Among the most urgent political priorities of our age is the separation of economy and state.

The Fed is pushing a variety of workarounds that would inject trillions in new money into the economy while bypassing the banking system altogether. Time will tell whether or not this will succeed. Meanwhile, a serious danger lurks around the corner. Once the recession is over, the lending will start again. With fractional-reserve banking and limitless supplies of cash on hand, we will likely see the overall price trends reversed, from deflation to inflation to possible hyperinflation.

Let every nation, right now, do what is best for all citizens of the world: eliminate every form of intervention that would prevent or otherwise hobble mutually beneficial trade between any two parties anywhere in the world. No bureaucracy can help us toward that goal; it must come from a growing realization of the merit of freedom itself.

Capitalism, and capitalism alone, has rescued the human race from degrading poverty, rampant sickness and early death.

Wealth is not a given or an accident of history. It is not bestowed on us like rain from above. It is the product of human creativity in an environment of freedom. The freedom to own, to make contracts, to save, to invest, to associate, and to trade: these are the key to prosperity.

Never forget that no government has wealth of its own to spend. The money has to come from taxation, monetary inflation, or debt expansion that must be paid later. And government's spending choices will always be uneconomic relative to how society would use that wealth. That is to say, the money will be wasted.

Democracy has turned out to be not majority rule but rule by well-organized and well-connected minority groups who steal from the majority.