If you really want to find out what someone is all about sometimes all you need to do is to shut up for a while and let them talk. The truth is that the mouth always eventually reveals what is in the heart. Most politicians and world leaders are highly skilled at “filtering” what they say to the public, but even most of them will eventually break down and tell us exactly what they are thinking. Posted below are 31 of the most ridiculous quotes from politicians, celebrities and world leaders so far in 2011. Some of the quotes are very funny but others are very troubling. The sad reality is that the more you listen to politicians and world leaders the more you realize that they really are quite clueless. When I was growing up I assumed that those in positions of power actually did know more than the rest of us, but unfortunately the opposite seems to be true in many cases. We really do have a bunch of idiots and morons in positions of power around the globe.
Our leaders seem to be totally clueless about the economy. They continue to promise us more jobs even as they continue to ship millions of our jobs out of the United States and load more business-killing regulations on our backs. The folks over at the Federal Reserve seem to think that printing money is the best solution for every economic problem but that it isn’t the cause of any of the inflation that we are experiencing. Many of our politicians are still convinced that the solution to most of our foreign policy problems is to bomb someone.
If you like ridiculous quotes you are going to enjoy the list below, but unfortunately these funny quotes also reveal some very disturbing things about the state of our society. The world is starting to spin out of control and those that are supposed to be running things appear to be highly incompetent. Hopefully you will enjoy the list below but also be troubled by it at the same time. The following are 31 of the most ridiculous quotes of 2011 so far….
#1 Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke: “We have seen increased evidence that a self-sustaining recovery in consumer and business spending may be taking hold.”
#2 Atlanta Fed President Dennis Lockhart: “If [the rising price of oil] plays through to the broad economy in a way that portends a recession, I would take a position we would respond with more accommodation.”
#3 Barack Obama: “We still have a long way to go, and my number one priority is to ensure we are doing everything we can to get the American people back to work.”
#4 Senior White House adviser Valerie Jarrett: “…the federal government is doing everything that we can to foster the kind of environment where companies want to invest and grow and hire people right here in America.”
#5 Michael Moore: “The nation is not broke, my friends. Wisconsin is not broke. … The truth is, there’s lots of money to go around. Lots.”
#6 Muammar Gaddafi: “Our children have been manipulated by al Qaeda.”
#7 George Soros: “However, it is a sad fact that Western democracies provide less successful leadership than China.”
#8 U.S. Senator John McCain: “I would also point out that…an iPad or an iPhone, those are built in the United States of America. And as the president said, continuously, and I agree with him, innovation is the key to us being able to restore our economy.”
#9 Russell Mead, writing for the Council on Foreign Relations: “Sometimes those elites are right, and sometimes they are wrong, but their ability to win voter approval for policies that seem counterintuitive is a critical factor in the American political system. In times like the present, when a surge of populist political energy coincides with a significant loss of popular confidence in establishment institutions — ranging from the mainstream media and the foreign policy and intellectual establishments to the financial and corporate leadership and the government itself — Jacksonian sentiment diminishes the ability of elite institutions and their members to shape national debates and policy.”
#10 Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke on the possibility for more quantitative easing: “In the end, we’ll just ask the same questions. Where’s the economy going, and what do various inflation indicator look like? We’ll ask those questions. If unemployment is still too low, then we may continue. If we’re moving towards full employment, then we won’t need to stimulate more.”
#11 Saif Al-Islam Gaddafi, son of embattled Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi: “We will fight until the last man, until the last woman, until the last bullet.”
#12 Ziona Chana, a 66-year-old man in India that currently has 39 wives: “I once married 10 women in one year.”
#13 Billy Ray Cyrus, referring to The Hannah Montana Show: “The damn show destroyed my family.”
#14 Lisa Trabelsi to her husband, deposed Tunisian president Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali, as he hesitated to board the plane that would take them into exile: “Get on, imbecile. All my life I’ve had to put up with your screw-ups.”
#15 Fareed Zakaria, member of both the Council on Foreign Relations and the Trilateral Commission: “I believe that the Constitution was one of the wonders of the world — in the 18th century. But today we face the reality of a system that has become creaky.”
#16 U.S. Vice-President Joe Biden to Afghan President Hamid Karzai: “We’re not leaving if you don’t want us to.”
#17 General David Petraeus to U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates: “Welcome back, sir, flying a little bigger plane than normal … you gonna launch some attacks on Libya or something?”
#18 U.S. Senator John McCain: “We can’t risk allowing Gaddafi to massacre people from the air.”
#19 Time Magazine: “U.S. counterterrorism officials have noted the disproportionate number of Libyans turning up in the ranks of al-Qaeda both in northern Africa and in Iraq.”
#20 GM CEO Daniel Akerson: “China is clearly a crown jewel in the GM universe.”
#21 President of the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta Dennis Lockhart: “The Fed, like every other central bank, is powerless to prevent fluctuations in the cost of living and increases of individual prices. We do not produce oil. Nor do we grow food or provide health care. We cannot prevent the next oil shock, or drought, or a strike somewhere —events that cause prices of certain goods to rise and change your cost of living.”
#22 Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi: I have always made it so that every woman feels, how should I say, special.
#23 U.S. Representative Christopher Lee in a Craigslist ad: “I’m a very fit, fun, classy guy. I promise not to disappoint.”
#24 Jack Nicholson: “There were points in my life where I felt oddly irresistible to women. I’m not in that state now, and that makes me sad.”
#25 Keith Olbermann, joking about his next career move: “OK it’s true! I’ve signed with the Yankees.”
#26 Arianna Huffington on the sale of her website to AOL for 315 million dollars: “This moment will be for HuffPost like stepping off a fast-moving train and onto a supersonic jet.”
#27 U.S. Representative Michael Capuano on the union protests in Wisconsin: “Every once and awhile you need to get out on the streets and get a little bloody when necessary.”
#28 Atlanta Federal Reserve Bank President Dennis Lockhart: “There is scope for reducing the unemployment through sensible monetary policy but that will leave probably a higher level of ‘natural’ unemployment … than maybe we enjoyed before the recession.”
#29 Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak: “I am fed up. After 62 years in public service, I have had enough. I want to go.”
#30 U.S. Secretary Of State Hillary Clinton: “We are in an information war and we are losing that war.”
#31 Anonymous Wisconsin Protester: “Why Do You Have A Right To Your Money?”