Daily news from the American Institute for Economic Research: data, stories, research, and articles touching on economics, politics, culture, education, policy, opinion, technology, markets, healthcare, regulation, trends, and much more.
TikTok Is Creepy but Consumers Should Be Free to Decide (Video)
“As the US-CHINA battle wages on, TikTok and it’s software shareholders are faced with the decision to sell ownership to the US or be banned from operating. I joined BBC World News to discuss the latest.” ~ Edward Stringham
Stakeholder Fascism Means More Loss of Liberty
“Like other forms of imposed central planning over the last one hundred years, Stakeholder Fascism would only lead to tyranny, poverty, and the greater loss of liberty and freedom to choose.” ~ Richard M. Ebeling
Human Gullibility
“Economic reasoning, facts, and the actual history of industrial policy and antitrust, compared to that of free markets, do nothing to quell the fervor for vastly enlarged and more vigorous state control over the economy. As Niemietz thoroughly documents, zeal for replacing commerce and cooperation with coercion and commands does not come from a rational place in the human mind. This zeal is not the product of reason; it’s an instance of religion.” ~ Donald J. Boudreaux
Disease Panic vs. Medical Reality
“I urge the reader to approach Corona with an open mind, and when in doubt, to check the citations. Because, at the risk of sounding dramatic, our civilization depends on it. If we, as a species, can be so easily manipulated into ceding our liberty, dignity, and very lives to irrational fear, I shudder to see what the future holds.” ~ Jenin Younes
Emancipation From Lockdown in Florida
“Governor Ron DeSantis has proven it: it is actually possible for a politician to wise up and do the right thing. In a sweeping order announced September 25, the governor has opened up the entire economy. He has even limited the ability of local governments to impose more restrictions and collect fines for mask violations.” ~ Jeffrey Tucker
Trade Negotiations: A Fish Story
“A hands-off policy runs contrary to a politician’s every instinct. Every bone in their body tells them they must ‘do something’ to justify their votes and campaign contributions. They respond to the loudest voices, the fishermen in our example, and the deepest pockets. As always, the answer lies in improving our understanding of theory and history and applying our knowledge and communication skills to the issues of the day.” ~ Warren C. Gibson
Money, Markets, and Economic Order
“Provided there is widespread social respect and protection for the institution of private property, we can have both markets and money, and the material bounties they create. But if we fiddle with markets and money, for example by conducting misguided political experiments, we jeopardize the very roots of our economic well-being.” ~ Alexander W. Salter
Private Enterprise Fuels the Community
“Governor Baker and the expert teams in statehouses across the country must find ways to give more small businesses the flexibility to solve the problems that state commissions both cannot and should never have tried to solve.” ~ Max Gulker
A Primer for the Media on Viruses, Vaccines, and Covid-19
“After retiring, I had hoped that I was ‘riding off into the sunset’ as far as my career was concerned. But,as a scientist, with expertise in infectious diseases, PPE, antiviral medicines, vaccines, etc., this year thrust me back into thinking mode, instinctively at first. But, I soon discovered that we were in trouble, not from the virus but from ourselves.” ~ Roger W. Koops
Durable-Goods Orders Posting A Solid Recovery
“Manufacturers’ new orders for durable goods rose in August, but the uneven pace of recovery in many areas of the economy is raising concern about the durability of the recovery.” – Robert Hughes
A Warning from Two Hedge Fund Managers: Rigged to Fail
“At the end of the day, we should all learn from history. We have seen which monetary policies work and which ones fail. We know what a drunk looks like and we know an unsustainable market when we see one. Eventually there are consequences for risky behavior. Relying on proven principles may not be as glorious or exciting but it will guarantee we actually come out in one piece.” ~ Ethan Yang
Do New York Times Headline Writers Believe Their Headlines?
“The New York Times might think about this as it publishes alarmist headlines that obscure actual truths reported within the paper. It’s sad when we lose our grandparents and old people more broadly, but it’s tragic to read of people starving, and heart-wrenching to contemplate formerly productive workers sitting, waiting for customers; increasingly aware that what puts a roof over their heads will no longer. Proportion New York Times, proportion.” ~ John Tamny
Abolishing California Passenger Cars Could Reduce Global Greenhouse Gases – by 0.26%
“Governor Newsom claims the right to dictate what sort of new cars Californians can buy, but not until 2035. When 2035 arrives, a different California Governor and legislature will surely ignore Newsom’s political time bomb. For one state to switch to electric cars would be demonstrably irrelevant to global warming, but not to the right of that state’s consumers to spend their earnings as they wish.” ~ Alan Reynolds
Education Issue
The Harwood Economic Review for Fall of 2020. Education during a pandemic.
Housing Remains a Bright Spot for the Economy
“The housing market has become a bright spot for the economy, supported by low interest rates and rising demand as urbanites move to less dense living areas.” – Robert Hughes
Initial Claims for Unemployment Benefits Remain Stubbornly High
“Initial claims for unemployment benefits remain very high, suggesting a slow and uneven economic recovery.” – Robert Hughes
Don’t Be a Party to Parties
“Despite the Founders’ dislike of political faction, critics might retort, we have had political parties since the early 1790s and the economy has grown at modern rates ever since. That is right, but America has managed to grow despite slavery and tariffs and scads of other bad policies enacted by partisans. Think of how rich America would be today without those policy disasters.” ~ Robert E. Wright
Why So Much Science is Wrong, False, Puffed, or Misleading
“The book, while scary and disheartening, is truth-seeking and ultimately optimistic. Ritchie doesn’t come to bury science; he comes to fix it. ‘The ideals of the scientific process aren’t the problem,’ he writes on the last page, ‘the problem is the betrayal of those ideals by the way we do research in practice.'” ~ Joakim Book
