Quotes from Mark Skousen

If you subscribe to any online service, whether it be AOL, Google, Yahoo, or the Huffington Post, have you noticed that you are forced to watch a seemingly endless ad before the video story appears about a news item that caught your eye? AOL and the Huffington Post are especially annoying.

I find it ironic how New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg is so focused on such small issues as drink sizes, while ignoring the massive infrastructure challenges in New York - lousy roads, third-world airports, traffic jams, etc.

In my lifetime, as a younger man, you were assumed to be an honest person. Your word was your bond, and a handshake was as good as a contract in business.

YouTube offers the best solution by running an ad before showing the video, but also offering a 'skip ad' button that you can click after five seconds to go directly to the video if you are not interested in the ad. Now, that's what I call consumer sovereignty!

In the early 1980s, I burned my Social Security card at the New Orleans Investment Conference in protest of the state pension system.

Remember, gold and silver always have had value and never have gone to zero. Can you say the same for stocks and bonds?

One suggestion my wife and I have used in our personal finance courses we teach at college is simply writing down all expenditures and seeing where the money goes. That alone will cause heads of households to think twice about x, y or z expenditure, and to consider carefully whether they really need something or not.

The triumph of persuasion over force is the sign of a civilized society.

You can judge a man by the books in his library.

Negative books can be bestsellers, but seldom classics.

Lawmakers who interfere with commerce and the normal creation of jobs in an economy run the risk of doing harm rather than good. Unintended consequences from regulating or legislating to achieve a goal can occur and cause havoc in the markets or an economy.

The U.S. Constitution was meant to be universal, not just something that only America would observe. The principle of defending liberty for all people ideally should apply everywhere in the world.

We shall never change our political leaders until we change the people who elect them.

Society can take two roads - the road to genuine prosperity, or the road to artificial stimulus. The first results in a permanent higher standard of living for all; the latter creates an inflationary boom that cannot last.

For those of us in the financial world, Black Friday has a strong negative connotation, referring to a stock market catastrophe.

The reality is that business and investment spending are the true leading indicators of the economy and the stock market. If you want to know where the stock market is headed, forget about consumer spending and retail sales figures. Look to business spending, price inflation, interest rates, and productivity gains.

The true principle of taxation is the benefit principle - those who benefit from a government service should pay for it. It's also known as the 'user pay' principle. Every effort should be made to link the payment of taxes or fees to the cost associated with the government service.

Even though I've reached retirement age, I still plan to work - writing my investment newsletter, speaking at conferences, publishing books, and producing conferences like FreedomFest.

You can give your Social Security check to any organization, public or private, or to individuals. You can donate it to your favorite political party. You can give the funds to a student scholarship - for your grandchildren, for example - or to somebody who has a medical need. Or you can invest your government check in free enterprise.

It is business that generates the jobs, income and taxes that keep a country going.

I am tired of the constant demonizing of people via political labels.

In my book, 'The Big Three in Economics,' I found that the press has frequently and prematurely written the obituary of Adam Smith and his free-market philosophy, only to see a new and more vibrant global marketplace reemerge after being savagely attacked by Keynesians, Marxists, and assorted socialists.

Here in America, government began as a tool to assure freedom. It gradually turned into a hideously expensive political toy designed to redistribute your wealth and control most aspects of your business and private life.

Taxation is the price we pay for failing to build a civilized society. The higher the tax level, the greater the failure. A centrally planned totalitarian state represents a complete defeat for the civilized world, while a totally voluntary society represents its ultimate success.