Topic: Economic Trends

Crisis, Economic Trends, Fiscal Policy, Government

The Virtues of Fiscal Discipline

– April 10, 2020

Deficits used to be temporary affairs racked up in exceptional periods as the result of shocks, and paid down with surpluses. Despite years of decent economic growth, public debts in most western countries remain at high levels relative to GDP. Consequently, capacity to respond to crisis – such as natural disasters, wars and the one we are facing now – through borrowing is considerably reduced.

Crisis, Economic Trends

Anatomy of the Great Suppression

– April 9, 2020

The Great Suppression, a severe contraction in business activity caused by a government crackdown on capitalist acts between consenting adults, is an awful calamity. Government’s grip will be loosened once the crisis passes, but it will likely be tighter post-crisis versus pre-crisis.

Economic Growth, Economic Trends

Why Is There No COVID-19 Life Insurance?

– April 7, 2020

The existence of such insurance would help to quell fears by allowing underinsured households the opportunity to protect their incomes.

Crisis, Economic Trends

Intelligence Is Better than Panic

– April 3, 2020

AIER has become a leading voice for understanding during these times, helping to balance out the media-fueled panic that has gripped our country.

Economic Trends

Let’s Please Not Insult ‘Stimulus’ By Calling This ‘Stimulus’

– March 31, 2020

It’s not unreasonable to assume that if asked, most who’ve heard of supply-side economics would identify it as the Laffer Curve. The previous curve, named for the great Arthur Laffer, is one of life’s truisms: reduce the tax penalty levied on labor, and the result is usually more labor producing more taxable revenue.

Economic Trends

Is this the End of Globalization?

– March 29, 2020

Global Supply Chains began to truncate in the aftermath of the financial crisis of 2008. The global COVID-19 lockdown has accelerated the process. Businesses will reassess the trade-off between efficiency and resilience. Supply chain resilience is not without cost.

Crisis, Economic Trends

The Anatomy of the Crash of 2020

– March 17, 2020

Whatever you think about the virus threat, and even if you think all this is justified in the name of stopping the spread, let’s not be confused about what drove this disaster from the beginning: the fear that politics would attack commercial society at its root.

Economic Trends

The Fed and the Mad Urge to Do Something

– March 17, 2020

Panicked markets, eye-popping declines, and inept public policy are, in some unfortunate sense, a human universal. And all public officials, it seems, imitate one another, no matter how mad, impotent, or harmful the policy.

Crisis, Economic Trends

The Parasites Exacerbating COVID-19

– March 16, 2020

The so-far easy acceptance of the government’s medieval reaction to the spread of a not very lethal virus to a vanishingly small percentage of the population suggests that universities are not helping Americans to overcome the many behavioral biases they inherited from their cavemen ancestors.

Crisis, Economic Trends

To Kill Markets Is the Worst Possible Plan

– March 16, 2020

This whole ghastly episode could become another teaching moment in misguided and damaging government policies that markets, once again, successfully endured and survived.

Crisis, Economic Trends

Those Shelves Wouldn’t Be Empty If We Hadn’t Stopped “Capitalism”

– March 15, 2020

This is a difficult time for a lot of people, and it’s understandable and admirably humane to want to help others in their time of need. We aren’t doing them any favors, however, by saying that they won’t be allowed to pay very much for a bottle of hand sanitizer they can’t get anyway.

Crisis, Economic Trends

Celebrate the Heroes Who Stay Open

– March 14, 2020

I smiled and said thank you to every employee stocking shelves, running the cash registers, mailing my packages, taking my dry cleaning, and selling me bleach wipes. Blessed are those who eschew the crazy demand to “shut down everything” and instead continue to serve the people.