Document LN40wzzw2Jm5V7Kb2o1d1RNq

30 The Economic Face of Political Freedom have only Hipped past the pictures. In this, as in other matters, we seem tp derive our national philosophy from Don Marquis' care free, lower-case alley cat mehitabel, who lived (or the moment and whose motto was "toujours gai." And what shall we say about inflation that has not already been said, except that the word, with its connotation of expansive ness and even euphoria, may be mislead ing? We have had a steady inflation of prices, true, but with it a steady deflation in the value of our money. The year brought word that the dollar had lost halt of its worth within the short span of a decade. The pro prietor of my favorite bakery started out in business in 1927, and promptly framed his first dollar. I visited him the other day and didn't have the heart to tell him that that green rectangle, which was to mark the first step along the road to a secure fortune, has survived to his retirement years worth only a quarter and four pennies in terms of The proprietor of my lavorite bakery staneo our in business m 1927. ana promptly Iramea his hrsl Collar. its original purchasing power. All I could do was to mutter to myself, "A dollar saved is seventy-one cents lost." Inflation leaves us doubly vexed. I have at hand a notice from the manager of our Faculty Club, suggesting that, since the price of just about everything has gone out of sight--including the price of the abominable meals served there--we should increase the percentage ol our tips. You will perceive the fallacy of that logic. Do you perceive also the fallacy of the Federal tax tables, which drive us into higher brackets without any elevation of our real income? In 1953, local, state and Federal taxes took 11.5 per cent of the aver age family's earnings. Barely a quarter of a century later, the bite was 22.5 per cent. "People were tithing," says John Shannon, ol the Advisory Commission on Intergovern mental Relations. "Now they're doubletithing." Inflation, according to Federal Reserve Governor Henry C. Wallich, is "a form ol fraud, perpetrated by everybody on every body." Unlike other forms of fraud, this 'S one in which hardly anybody sets out to cheat. We have progressively institutional ized inflation as a national way of life, un pleasant but inevitable, the result of our own indulgence, like acid indigestion and postparty hangovers. The legal experts speak of victimless crimes. What we have here are crimeless victims. Victims we nevertheless remain. At this point. I hear you cry out: "Ah-ha! You promised to talk about politics rather than economics." To which I respond: "Ahha! The two are inseparable." Economics concerns itself with one of the most fundamental areas of human social interaction, and one of the oldest. It may have begun when someone came up with the bright idea ol swapping an animal hide for a.stone ax. Today, h pervades every as pect ol our lives. It >s me chief point of con tact between citizens and their governments, tt is high on the agenda when the diplomats meet to discuss how they can sweeten the dealings between the nations they represent. Its forces are humming away day and night, endlessly, to influence how comfortably we shall live, how well we shall be able to edu cate our children, how secure we shall be against the workings of nature and the an tagonism of our fellow humans--and. above all. how much freedom we shall have, of which more later. "Economics and politics are one and the same thing," said Britain's Hugh Dykes, who combined the two as a Member of Par liament and as an investment analyst and a stockbroker m one of London's leading financial houses. (Witty fellow. He described an economist as someone approached by a panhandler who asks for money because he hasn't eaten m three days. Says the econo mist. whipping out his notebook. "How does that compare with the same period last year?") The Nobel Committee recognized the pervasiveness of this discipline when it awarded its 1978 prize in economics to your fellow Pittsburgher Herbert A. Simon, a man eminent in many fields--in management, in