On Human behavior ...

“[Humans] are perfectly capable of holding rational ideas and arguing, rationally, any point that suits them. One day, their reason leads them to positions that seem irrefutable; the next, the opposite opinion may seem just as irresistible, or even more so.

What is more remarkable is that they can hold an idea, and even cherish it, while doing something that is completely at odds with it.”

– Financial Reckoning Day P. 159

“People do not always act as they ‘should.’ Other people seem ‘irrational’ to us – especially those with whom we disagree. Nor do we always follow a logical and reasonable course of action. Instead, we are all swayed by tides of emotion … and occasionally swamped by them.”

- Financial Reckoning Day P. 1

“The world never works the way people think it does. That is not to say every idea about how the world works is wrong, but that often particular ideas about how it works will prove to be wrong if they are held in common. For only simple ideas can be held by large groups of people. Commonly held ideas are almost always dumbed down until they are practically lies …and often dangerous ones.”

- Financial Reckoning Day P. 3

“Public knowledge has its own peculiar character, for it must be dumbed down to a level that can be absorber by a mob.

A learned and thoughtful man may speak before a crowd and get no positive reaction whatsoever. A real demagogue, on the other hand, will distill his thoughts into a few simple-minded expressions and soon have enough admirers to run for public office. Readers who have wondered why it is that politicians all seem to be such simpletons now have their answer: It is a requirement for the job. For, en masse, mankind can neither understand complex or ambiguous thoughts nor remember them.”

- Financial Reckoning Day P. 168

“Democracy has a lie at its very core --- that you can cheat, murder, and steal as long as you get 51 percent of registered voters to go along with you. People are perfectly happy to vote their way into other people’s bank accounts --- and feel morally superior doing so. For they always do so in the name of some high-minded chutzpah, whether it is concern for the environment or the poor --- or making the world free!”

- Financial Reckoning Day P. 175