How Much Does Cleaning Everything Really Help?
“These issues all boil down to opportunity cost. The time and resources directed towards extra cleaning could be used for an alternative activity that would reap higher benefits for the business, especially in the midst of economic turmoil.” ~ Amelia Janaskie
Light-Vehicle Sales Increased in January
“Light-vehicle sales rose again in January but remain at the lower end of the historical range.” – Robert Hughes
Seven Times “Superspreader” Events Were Overblown
“In an international comparison between countries that implemented lockdown policies and those that did not, Stanford University researchers found ‘no evidence of large anti-contagion effects from mandatory stay-at-home and business closure policies.’ Perhaps if the media reported on these findings, there wouldn’t be a superspreader LAPD task force forcibly dispersing ‘nonessential’ gatherings.” ~ Micha Gartz & Jack Nicastro
We Should Worry about a Permanent Covidocracy
“We either set firm goalposts now – when do the masks come off; when does the distancing end; when do kids return to school and restaurants operate at enough capacity to stay in business – or we risk many years of control.” ~ Michael Fumento
The Flight of the Covid Quacks
“Even the most statist public health official completely oblivious to Hayekian critiques of central planning must know, deep down, that issuing general medical orders from on high is quackery. They now flee in great flocks but what will it matter if other quacks replace them? We don’t need new public health officials. We need a reformed healthcare model with incentives more carefully aligned to individual needs.” ~ Robert E. Wright
Biden’s Executive Orders vs. American Public Opinion
“Policies implemented are ultimately the outcome of ideas fought over concerning whether or not to value and secure political freedom, economic liberty, and constitutional order. In spite of a lot of totalitarian-like rhetoric in the air, the intellectual field is still open to vigorous debate and competition. It just needs to be taken advantage of by not presuming the contest is already lost.” ~ Richard M. Ebeling
The Political Economy of Mass Panic
“The demand for action creates the pressure to avoid being perceived as weak and indecisive on the part of politicians, while the information asymmetry between the visible, concentrated and identifiable benefits of “action” and delayed, speculative and more distributed costs of action, makes irrational and ineffective but ritualistic policies much more likely. Policies adopted to deal with the Covid-19 pandemic illustrate very painfully these truths.” ~ Ivan Jankovic
Did Market Failures Require A Lockdown Response?
“Economists and policymakers must ask the question: what are people actually doing in the status quo to manage the harm? We may find that what, on its face, appears to be a failure is actually preferable to the reasonable and feasible alternatives.” ~ Jon Murphy
Business Should Fight Back Against Controls
“The full spirit and many of the practical steps that Manne recommended to business people nearly 50 years ago as rational responses to the unwarranted hysteria over fuel shortages apply today to the unwarranted hysteria over Covid-19. Today, I recommend such resistance, and not only by business people, but by all individuals.” ~ Donald J. Boudreaux
GameStop, Bitcoin, and the Federal Debt
“The flash mobs, coordinated as they are by social media, have created disturbing and disruptive bubbles and may continue to do so. Bitcoin is probably not in a bubble. Above all, let’s not forget the ominous longer-term debt bubble.” ~ Warren C. Gibson
Faces of Lockdowns (Part 2)
While data, statistics, historical allusions, and appeals to morality all demonstrate the disastrous nature of lockdowns, none show the devastation as vividly as personal stories from those suffering the most. In the second part of this series, we continue our interviews with working New Yorkers and found the situation to be just as suspected: businesses on the brink of shutting down for good, students struggling to learn, and unmatched frustration.
Algorithmic Stablecoins
“Efforts to create stability without collateral are ambitious. The evidence that Empty Set Dollar and Dynamic Set Dollar have provided over the last few months suggests they are too ambitious. An algorithmic stablecoin only works so long as its users’ self-referential beliefs persist.” ~ J.P. Koning
Robert Higgs: A Birthday Appreciation
“Higgs’s virtuosity as an economic historian stems from clear and careful analytical thinking combined with an understanding of what the state is and what the state is not. He is not a romantic about war and the state, to put it lightly, and he has never shied away from calling a government exactly what it is: an organization that gets what it wants by threats and violence.” ~ Art Carden
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