The extraordinary government clampdown on economic life that we are enduring — in order to preserve hospital beds and the capacity of doctors and nurses — is the result, not just of the coronavirus, but of the severe restrictions on economic activity that have made our economy brittle and poorly-suited to adapt and respond to this natural emergency.
READ MOREThe Trump base wants to work. And likely needs to. The Trump administration should go out of its way to legalize the right to work so that desperate service employees and workers in general at least have the chance to fix their devastated situations.
READ MOREGovernment advice is just that, good or bad and I grant that it is mostly sensible. But it is not for the police to misinterpret the law as they see fit or to enforce government advice.
READ MORENever take toilet paper for granted again. Never take anything for granted again. Let’s come out of this with a new appreciation for the astonishingly productive power and humanitarianism of markets.
READ MOREWe muddy the message when we don’t let prices change, and we tear the ties that bind us together when we create a snitching society.
READ MOREWriting for the New York Times, Saez and Zucman use the occasion of the coronavirus’s economic disruptions to argue for the immediate adoption of a massive public jobs security program, accompanied by sweeping and punitive forms of taxation upon corporations and the wealthy.
READ MOREThis situation is evolving, and each day brings more information about the devastating coronavirus and our economy’s adjustment to it, along with other events that both beset and stimulate us. At this reading, 2020’s economic prospects are bleak. Indeed, we are currently in tough recession territory.
READ MOREWhat is the underlying premise behind all of these arguments, whether focused on the immediate coronavirus crisis or looking beyond to the world after the crisis is behind us? It is that freedom does not work or does not work as effectively as the critic thinks it should if this health crisis is to be successfully grappled with.
READ MOREThe response of Swedish society has been pretty remarkable: do your part. Help your loved ones and your local business owners. Trust those who know what they’re doing. Be mindful of others – and don’t sacrifice economic well-being at the altar of extreme disease control. Work The Problem, people.
READ MOREThe American Institute for Economic Research has now produced a book on the topic, written by our researchers in real time as the crisis unfolded. You will be struck by its prescience, first page to last.
READ MOREAnd as power expands in a ratcheting-upward way, power becomes ever-more valuable and intoxicating to possess – meaning that competition to grab power becomes ever-more intense. This increasingly intense competition for power, in turn, selects those persons who are both most hungry for power and least bound by ethical restraints in pursuing and using it.
READ MOREAll leaders, not just generals, tend to fight the last “war.” All readers of Hayek know why: they feel compelled to promulgate a response but lack sufficient information to make optimal decisions.
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