This month, UCLA economist William R. Allen, whom Peter Boettke called “a force in the great UCLA tradition of economic education,” passed away at ninety-six. As I was privileged to work with him both as a graduate student and subsequently, I would like to offer a few thoughts.

[This article is part of the Understanding Money Mechanics series, by Robert P. Murphy. The series will be published as a book in 2021.]

Whether you call it the state, system, Swamp, or establishment, now we get to watch as they cry foul because recent trading activity has, as the Wall Street Journal puts it:

upended the natural order between hedge-fund investors and those trying their hand at trading from their sofas.

It’s not just Trump supporters outraged by the newly proposed domestic terrorism laws targeting them. None of “the Squad,” including Rep. Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez and other avowed leftists, are tagging along with many of their Democratic colleagues.

The events of January 6, or how the “attack on the Capitol” was covered in the media, stirred up a frenzy among Democrats and their supporters to deploy some retaliation against not only the so-called domestic terrorists of that fateful day but also many of their fellow Trump supporters.

Toward the end of his 2012 State of the Union speech, President Obama said “I believe what Republican Abraham Lincoln believed: that government should do for people only what they cannot do better by themselves, and no more.” But the huge gap between those limited government words and the Obama administration’s expansive government actions gave the lie to the words.

The Joker was right about one thing…introduce a bit of chaos and everyone loses their mind. And that’s just what happened with the fervor created by a rogue group of investors on Reddit as they pushed the price of GameStop and other nearly defunct companies higher and higher. Regulators usually have no idea what to do with themselves during a black swan situation like this, but they know they need to do something. And it doesn’t matter what the unintended consequences might be.