinyl furniture. Playboy centerfolds cover the men’s room walls. In addition to the velvet painting of Elvis, the bar’s menu and decor include other Elvis references. The menu includes ‘Love Me Blenders,’ a type of frozen drink; peanut butter and banana sandwiches, a favorite of Elvis’s; and ‘Your Football Hound Dog,’ a hotdog.” – Circuit Judge King, United States Court of Appeals, Fifth Circuit, Elvis Presley Enterprises, Inc. v. Capece, 141 F.3d 188 (1998).
“Once a trade secret is posted on the Internet, it is effectively part of the public domain, impossible to retrieve. Although the person who originally posted a trade secret on the Internet may be liable for trade secret misappropriation, the party who merely down loads Internet information cannot be liable for misappropriation because there is no misconduct involved in interacting with the Internet.” – District Judge Brinkema, United States District Court, E.D. Virginia, Alexandria Division, Religious Technology Center v. Lerma, 908 F.Supp. 1362 (1995)
“Our devotion to free wheeling industrial competition must not force us into accepting the law of the jungle as the standard of morality expected in our commercial relations.” – Judge Goldberg, United States Court of Appeals, Fifth Circuit, E. I. duPont deNemours & Co. v. Christopher, 431 F.2d 1012 (1970)
“Our merchants and master-manufacturers complain much of the bad effects of high wages in raising the price, and thereby lessening the sale of their goods both at home and abroad. 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, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, Vol. One
“As a man of civil profession seems awkward in a camp or a garrison, and is even in some danger of being despised there, so does an idle man among men of business.” – Adam Smith, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, Vol. One
“Money, says the proverb, makes money. When you have got a little, it is often easy to get more. The great difficulty is to get that little.” – Adam Smith, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, Vol. One
“The greatness of a state and the happiness of its subjects, however independent they may be supposed in some respects, are commonly allowed to be inseparable with regard to commerce.” – David Hume, Political Discourses
“Poverty, though it does not prevent the generation, is extremely unfavourable to the rearing of children. The tender plant is produced, but in so cold a soil, and so severe a climate, soon withers and dies.” – Adam Smith, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, Vol. One
“Servants, labourers and workmen of different kinds, make up the far greater part of every great political society. But what improves the circumstances of the greater part can never be regarded as an inconveniency to the whole. No society can surely be flourishing and happy, of which the far greater part of the members are poor and miserable. It is but equity, besides, that they who feed, cloath and lodge the whole body of the people, should have such a share of the produce of their own labour as to be themselves tolerably well fed, cloathed and lodged.” – Adam Smith, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, Vol. One
“A man is of all sorts of luggage the most difficult to be transported.” – Adam Smith, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, Vol. One
“Masters are always and every where in a sort of tacit, but constant and uniform combination, not to raise the wages of labour . . . . To violate this combination is every where a most unpopular action, and a sort of reproach to a master among his neighbours and equals.” – Adam Smith, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, Vol. One
“What are the common wages of labour, depends every where upon the contract usually made between those two parties, whose interests are by no means the same. The workmen desire to get as much, the masters to give as little as possible. The former are disposed to combine in order to raise, the latter in order to lower the wages of labour. It is not, however, difficult to foresee which of the two parties must, upon all ordinary occasions, have the advantage in the dispute, and force the other into a compliance with their terms. . . . In all such disputes the masters can hold out much longer.” – Adam Smith, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, Vol. One