It’s James Stewart’s 100th birthday. After Stewart’s death, in 1997, a few hacks tried to portray him as an extreme right-winger and a hawk. Forget about that. He was a straightforward Republican, a real war hero, a gent, and perhaps the greatest film actor of all time.

And, as Allan C. Carlson has written for TAC, his greatest character, George Bailey, the fictional saint of the mortgage business, could teach today’s economists a thing or two.