Karen asks, What does it mean when the robbers in Washington say we’ll be “paid back?” My history teacher at Notre Dame 45 years ago didn’t know much about economics (or history either, for that matter. Or teaching But I digress.) “We owe it to ourselves,” he would endlessly prate, all the way through the 1930s until the end of the semester. Karen hits it on the head. Just like “mandatory government charity,” a “forced investment” is theft. The government has corrupted charity (and many clueless men of goodwill, alas) with the first, and the free market with the second. … Continue reading Payback