“In the field of monetary and credit policy, precautionary action to prevent inflationary excesses is bound to have some onerous effects— if it did not it would be ineffective and futile. Those who have the task of making such policy don’t expect you to applaud. The Federal Reserve, as one writer put it, after the recent increase in the discount rate, is in the position of the chaperone who has ordered the punch bowl removed just when the party was really warming up. But unless the business community, leaders in all walks, exhibit moderation, prudence, and understanding, then we will fail and deserve to fail.”
William McChesney Martin, 19 October 1955
“The wealth of another region excites their greed; and if it is weak, their lust for power as well. Nothing from the rising to the setting of the sun is enough for them. Among all others only they are compelled to attack the poor as well as the rich. Plunder, rape, and slaughter they falsely call empire; and where they make a desert, they call it peace.”
Tacitus
