Political Quotes

“Mr. President, my oldest son graduated from Tulane University in New Orleans with a master's degree in economics. He wrote a paper for his master's thesis called ``The Dutch Disease.'' I had never heard of the Dutch disease, but, him being my son, I read the thesis because I thought it would be important. What is the Dutch disease about? The Dutch disease is about a country that has an infinite supply of wealth--i.e., resources--but doesn't ever use that money to reinvest in its people. They buy what they need. It was about the Middle East, and if you look at the Middle East, every country over there that has a tremendous supply of oil and petroleum--what do they do? They buy their doctors and bring them over. They don't build universities. They don't make investments in themselves, and they give money to their people. The country's people suffer from the Dutch disease because the money is not reinvested to expand the wealth of the country. There is another disease called the dumb disease. The dumb disease is when you don't have a natural resource and have the opportunity to get some of it, but you turn it away for reasons that don't make any sense. I have tremendous respect for the gentleman from Rhode Island and the distinguished lady from California. In fact, I traveled with the distinguished lady from California to go to Disko Bay in Greenland to listen to Dr. Alley talk about climate change and climatology.…”