The Y2K computer bug isn’t like a natural disaster or mass disease. It is a technical problem with a technical fix that can be overcome with work and time. However, and without speculating about the ultimate fallout from the problem, the bug has exposed a very real and deep infraction that has long plagued the US banking system.

One of many pastimes of government bureaucrats is forcing foreign banks to cough up tax information on US citizens. This is a disaster for the cause of privacy, the right of contract, and freedom itself. If the campaign, which has been going on for years, finally succeeds, it will mean the end of bank privacy for Americans. It also devastates foreign economies that see a comparative advantage in offering secure banking to people from around the world.

When antisocialist, post-Soviet reformers of the Baltic states sought to reign in government power, they looked to solve the money problem first. Moscow held unlimited power to flood their economies with cheap money, and to fund itself as an imperial power lording it over other peoples. That had to end before the market economy could be restored.

Owners of dot-com stock funds regret ever having heard of the Internet. Webmasters who dropped out of school to get rich quick are crawling back to their guidance counselors to be readmitted. Companies that laid many miles of fiber-optic cable wonder whether they made a huge error.

Forget gridlock and partisanship, the US Senate has found something besides attacking other countries to agree on: attacking business right here at home.

No one can accuse these guys of being soft on crime, so long as the alleged crime occurs within the private sector, and involves the always-vulnerable businessman.

People made fun of Gerald Ford’s buttons that said “WIN”—meaning “Whip Inflation Now.” The buttons and the accompanying propaganda campaign implied that consumers’ bad vibes were the cause of inflation. Ha, Ha.

How inevitable is the continuing expansion of the domestic and international economy? Barring a major war and a major depression, and a policy response that repeats the errors of traditional countercyclical policies, I would say that continued world economic expansion is likely.

Just as the script dictates, cries of “gouging” are now heard across the land.

“I think a lot of it is pure greed,” a consumer told the New York Times. Another said, “If there’s a chance of the oil companies’ driving up the prices, they’ll do that.” Another: “I don’t blame the government, I blame the gas companies.” Still another: “They are going to get all the money they can out of us.”

You can learn so much about human nature, the workings of society, and the functioning of markets by looking at the aftermath of a natural disaster. It is a fascinating laboratory for observing how society functions under the worst conditions.

If you have ever been through a natural disaster, and paid attention to how the preparation and clean-up take place, you know precisely what I am referring to: the splendid creative power of human energy to cooperate to overcome the most astonishing barriers.

Ludwig von Mises wrote, “No one can escape the influence of a prevailing ideology,” and Gulf Coast residents know precisely what it means to be trapped—ostensibly by a flood but actually by statist policies and ideological commitments that put the government in charge of crisis management and public infrastructure. For what we are seeing in New Orleans and the entire Gulf Coast region is the most egregious example of government failure in the United States since September 11, 2001.