# The Mandibles

## Metadata
- Author: [[Lionel Shriver]]
- Full Title: The Mandibles
- Category: #books
## Highlights
- It’s just, these people forecasting the end of the world, they never seem upset by the prospect, do they? Invoking ruin, heartache, and devastation, they can barely disguise their delight. What do they think actual collapse is like, a kid’s birthday party where everyone dances in a circle singing, ‘Ashes! Ashes! We all fall down’? And they seem to assume that they themselves will be immune, sunning by the pool while cities burn on the horizon. They’re would-be voyeurs. They regard the fate of millions if not billions of real people as entertainment.” ([Location 659](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01824RDKK&location=659))
- “Money is emotional,” Lowell pronounced. “Because all value is subjective, money is worth what people feel it’s worth. They accept it in exchange for goods and services because they have faith in it. Economics is closer to religion than science. Without millions of individual citizens ([Location 675](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01824RDKK&location=675))
- believing in a currency, money is colored paper. ([Location 677](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01824RDKK&location=677))
- What the gold bugs never concede? Now that the metal has almost no real utility in and of itself, it’s therefore just as artificial a store of value as fiat currencies, or cowrie shells.” ([Location 687](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01824RDKK&location=687))