Minimum Wages Had a Eugenic Intent
“Let’s say that instead of a $15 an hour minimum, Congress pushed a $15 maximum wage/salary. The rich would simply stop working, while everyone else would likely lose professional aspiration. This is not complicated to understand. So too with a wage floor: it cuts the poor out of the market just as the eugenicists said it would.” ~ Jeffrey Tucker
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Why We Need Simple Rules for a Complex World
“Our current bias towards trying to make a government rule for every single issue that arises in society is not only ignorant of the very institutions of freedom that make our society prosper, but it also threatens to continue a vicious cycle that fuels an ever-encroaching state. A more optimal solution to address societal issues would be a paradigm shift to a system that understands the power and promise of simple rules in an ever more complex world.” ~ Ethan Yang
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A Nuanced Approach to China Part 3
“When it comes to protecting our intellectual property and ensuring good business practices, it is important that we are guided by reality and not a fantasized version drummed up by politicians for political gain. Harsh retaliation is neither productive or justifiable but standing idle is not a solution either. Our response to China must be measured, nuanced, and intelligent, as such an approach is the only way we will ever succeed.” ~ Ethan Yang
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A Vaccine Auction
“As long as the problems of efficiency and distributive justice are separable, one can leave vaccine allocation to a (thoughtfully designed) market while leaving it to elected officials to debate and pursue, at their own pace, the kind of distributive justice that they think their constituents deserve.” ~ Romans Pancs
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Why the UK Government Now Must, But Won’t, Abandon Lockdown
“Were it to be capable of learning from its ‘achievement,’ the Government should now self-consciously abandon the policy aimed at the entire population, the most important part of which would be to end lockdown, tiers, and all such general restrictions. But this would require the Government to acknowledge that its policy has been a mistake from the outset, and the general lack of capacity the Government has shown includes a lack of capacity to make such an acknowledgement.” ~ David Campbell
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Is the Public Interest Really In the Public’s Interest?
“The fact that something is popular doesn’t mean it is right or even beneficial. A better way forward is to simply lay out arguments in full, detailing why and how such proposals would result in the best outcomes for the most people while being prepared to own the consequences. This discussion should be accepting of contributions from all backgrounds and specializations and be open to hearing all solutions, state or market-based.” ~ AIER Staff
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Who Wanted Pandemic Lockdowns?
“That we will look back with astonishment at what has happened to the world is a near certainty. The folly! And people of the future will never stop asking that great question of why. The answer is finally unsatisfying. It was a massive screw up by people and groups who wanted to try something completely new, none of whom were willing to bear responsibility for the results. It will be up to the rest of us to pick up the pieces and get life on the right track again.” ~Jeffrey Tucker
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A Nuanced Approach to China Part 2
“Chinese economic prosperity does directly contribute to its authoritarian goals, but trade wars and isolation have not done anything to remedy the situation. Rather a strategy of economic integration will likely lead to not only mutually beneficial outcomes, but also greater leverage in the future if the need to take action arises.” ~ Ethan Yang
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Changing DC’s Status Remains Unconstitutional
“By reducing the buffer zone around the core parts of the federal government, DC statehood could very well jeopardize the security of the nation’s capital. One would think that the recent attempt to overrun the White House and the temporary loss of government control of the Capitol would, if anything, have policymakers thinking about reexpanding the government’s buffer zone to the maximum size allowed in the Constitution, not to shrink it.” ~ Robert E. Wright
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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
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The Only Way To Win Is Not To Play
“Ignoring one another is a peaceful way of coexisting; Not interacting is a viable solution unless we’re forced to do so through a one-size-fits-all political process. Playing the political game makes it worse, and the collapse of personal grand narratives have let politics substitute for every other desire we have.” ~ Joakim Book
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Fundamental Questions about Corporate Donations
“Corporate governance today, after all, is not democratic, even in the vague sense of representative. Generally speaking, corporate elections are not secret and hence voters, especially employee shareholders, are subject to coercion. Moreover, voting power is a function of the number and type of shares owned, and executives control the proxies of many shareholders by default.” ~ Robert E. Wright
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