Apparently modern financial regulators are vastly more sophisticated than we were as financial regulators 25 years ago - because we had never figured out that the key to financial stability was leaving felons in charge of the largest financial institutions in the world.
Outsiders tend to be the first to recognize the inadequacies of our social institutions. But, precisely because they are outsiders, they are usually in a poor position to fix them.
Political institutions are a superstructure resting on an economic foundation.
The issue with international institutions is that there is a crisis of legitimacy. Trust in these institutions is a serious problem.
To embarrass justice by multiplicity of laws, or to hazard it by confidence in judges, seem to be the opposite rocks on which all civil institutions have been wrecked, and between which legislative wisdom has never yet found an open passage.
All human activities, professions, programs, and institutions must henceforth be judged primarily by the extent to which they inhibit, ignore, or foster a mutually enhancing humanEarth relationship.
As is natural with contiguous states having like institutions and like aims of advancement and development, the friendship of the United States and Mexico has been constantly maintained.
The country is headed toward a single and splendid government of an aristocracy founded on banking institutions and moneyed incorporations and if this tendency continues it will be the end of freedom and democracy, the few will be ruling. . . I hope we shall. . . crush in its birth the aristocracy of our moneyed corporations which dare already to challenge our government to trial and bid defiance to the laws of our country. I sincerely believe that banking establishments are more dangerous than standing armies.
Even if it remained for 10 more years, it is not the commission that will solve the justice situation, it is us, the Guatemalans, who must see if we truly want to fix our institutions, strengthen them and move forward.
The only ground of hope for the continuance of our free institutions is in the proper moral and religious training of the children, that they may be prepared to discharge aright the duties of men and citizens.
I mean, what's the elections? You know, two guys, same background, wealth, political influence, went to the same elite university, joined the same secret society where you're trained to be a ruler - they both can run because they're financed by the same corporate institutions.
The reality is that international institutions like the UN can only be as effective as its members allow it to be.
The only justification for repressive institutions is material and cultural deficit. But such institutions, at certain stages of history, perpetuate and produce such a deficit, and even threaten human survival.
I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies.
The most socially subversive institution of our time is the one-parent family.
I think essentially corrupting institutions in Washington are turning conservatism into something that is really very creepy, but also emotionally and psychically powerful for people.
The more powerful a person or institution is, the more transparent - open to public inspection or oversight - its activities should be. The less powerful, the less transparent.
America is at war with itself because it's basically declared war not only on any sense of democratic idealism, but it's declared war on all the institutions that make democracy possible. And we see it with the war on public schools. We see it with the war on education. We see it with the war on the healthcare system.
In the days of democracy there is no such thing as active loyalty to a person. You are, therefore, loyal or disloyal to institutions.
Marriage. . . is still the imperfect institution it must remain while women continue to be ill-educated, passive, and subservient.