I'm spending my New Year's Eve

(it's not midnight here yet) reading these three articles by Robert Higgs*:
From the Armistice to the Great Depression
Military-Economic Fascism: How Business Corrupts Government, and Vice Versa, and
If Men Were Angels: The Basic Analytics of the State versus Self-government
I just finished the first one and found it pretty convincing. It's basically a catalogue of all the mistakes made by the Great Powers after WWI that led to the Depression. And Hitler's ascension.

*Well, after taking the younger girl swimming and reading Lemony Snicket to the older girl. By the way, if you want to get an idea of how I talk to my kids, read a Lemony Snicket novel aloud. Then, when I'm with my peers, as seldom as that happens, mix in some sailor language. It doesn't work well, but I can't help myself. When I'm irritable, you just get the sailor. Or somebody does; I try to direct it at inanimate objects.