There is not a line in 'The Wealth of Nations' that is not still applicable to this day.

To the best of my knowledge, there has never been a monetary union, putting out a fiat currency, composed of independent states.

If you spend your own money on yourself, you care how much you spend and how well you spend it. If you spend your own money on someone else, you care how much you spend, but you don't care how well it is spent. If you spend someone else's money on yourself, you don't care how much you spend, but you do care how well it is spent. And finally, if you spend someone else's money on someone else, you don't care how much you spend, and you don't care how well it is spent. That is government.

See, if you look at the drug war from a purely economic point of view, the role of the government is to protect the drug cartel. That's literally true.

What you have as a result of past policies is that German entrepreneurs go outside of Germany for many of their activities. They are investing abroad instead of at home because there isn't the openness, fluidity and opportunity they find outside their borders.

The current oil crisis has not been produced by the oil companies. It is a result of governmental mismanagement exacerbated by the Mideast war.

When you start paying people to be poor, you wind up with an awful lot of poor people.