Murray Rothbard’s number one rule in an economic crisis is for the government not to interfere with the market’s adjustment process. Doing so will only perpetuate the crisis.
Economists have long tried to use the idea of "public goods" as justification for a wide variety of government interventions. But there is no objective measure for what's a public good and what's not.
Mises knew: “Mass unemployment destroys the moral foundations of the social order. The young people…forced to remain idle, are the ferment out of which the most radical political movements are formed."
There's now no difference between monetary policy and other government programs designed to prop up firms, industries, and other favored groups. The Fed is simply another government planning agency.
France faces a future of spiraling debt and declining economic growth. So Emmanuel Macron has now embraced economic nationalism as a way out. It's not likely to work.
Government restrictions on production are driving prices up as unemployment drives them down. It's impossible to say now whether price inflation or price deflation will be the predominant factor in the crisis's next phase.
"Saving lives versus saving money" comparisons confuse ends with means. The end of saving the economy is not to have more money. The end is to have resources necessary to preserve the lives and health of countless human beings.
Efforts by US policymakers to boost crude prices and to throw a lifeline to high-cost US crude producers is the exact opposite of what prices are telling us the market needs at this time.
