The minister will resort to a loan in terror, and we will gain one year or perhaps two; the interest payments will fall on the people.

Frédéric Bastiat
Economic Sophisms Third Series

Bastiat gets his inspiration from Jerome Zahorowski to establish the list of political actions to be conducted by would-be protectionnists. Unfortunately, what should have remained a hoax seems to have found a prominent place on the bed tables of our politicians, alongside The Prince from Niccolo Machiavelli and 1984 from George Orwell.

The cynicism of the solutions that are reported is really painful to the reader but when looking at the current situation of the French government debt, one can only admit that Bastiat was a visionary.