Lenin is said to have declared that the best way to destroy the Capitalist System was to debauch the currency. By a continuing process of inflation, governments can confiscate, secretly and unobserved, an important part of the wealth of their citizens. By this method they not only confiscate, but they confiscate arbitrarily; and, while the process impoverishes many, it actually enriches some. The sight of this arbitrary rearrangement of riches strikes not only at security, but at confidence in the equity of the existing distribution of wealth.
John Maynard KeynesThe social object of skilled investment should be to defeat the dark forces of time and ignorance which envelope our future.
John Maynard KeynesOf the maxims of orthodox finance none, surely, is more anti-social than the fetish of liquidity, the doctrine of that it is a positive virtue on the part of investment institutions to concentrate their resources upon the holding of 'liquid' securities. It forgets that there is no such thing as liquidity of investment for the community as a whole.
John Maynard KeynesIt is generally agreed that casinos should, in the public interest, be inaccessible and expensive. And perhaps the same is true of Stock Exchanges.
John Maynard KeynesThe old saying holds. Owe your banker �1000 and you are at his mercy; owe him �1 million and the position is reversed.
John Maynard Keynes