One of the deepest errors in modern economic thinking is the false belief that demand, by itself, creates wealth. This is the core illusion behind Keynesianism, monetarism, and every other form of violent intervention in money and credit.

Evil planners pretend they can inject demand by force, and that production will simply follow. But demand isn’t a magic force that can be conjured at will by a handful of sorcerers in tailored cloth. If it isn’t backed by real sacrifice and prior production, it’s counterfeit.

Over the weekend, President Trump put out a post on Truth Social suggesting that his administration will use the government’s control over the nation’s mortgage finance system to help bring about 50-year mortgages for American homebuyers. The Federal Housing Finance Agency director, Bill Pulte, said that he and the agencies he oversees are “working on it,” and that this new product would be “a complete game changer.”

Over the weekend, Donald Trump hinted that he’s planning to implement a new kind of mortgage. On Truth Social he posted an image showing Franklin Roosevelt under the phrase “30-year Mortgage.” Next to this, Trump posted an image of himself under the phrase “50-Year Mortgage.” 

The world is drowning in contradictions. Politicians speak of peace while maintaining arsenals. Economists discuss growth while ignoring the underlying mechanisms that produce it. Yet, buried beneath the noise, lies a simple truth that our predecessors understood better than we do: economics is not about money, GDP, or quarterly earnings reports. Economics is the study of how human beings cooperate peacefully to improve their conditions.

Politicians will be heartily applauded for saluting American’s soldiers today. But if citizens had better memories, elected officials would instead be fleeing tar and feathers. Politicians have a long record of betraying the veterans they valorize.

Zohran Mamdani won the November 2025 election, becoming the first Democrat Socialist Shia Muslim mayor of New York City.

November 11 (Veteran’s Day) in the US was once known as Armistice Day, the day set aside to celebrate the end of the modern era’s bloodiest war (up to that time). In his essay “World War I as Fulfillment: Power and the Intellectuals,” Murray Rothbard discusses the war as the triumph of several Progressive intellectual strains from the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

The following is Chapter 44 of The Irrepressible Rothbard. The article was originally published September of 1993.