8 March 2009
Hotel Lawyer with political insights from the past centuries.
I started this blog with some thoughts from Bloomberg about how retail sales were down in February, developing nations were $700 billion short on being able to pay for their imports and debt, implications of the soaring unemployment that now exceeds the job creation targeted by Obama’s program, but then my friend Carl Lambert sent me an email with some terse thoughts that rang true and made me smile.
So I thought I would share these today instead.
Can you still smile at our government?
There is a faint ring of that old joke here — that one of the three biggest lies is “I am from the government and I am here to help you.” But that is certainly what we are all expecting these days . . . for the government to help us.
Nonetheless, here are some insights gathered from the past few centuries that do remind us there are dangers as well as benefits from looking to Washington for help. I like the ones from Voltaire, Mark Twain and Churchill the best. What do you like?
Wisdom from the ages
- In my many years I have come to a conclusion that one useless man is a shame, two is a law firm and three or more is a Congress.
— John Adams - If you don’t read the newspaper you are uninformed, if you do read the newspaper you are misinformed.
— Mark Twain - I suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of Congress. But then I repeat myself.
— Mark Twain - I contend that for a nation to try to tax itself into prosperity is like a man standing in a bucket and trying to lift himself up by the handle.
— Winston Churchill - A government which robs Peter to pay Paul can always depend on the support of Paul.
— George Bernard Shaw - A liberal is someone who feels a great debt to his fellow man, which debt he proposes to pay off with your money.
— G. Gordon Liddy - Democracy must be something more than two wolves and a sheep voting on what to have for dinner.
— James Bovard, Civil Libertarian (1994) - Foreign aid might be defined as a transfer of money from poor people in rich countries to rich people in poor countries.
— Douglas Casey, Classmate of Bill Clinton at Georgetown University - Giving money and power to government is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys.
— P.J. O’Rourke, Civil Libertarian - Government is the great fiction, through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else.
— Frederic Bastiat, Frenc h Economist (1801-1850) - Government’s view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases: If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it.
— Ronald Reagan (1986) - I don’t make jokes. I just watch the government and report the facts.
— Will Rogers - If you think health care is expensive now, wait until you see what it costs when it’s free!
— P.J. O’Rourke - In general, the art of government consists of taking as much money as possible from one party of the citizens to give to the other.
— Voltaire (1764) - Just because you do not take an interest in politics doesn’t mean politics won’t take an interest in you!
— Pericles (430 B.C.) - No man’s life, liberty, or property is safe while the legislature is in session.
— Thomas Jefferson - Talk is cheap…except when Congress does it.
— Anonymous - The government is like a baby’s alimentary canal, with a happy appetite at one end and no responsibility at the other.
— Ronald Reagan - The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of the blessings. The inherent blessing of socialism is the equal sharing of misery.
— Winston Churchill - The only difference between a tax man and a taxidermist is that the taxidermist leaves the skin.
— Mark Twain - The ultimate result of shielding men from the effects of folly is to fill the world with fools.
— Herbert Spencer, English Philosopher (1820-1903) - There is no distinctly native American criminal class…save Congress.
— Mark Twain - What this country needs are more unemployed politicians.
— Edward Langley, Artist (1928-1995) - A government big enough to give you everything you want, is strong enough to take everything you have.
— Thomas Jefferson - The biggest difference between Republicans and Democrats is the spelling.
— Anonymous
Other articles on the Global Financial Crisis & Recovery and Outlook & Trends
For other articles about the Global Financial Crisis and where this all takes us, here are some recent articles and links. You can also go to Global Financial Crisis & Recovery and Outlook & Trends on www.HotelLawBlog.com
- Hotel Lawyer: Stimulate this! The lighter side of political commentary from the centuries
- Hotel Lawyer: What lies ahead? What’s the bailout cost $700 billion? $3 trillion? $20 trillion? What does Dr. Doom mean by an L-shaped Depression?
- Hotel Lawyer: Stimulus Bill and financial recovery — summary of selected tax provisions
- Hotel bankruptcies, workouts and turnarounds: Hotel Lawyers on the TARP, the TALF, and the ugly. What does it mean to hotel owners and lenders?
- Hotel Lawyer: Uh Oh! Now they are using the D word
- Hotel Lawyer: New hotel data and revised predictions for 2009. Increased hotel loan stress, falling NOI and slumping values. It’s going to get worse before it gets better.
- Hotel Attorneys with the latest “updates from the field”
- Hotel Lawyers: How do we pay for this? And what happens next?
- Distressed hotel assets find no fast relief in bailout plan. Up to $1 trillion “bad bank” to take toxic assets. No critical details yet.
- Troubled Hotel Loans: Turning point or just another ledge on the cliff before we go over the edge? Bad bank rescue and RTC-2 ahead?
This is Jim Butler, author of www.HotelLawBlog.com and hotel lawyer, signing off. We’ve done more than $87 billion of hotel transactions and more than 100 hotel mixed-used deals in the last 5 years alone. Who’s your hotel lawyer?
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Our Perspective. We represent developers, owners and lenders. We have helped our clients as business and legal advisors on more than $125 billion of hotel transactions, involving more than 4,700 properties all over the world. For more information, please contact Jim Butler at jbutler@jmbm.com or 310.201.3526.
Jim Butler is one of the top hospitality attorneys in the world. GOOGLE “hotel lawyer” or “hotel mixed-use” or “condo hotel lawyer” and you will see why.
Jim devotes 100% of his practice to hospitality, representing hotel owners, developers and lenders. Jim leads JMBM’s Global Hospitality Group® — a team of 50 seasoned professionals with more than $87 billion of hotel transactional experience, involving more than 3,900 properties located around the globe. In the last 5 years alone, Jim and his team have assisted clients with more than 100 hotel mixed-use projects — frequently integrated with energizing lifestyle elements.
Jim and his team are more than “just” great hotel lawyers. They are also hospitality consultants and business advisors. They are deal makers. They can help find the right operator or capital provider. They know who to call and how to reach them.
Contact him at jbutler@jmbm.com or 310.201.3526. For his views on current industry issues, visit www.HotelLawBlog.com.