I have come to understand that life is composed of a series of coincidences. How we react to these - how we exercise what some refer to as free will - is everything; the choices we make within the boundaries of the twists of fate determine who we are.

Is it really necessary to reward the CEO with several million dollars? Why isn’t it logical or common sense to pay the minimum-wage employee another quarter, give a quarterly fifty-dollar bonus, or even provide a two-hundred-dollar gas gift card?

Our economy is based on spending billions to persuade people that happiness is buying things, and then insisting that the only way to have a viable economy is to make things for people to buy so they’ll have jobs and get enough money to buy things.

Over the years there also has been a transitional shift of labour legislations being exclusively employee oriented to advanced socio-economic lex of harmonious construction, emphasizing on the overall development of the economy builders (work-force) of the nation.

The economy of your country shall never determine the size of your three square meals if you know you can rise against and above all limitations! The climatic emergencies in the weather shall never determine your survival rates if you know you are above their standards!

There is no economic failure so terrible in its import as that of a country possessing a surplus of every necessity of life in which numbers willing and anxious to work, are deprived of dire necessities. It simply cannot be if our moral and economic system is to survive.

Products produced cheaply create ugly work lives and ugly households and ugly communities. Profits produced quickly cannot purchase patience and care. Patience is beautiful. Restraint and care are beautiful. Peace is beautiful. A small, diversified organic farm is beautiful.

The re-establishment of an ecological balance depends on the ability of society to counteract the progressive materialization of values. The ecological balance cannot be re-established unless we recognize again that only persons have ends and only persons can work towards them.

When I opened the last [401k] statement, I jumped out of the window. True, it was the kitchen window and I only fell two feet, so the whole scene lacked drama, but I thought that was the required reaction to extreme financial turmoil in America. And I am nothing if not patriotic.

Putting food under lock and key was one of the great innovations of your culture. No other culture in history has ever put food under lock and key - and putting it there is the cornerstone of your economy.[...] Because if the food wasn't under lock and key, Julie, who would work?

Annual state spending alone for prison facilities is now estimated at about $52 to $62 billion, the bulk of which is spent building new facilities; operating and maintaining more prisons; providing food and health care for prisoners; and administration and staff salaries and benefits.

...capitalism is too important and complex a subject to be left to economists. Achieving a critical comprehension of it requires perspectives beyond those characteristic of modern economics. That is why this is a history not of economic ideas, but of ideas beyond the capitalist economy.

Economics is a study of cause-and-effect relationships in an economy. It's purpose is to discern the consequences of various ways of allocating resources which have alternative uses. It has nothing to say about philosophy or values, anymore than it has to say about music or literature.

It was May 2009, and I didn’t like where the economy was headed. (I wished the Federal Reserve had a GPS or a map or some clue as to where they were driving the economy). Actually, the private sector drives the economy, while the Fed and the government just siphon gas out of the tank.

There is a very simple relationship between increased socioeconomic rifts in the society and increased violence, criminality, war, increased lack of trust between people, health problems and social exclusion - but it seems to be very difficult for people to understand this simple relationship.