Eat the Rich Quotes

“Microeconomics is about money you don't have, and macroeconomics is about money the government is out of.”
― P.J. O'Rourke, Eat the Rich: A Treatise on Economics

“We all know how 'modern democracies take loaves from the wealthy.' It's the slipups in the 'pass them out to the poor' department that inspire a study of Economics.”
― P.J. O'Rourke, Eat the Rich: A Treatise on Economics

“Mao asks Zhou Enlai and Deng Xiaoping, “How do you get a cat to bite a hot pepper?” Zhou says, “You hold him down, pry his jaws open, and shove the pepper into his mouth.” Mao says, “No, that’s force. We want the cat to bite the pepper of his own free will.” Deng says, “You take the pepper, wrap it in a delicious piece of fish, and, before he knows it, the cat has bitten the pepper.” Mao says, “No, that’s trickery. We want the cat to know he’s biting the pepper.” Zhou and Deng say, “We give up. How do you make a cat bite a hot pepper?” “It’s easy,” Mao says. “Stick the pepper up the cat’s ass. He’ll be glad to bite it.”
― P.J. O'Rourke, Eat the Rich: A Treatise on Economics

“The Theory of Surplus Value means that anytime you hire someone, you are exploiting him. If you pay someone to fix your automobile, he has the right, by virtue of being your mechanic, to steal your car.”
― P.J. O'Rourke, Eat the Rich: A Treatise on Economics

“If you use your resources to obtain a thing, you can’t use those same resources to obtain something else. That’s called fraud (or having a credit card). In”
― P.J. O'Rourke, Eat the Rich: A Treatise on Economics

“. . . crop restrictions not only raise the price of corn and other crops but also tend to raise farmers’ total revenues and earnings.” Increase your corn profit by not growing corn? Here’s a wonderful kind of business where everybody can get rich if they’ll just do nothing.”
― P.J. O'Rourke, Eat the Rich: A Treatise on Economics