Joseph Hume Quotes

Interest groups are not the same as individuals. Through false nostalgia for the New Deal, you are taking the younger generation hostage. They are the ones who are going to have to pay far greater taxes. They are the future's forgotten men.

With an open trade in corn and a fixed duty we should have every man in the country fully fed and happy, instead of our present situation in which so much distress exists - distress of our own producing.

There can never be such a thing as a free market, because it is human nature to cheat, monopolize, and buy off others so as to corner the market.

With less competition to fear, companies are emboldened to raise their mark-ups and profits. That lifts share prices and thus the wealth of already wealthy shareholders.

I'm not denying that monopolies are terrible things, but I am denying that it is readily easy to resolve them through legislation of that nature.

I talked about the barriers created by monopolies. I said that it was the role of government to break up these monopolies and that we couldn't do it alone.

The successful companies try to keep the new entrants down. Now that's great for a company like ours. We make more money that way because we have less competition and less innovation. But for the country as a whole, it's horrible.

I've seen articles suggesting that Wal-Mart buys at prices lower than our competitors', and that this gives Wal-Mart an unfair advantage. I don't believe it... What we hear is concern that in some circumstances, Wal-Mart may actually be paying more than our competitors.

Unregulated competition is a naive metaphor for anarchy.

Business, too, need to mend its ways. For many years various sections of American industry have asked for special legislation which offered a temporary benefit at the expense of normal economic processes. Business has asked for special subsidies and special tariffs, for special protection against price cutters or low cost producers, for government appropriations for this or that special purpose. Business cannot ask for government interference at one time, and then indignantly reject it at another.

I am just as anxious as Mr. Brandeis can be, to have trade regulated by competition as far as possible; but as a matter of fact, competition has broken down hopelessly in this country to adequately control prices, to adequately control quality, and we all know it… it is the theory regarding competition that it will regulate prices and quality; that it will give us reasonable prices and superior quality. That is a beautiful theory. But if this theory has ever corresponded to the facts in the past (and this I doubt) we may be sure that in the future it will never again do so.

Tariffs, quotas and other import restrictions protect the business of the rich at the expense of high cost of living for the poor. Their intent is to deprive you of the right to choose, and to force you to buy the high-priced inferior products of politically favored companies.

The holder of a monopoly is a sinner and offender.

The existence of immense aggregations of kindred enterprises and combinations of business interests formed for the purpose of limiting production and fixing prices is inconsistent with the fair field which ought to be open to every independent activity. Legitimate strife in business should not be superseded by an enforced concession to the demands of combinations that have the power to destroy, nor should the people to be served lose the benefit of cheapness which usually results from wholesome competition.

The executive [President] could have saved the people from the appalling conditions which confront us today, if all the power of this government had been put forth to enforce the [Sherman] Anti-Trust law.

The granting of monopolies, or exclusive privileges to individuals or corporations, is an invasion of the right of others to choose a lawful calling, and an infringement of personal liberty.

Monopolies, whether private or governmental, are always abused by those who hold them.

I don’t like monopolies when I see them.

The Americans should stop insulting us, I'm not going to be an accomplice to the depopulation of the land. It's not up to the Americans to tell us how to organize our farm policy and the balance of our society. Their attitude is to treat the EC as if it had the plague and then encourage the rest of the world to join in.

Even capital punishment could not make price control work in the days of Emperor Diocletian and the French Revolution.

One of the many economic differences between developed and developing countries is that developed countries subsidize farmers while developing countries tax farmers.

[The beef trust is] an atrocious conspiracy of greed against need…. Can anyone deny that such absolute control by a few men over the food supply of the nation is in the highest degree hostile to the public welfare.

Monopolies—the worst of all taxes.

Markets, when left to themselves, can sort of slip into being just the private property of big businesses and cartels, meeting the needs of some businesses and not the needs of customers.

My priorities are a fair trade policy in this country, increasing the minimum wage, going after the drug companies for the way that they charge and their whole pricing structure that have put absolutely amazing drugs out of reach for so many Americans.