A student goes into a bank. He tells the personal loan banker, “I want to borrow $7,500 per year for the next four or five years.”

“That’s at least $30,000 over time,” the banker says. “Personal loans have a 10 percent interest factor.”

“For my loan,” says the student, “I need an interest rate close to a home mortgage, like 6 percent. Also, I don’t want to be charged interest for the first four or five years of the loan.”

The banker asks, “How long will this loan be for?”

“A twenty-year payoff after graduation or shorter,” replies the student.

Nobel Prize–winning economist George Stigler once wrote of economists as preachers, which he described as involving offering “a clear and reasoned recommendation (or, more often, denunciation) of a policy or form of behavior by men or societies of men,” particularly with respect to the ethics of market competition.

Advocates of Keynesian economics believe the Federal Reserve should pursue policies that will prevent the possible decline of the economy into a liquidity trap. But what is a liquidity trap?

Economic activity often is presented in terms of a circular flow of money. Spending by one individual becomes part of the earnings of another individual, and spending by another individual becomes part of the first individual’s earnings. Recessions, by this thinking, occur because consumers—for whatever reason—have decided to cut spending and increase their savings.

After the recent midterm election, when it became apparent that Americans would have a divided new Congress, it wasn’t long before the word bipartisan started showing up as an adjective to modify a whole host of legislative proposals and discussions. While in many cases the word has been aspirational rather than descriptive—as in, “the other side should follow our lead in agreeing to this”—it has often also been used as a magic modifier in an effort to reduce criticism and grease the skids to more political support for proposals.

No good deed goes unpunished claims the old proverb, and twenty-four-year-old YouTuber Jimmy Donaldson’s recent charity act of helping one thousand blind people see again has the world divided on the moral circumstances surrounding his private charity. Some would go so far as calling his benevolence a “stunt.” They are utterly wrong, and understanding his reasoning and motives behind the charity acts should negate any critique.

[This article is the Introduction to Breaking Away: The Case of Secession, Radical Decentralization, and Smaller Polities.]