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In my view, we should be focusing on the overall net worth of the state, not just the national debt. The proper objective of fiscal policy should be a return to a situation where the state has a significant positive net worth. Of course the reduction of the national debt would contribute to this en…

In 1797 Thomas Paine, the philosopher and revolutionary, set out in his Agrarian Justice a scheme "to create a national fund, out of which there shall be paid to every person, when arrived at the age of twenty-one years, the sum of fifteen pounds sterlin, as a compensation in part, for the loss o…

But what exactly is the output of the financial services sector? [...] If one investment fund is outperforming another through picking the right shares, is not another fund losing on the other side of the equation? What makes it a positive-sum rather than a zero-sum business? [...] "Common sense su…

[...] When richer families have more children, inequality is reduced [...] "The average upper middle-class familiy is only two-thirds of the size of the average working-class family. Hence, in the absence of modifications introduced by marriage, fresh accumulations, and taxation, the distribution…

One reason for there being no comparable unemployment target is that there is a degree of ambiguity about the goal itself. Indeed, we have to ask why the US Congress is seeking "maximum employment." Why is it better to increase the number of sixty-four-year-olds stacking supermarket shelves? To pur…