The political theorist Michael J. Sandel is a popular teacher at Harvard, and his lectures circulate widely on YouTube and elsewhere. He attracted attention as a serious political theorist with his critical work on John Rawls, Liberalism and the Limits of Justice (1982). As most readers will know, I’m no fan of Rawls, and it’s easy to find poor arguments in his A Theory of Justice.
A main thesis of modern monetary theory (MMT) is that fiscal deficits are not a problem. On the contrary, they create financial assets for the private sector (in a closed economy, a public sector deficit equals a private sector surplus). Moreover, if the government can always create money to cover its expenses, there is no need to fuss about government deficits. The pursuit of a balanced budget is, according to MMT supporters, completely misguided.
In his podcast, Dave Smith has likened the lockdowns to gasoline and the murder of George Floyd to a spark.
But why were the lockdowns fuel for social unrest? One of the reasons the lockdowns paved the way for social unrest is that they led to a widespread breakdown in the division of labor. This could only result in more conflict and social unrest.
While it is relatively easy to predict that the postcorona economy will suffer from high unemployment, the outlook for price inflation is not so certain. On the one hand, there will be high government deficits and more public debt; on the other hand, given the weak economy, consumers and companies may refrain from taking on new debt and could begin to lower their debt burden.
Since the COVID-19 shutdown began, the media has framed it as a shutdown of the economy, making resistance to it appear to be about putting profit over life. This is not an accurate description of the shutdown. The shutdown policy is currently disrupting or transforming all of our major social institutions: government, education, health, economics, religion, and family. These institutions form the basis of our society, as they provide for our individual and collective needs. Yet each is undergoing massive changes:
Like many people, there was once a time when I visited the Drudge Report multiple times per day. Drudge often had a fun mix of contrarian articles and unusual viewpoints that were hard to find without its help as a curator of articles.
But in recent years, the site has become more or less indistinguishable from a standard mainline legacy media site. It has consistently carried articles and headlines that promote Russiagate hysteria and pro-FBI, pro-CIA positions.
I suppose the first I read of the Great Influenza was in the first few pages of the Charles Portis masterpiece True Grit. The book’s heroine, Mattie Ross, tells readers about Yarnell Poindexter, whom Mattie’s papa left at the farm to look after her mama and the family while he went to Fort Smith.
The recent economic downturn has created the environment for a new round of bailouts by the government and the Fed. Last time they did this they told us it would be the last one, but anyone who knows our history knew that was not going to stand. Now we are told again that this is an exceptional situation and we must bail out businesses in trouble so that the economy can restart again as quickly as possible.
