This weekend’s Financial Times contained an interesting interview in its weekly “lunch with the FT” column. Adam Fergusson’s book When Money Dies is soon to be republished. The book was first published in the 1970s and discusses the hyperinflation of Weimar Germany in the 1920s.

His comment at the beginning of lunch provides wise advice to our budget challenged politicians:

“Milton Friedman said the most efficient way of spending money is to spend your own, and the least efficient way is to spend other people’s…If you go out to lunch and have to pay your own bill,you have what you want and can afford. If someone else is paying, you may as well have the lobster.”