“Despite declining catches, New England fishermen continue to receive state and federal tax incentives that encourage them — in some cases all but compel them — to acquire bigger boats and to harvest the seas more intensively. Today the fishermen of Massachusetts are reduced to fishing the hideous hagfish, for which there is a slight market in the Far East, but even their numbers are now falling.”

“The Exxon Corporation was, and is, working hard to take the lead in setting the standard for the environmental clean-up along the 1,200 miles of damaged Alaskan coastline. Yet, despite all their efforts they still hear cries of foul. News articles claim the corporation is falling short of its responsibilities. Video footage of out-of-work fishermen sitting in idle boats carries the depressing message that the fishing industry cannot provide a livelihood for several more years. Exxon has spent billions of dollars related to that tragic oil spill. In spite of their efforts they continue to pay the price in money, damaged reputation, and ill-will.”

“The fishermen know that the sea is dangerous and the storm terrible, but they have never found these dangers sufficient reason for remaining ashore.”

“Christ surrounded himself with beggars, prostitutes, tax-collectors and fishermen…. what he meant by this was that the divine spark is in every soul and is never extinguished…”

“Sea turtles of all kinds are peculiarly prone to eat plastic scraps and other buoyant debris and to tangle themselved in lines and netting discarded by fishermen, and records of such mishaps have increased markedly in recent years.”

“Engvall and his buddy get off a boat with a big string of bass.
On-looker: You catch all them fish?
Engvall: Nope, talked 'em into givin' up. Here's your sign.”

“The modern state is largely a mechanism for transferring funds from one person to another. What we economists call public goods are provided by the state but are now only a part of it. The United States is not as far along in this procedure as many other countries, but in our case the federal government pays out in various types of transfers a significant percent of the amount it collects in taxes. Most of the European countries are even more dominated by the legacy of Bismarck.”

“Our achievement…has been to show that you can build far greater, and far more lasting, prosperity by letting people co-operate in the freedom of the market place than by making them submit to the coercion of Government regulations and state bureaucracy. If you look around the world today, East and West, even in Soviet Russia and Communist China, you will see that lesson being taken to heart…The truth is that a prosperous world based on free and open markets is a world of co-operation and interdependence between the people of all nations. By contrast, a world of closed, State controlled economies is a world disposed towards confrontation and conflict.”

“By that time a structure of property rights had developed in the Netherlands and England which provided the incentives necessary for sustained growth. These included the inducements required to encourage innovation and the consequent industrialization. The industrial revolution was not the source of modern economic growth. It was the outcome of raising the private rate of return on developing new techniques and applying them to the production process.”

“Populations interact, some decline to extinction, and some expand. In an ice age the tundra advances on the forest, but in no sense is there a "struggle" between them. As the temperature gets colder, the forest species decline and the tundra species increase; that is all. There is neither effort nor fight. As we move toward the more complex animals, of course, both effort and fighting become more common, but even in the predator-prey relationship, there is catching and eating rather than fighting.”