John Stossel No They Can't Quotes & Sayings

Politicians and bureaucrats clearly have no idea how complicated markets are. Every day people make countless tradeoffs, in all areas of life, based on subjective value judgements and personal information as they delicately balance their interest, needs and wants. Who is in a better position than they to tailor those choices to best serve their purposes? Yet the politicians believe they can plan the medical market the way you plan a birthday party. — John Stossel

Companies don't get rich hurting their customers. — John Stossel

Nothing keeps a company honest and efficient like the threat of other companies coming along and taking its business away. — John Stossel

Living with the liberals, you get to hear their arguments, fight with them all the time. Keeps me alert. — John Stossel

There's no business that's too small for government to torture — John Stossel

It's not about electing the right people. It's about a narrowing their responsibilities. — John Stossel

Entitlement? How can you be entitled to someone else's money? — John Stossel

When action is divorced from consequences, no one is happy with the ultimate outcome. If individuals can take from a common pot regardless of how much they put in it, each person has an incentive to be a free rider, to do as little as possible and take as much as possible because what one fails to take will be taken by someone else. Soon, the pot is empty and will not be refilled -- a bad situation even for the earlier takers. — John Stossel

Liberalism had come to mean spending more on everything-speech police, failed poverty programs that reward dependence, a bigger nanny state telling us we cannot eat fatty foods, workplace roles that stifle opportunity, and absurd environmental regulations. — John Stossel

Natural gas is highly explosive, invisible, poisonous, and odorless. Yet we accept natural gas, even though it kills not two but 400 Americans a year, because it was introduced before we got crazy about risk. We accept coal, even though mining it is nasty and filthy and kills dozens of people every year. By contrast, we're terrified of nuclear energy. Chernobyl, the worst nuclear power disaster ever, killed only 30 people. Some say the radiation may eventually kill others, but even if that's true, natural gas kills more people every year. — John Stossel

The market performs miracles so routinely that we take it for granted. Supermarkets provide 30,000 choices at rock-bottom prices. We take it for granted that when we stick a piece of plastic in a wall, cash will come out; that when we give the same plastic to a stranger, he will rent us a car, and the next month, VISA will have the accounting correct to the penny. By contrast, 'experts' in government can't even count the vote accurately. — John Stossel

Take away the government's monopoly, and private groups will do it better. — John Stossel

No wonder I'm anxious: I'm like Woody Allen trapped in John Calvin. — Scott Stossel

Happiness comes when we test our skills towards some meaningful purpose. — John Stossel

I like taking the subway to work. — John Stossel

Any money the government spends must be taxed, borrowed or conjured out of thin air by the Federal Reserve, and that will reduce sound private investment. Obama has no real wealth to inject into the economy. He can only move around existing money while inflation robs us of purchasing power. Meanwhile, private investors who might have produced a better engine, battery, computer, cancer treatment or other wealth-creating and life-enhancing innovations hold back for fear that big government will undermine productive efforts. — John Stossel

The theory of government I was taught says that government provides benefits, primarily security, to the entire population. In return we pay taxes. But lately the government has been a distributor of special privileges, taking money from some and giving it to others. America is now about evenly split between those who pay income taxes and those who consume them. — John Stossel

Government is so big today that more than half the population gets a major part of its income from the state. — John Stossel

The happiest stutterers, I learned, are those who are willing to stutter in front of others. — John Stossel

Government has no money of its own. All it does is take resources from one group and given them to another. — John Stossel

I'm a libertarian. It's a terrible word. — John Stossel

Life is fairer when individuals are free to make their own decisions — John Stossel No They Can T

A conservative is a libertarian who has been mugged. — John Stossel

Give me a break. — John Stossel

Good government has to mean less government. — John Stossel No They Can T

Patrick Henry did not say, 'Give me absolutely safety or give me death.' America is supposed to be about freedom. — John Stossel

When workers can get and equal return for less effort, workers make less effort — John Stossel No They Can T

We like to think we're superior to the people who, centuries ago, burned 'witches' for no better reason than a neighbor's belief that his crop failure or impotence was caused by that woman's action. But reporters are still prone to the same mental errors that caused these killings: seeing patterns where there are none, finding causes where there is only coincidence, ignoring our sources' political agendas and turning scanty evidence into panic. — John Stossel

Markets are too complex to manipulate beneficially. — John Stossel

Current government regulation interferes with honest voluntary exchanges by imposing arbitrary terms and requiring tons of paperwork disclosing information no one wants anyway. — John Stossel

When we were scared about 9/11, we federalized the airport security, we spent millions for body armor for dogs in Ohio. All that over-reaction comes from fear and government - bad combination. — John Stossel

The politicians should not tell the people to shut up. — John Stossel

The smaller the government, the less the need to manipulate politicians. — John Stossel No They Can T

People like getting what they think is free stuff from government. — John Stossel

A thousand restaurants close every month. They re-open, and that's good for America. Nobody's rescuing them. They employ people, too. If we let them go bankrupt, the factories don't go away, the creative people don't go away. They get employed more productively by others. — John Stossel

Fraud will always exist. Enforcement of anti-fraud laws is a useful deterrent, but in the end there's no substitute for investor vigilance. Government regulations provide a false sense of security - and that's worth less than no sense of security at all. — John Stossel

Why, in our 'free' country, do Americans meekly stand aside and let the state limit our choices, even when we are dying? — John Stossel

That which is common to the greatest number has the least care bestowed upon it. — John Stossel No They Can T

But if government is in the business of promoting what is good and suppressing the bad, that is a license for it to stick it's nose into virtually every human activity. — John Stossel No They Can T Pg 32 Threshold Editions New York New York 2012

I'm a little embarrassed about how long it took me to see the folly of most government intervention. It was probably 15 years before I really woke up to the fact that almost everything government attempts to do, it makes worse. — John Stossel

David Boaz has been my guide to the history, economics, and politics of freedom for years. — John Stossel

If overpopulation or lack of resources created poverty, then Hong Kong should be poor. Hong Kong has 20 times as many people per square mile as India, and no valuable natural resources. Yet Hong Kong is rich; the average income there is higher than in Great Britain or Canada. This is a recent development. In the 1920s, Hong Kong was as poor as India. But in a relatively short time it became rich because of one key ingredient: economic freedom. — John Stossel

People acting in their own self-interest is the fuel for all the discovery, innovation, and prosperity that powers the world. — John Stossel

I never wanted to be an anchor for 25 years, and suddenly I wanted to be one. — John Stossel

I had to watch government fail for 25 years doing consumer reporting before I really saw it because intuitively, the reaction is problem, bring government and government will make it better. — John Stossel

Give me a break - They say taxes are inevitable, like death. At least death doesn't come every year. — John Stossel