As Jerome Tuccille famously wrote: “It usually begins with Ayn Rand.”

In September 11, 2001, terrorists flew planes into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Hours later, more than 2,900 people were dead, the overwhelming majority of them in the civilian office buildings at New York’s World Trade Center.

Within 24 hours, the US government was doing what it does best. It demanded more power, and set to work coming up with schemes for using its enormous military and national security apparatus — a group of agencies which had received more than half-a-trillion dollars during that fiscal year.

[The following is excerpted from a Foreword by Jeff Deist to our upcoming hardcover version of Henry Hazlitt’s classic Economics in One Lesson. Hazlitt was indeed a self-taught economist, but first and foremost he was a journalist. As a result, everything Hazlitt wrote exhibits great clarity and economy of words-- making him the perfect choice for lay readers who find economic theory intimidating.

Ask ten libertarians for a definition of libertarianism, and one is likely to receive about ten different answers.

Indeed, libertarians have something of a reputation for internecine battles over who the “real” libertarians are.

Most of the world, however, couldn’t possibly care less about these battles over how to correctly slice and dice the different types of libertarians.

Editors Note: On Thursday, the ECB announced a new stimulus plan including:

India’s economy had an annual growth of 5.0 percent in the April-June quarter, the slowest in more than six years dragged down by weak consumer demand and private investments.

A Reuters poll of economists had forecast annual growth of 5.7 percent for April-June, compared with a 5.8 percent rise the previous quarter. For April-June 2018, India reported 8 percent growth.

Last year I commented about the risks for India here.

Since the end of the Cold War in 1990, US defense spending has increased 182 percent in nominal terms, and 44 percent in inflation-adjusted terms. In inflation-adjusted terms, defense spending is now about equal with the all-time peak reached in 2011, and the White House’s Office of Management and Budget estimates that defense spending will reach an all-time high in 2020.