Mises Institute

One of Wolfman Jack's favorite tongue-in-cheek commercials, delivered in his raspy voice, went like this: "You say ya kids ain't got no clothes, ya ain't got no food in the frigerator — THEN BUY YOURSELF A COLOR TV BABY!"

This facetious admonition, spending way beyond ones means, is exactly how government at the federal, state, and local levels have been behaving over the past 50 years. Even worse, government at all levels has been enabling Americans to do the same.

In a lecture given at George Washington University on March 27, 2012, the chairman of the Fed said that the US central bank's aggressive response to the 2007–2009 financial crisis and recession helped prevent a worldwide catastrophe. Various economic indicators were showing ominous signs at the time. After closing at 3.1 percent in September 2007, the yearly rate of growth of industrial production fell to minus 14.8 percent by June 2009. The yearly rate of growth of housing starts fell from 20.5 percent in January 2005 to minus 54.8 percent in January 2009.

For years I've puzzled over the question of why religious people have such trouble coming to terms with economics. This problem applies only to modern religious people, for it was Catholics in 15th- and 16th-century Spain who systematized the discipline of economics to begin with. That was long ago. Today, most of what is written about economics in Catholic circles is painful to read. The failing extends left and right, as likely to appear in "progressive" or "traditionalist" publications. In book publishing, the problem is so pervasive that it is difficult to review the newest batch.

he yearly rate of growth of personal consumer outlays jumped from 2.5 percent in August last year to 3.8 percent this January.