We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon
Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.
Trust you would like this September issue of the Marc Faber Gloom, Boom & Doom ... it starts right at the get-go and reaches crescendo as the pages turn
Goes well before bed time, with a night cap, either good wine or nice chocolate
The Problem with Revolutions is How to Keep Them under Control
“Let us be terrible in order to prevent the people from being terrible themselves.” Georges Danton
“My only regret is that I’m going before that rat, Robespierre! Don’t forget to show my head to the people. It’s well worth seeing.” Georges Danton (to his executioner)
“Oh, it were better to be a poor fisherman than to meddle with the government of men.” Georges Danton
“In revolutions authority remains with the greatest scoundrels.” Georges Danton
“The enemy is within the gates; it is with our own luxury, our own folly, our own criminality that we have to contend.” Marcus Tullius Cicero
“One can ... never create [freedom] by an invading force.” Maximilien Robespierre
“When a banker jumps out of a window, jump after him — that’s where the money is.” Maximilien Robespierre
“lf the attribute of popular government in peace is virtue, the attribute of popular government in revolution is at one and the same time virtue and terror, virtue without which terror is fatal, terror without which virtue is impotent. The terror is nothing but justice, prompt, severe, inflexible; it is thus an emanation of virtue.” Maximilien Robespierre
“The most extravagant idea that can be born in the head of a political thinker is to believe that it suffices for people to enter, weapons in hand, among a foreign people and expect to have its laws and constitution embraced. No one loves armed missionaries; the first lesson of nature and prudence is to repulse them as enemies.” Maximilien Robespierre
“When one meddles with the direction of a revolution, the problem is not how to make it go but how to keep it under control.” Honoré Gabriel Riqueti, Comte de Mirabeau
“How could liberty ever establish itself amongst us? Apart from a few tragic scenes, the revolution has been nothing but a web of farcical scenes.” Jean-Paul Marat
“It seems that the inevitable fate of man is never to attain complete freedom: princes everywhere tend to despotism and the people to servitude.” Jean-Paul Marat
“No, liberty is not made for us: we are too ignorant, too vain, too presumptuous, too cowardly, too vile, too corrupt, too attached to rest and to pleasure, too much slaves to fortune to ever know the true price of liberty. We boast of being free! To show how much we have become slaves, it is enough just to cast a glance on the capital and examine the morals of its inhabitants.” Jean-Paul Marat
“Don’t be taken in when they paternally pat you on the shoulder and say that there’s no inequality worth speaking of and no more reason to fight because if you believe them they will be completely in charge in their marble homes and granite banks from which they rob the people of the world under the pretence of bringing them culture. Watch out, for as soon as it pleases them they’ll send you out to protect their gold in wars whose weapons, rapidly developed by servile scientists, will become more and more deadly until they can with a flick of the finger tear a million of you to pieces.” Jean-Paul Marat
“It is the height of stupidity to claim that men who for a thousand years have had the power to berate us, to fleece us and to oppress us with impunity, will now agree, with good grace, to be our equals.” Jean-Paul Marat
“Man has the right to deal with his oppressors by devouring their palpitating hearts.” Jean-Paul Marat
“To administer is to govern: to govern is to reign. That is the essence of the problem.” Honoré Gabriel Riqueti, Comte de Mirabeau
“None but people of strong passion are capable of rising to greatness.” Honoré Gabriel Riqueti, Comte de Mirabeau
“I shall make it my chief business to see that the [royal] executive power has its place in the constitution.” Honoré Gabriel Riqueti, Comte de Mirabeau
“The strength of a civilization is not measured by its ability to fight wars, but rather by its ability to prevent them.” Gene Roddenberry
“If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be.” Thomas Jefferson
INTRODUCTION
A problem that many students encounter towards the end of their studies is to find a suitable subject for their doctoral thesis. In the late 1960s, I had the same problem and consulted with a variety of people about what I should write on. Among others, I went to see my Uncle Walter, who lived in Basel and was a successful businessman. (He was in charge of pharmaceuticals and R&D at Geigy, which later merged with Ciba to become Novartis [NVS] — see Figure 1.) He took me to dinner at Chez Donati, one of Switzerland’s best Italian restaurants. (It is now owned by the Bindella Family, who control most of the highest-end Italian restaurants in Switzerland. I went to school with the sister of the current CEO who, aside from being an excellent restaurateur, is also an accomplished drummer.) Over the meal, Uncle Walter told me that the most important issue when writing a thesis was to get the job done in as little time and with as little effort
as possible. “Just finish the bloody thing,” he said. “Later in life, nobody will ever ask you about it.” (In those days, many students took ages to complete their studies and often gave up before completing their thesis.) My uncle had also studied economics and had obtained a doctor’s degree. He was no great intellect, but he was cultured, an accomplished bon vivant and at the same time extremely pragmatic.
