“Everyone wants to live at the expense of the state. They forget that the state lives at the expense of everyone.” - Frederic Bastiat
Inflation is at thirty-year highs. Markets are at extreme over-valuations. Fuel and winter heating costs are spiking. Governments are seeking to dictate ever more of what you can do and when you can do it. Real interest rates are at negative levels. Politics has never before been so divisive. Social activists are seeking to overturn national histories and cultures. Why have things become so fraught? Lance Morrow, writing for the Wall Street Journal, observed that everything in politics, the economy, and society is threatening to self-destruct. He tartly explained why: We are “living in a golden age of stupidity.”