A government debt is a government claim against personal income and private property - an unpaid tax bill.

There is no escape from the vast imbalances in international trade and finance. They will be corrected, sooner or later, by the inexorable principles that govern human action.

Unfortunately, it is not in the power of government to make everyone more prosperous. Government can only raise the income of one person by taking from another.

If we cannot return to fiscal integrity because the public prefers profusion and prodigality over balanced budgets, we cannot escape paying the price, which is ever lower incomes and standards of living for all.

Most politicians are ever eager to regulate industrial and commercial activity and strike at the economic elite with confiscatory taxation. Unfortunately, regulation and taxation tend to hamper economic activity, inhibit productivity, and depress levels of living.

The government transfers income and wealth according to the rules of politics, which make politicians the primary beneficiaries of the system, and the poor and needy the primary victims.

No other commodity enjoys as much universal acceptability and marketability as gold.