Debt is neither free nor irrelevant, as interventionists want us to believe, even if interest rates are low. More debt means less growth and a slower exit from the crisis, with lower productivity growth and a tepid employment improvement.
The government's plan for "contact tracing" to prevent the spread of COVID-19 relies on huge amounts of government spending, plus unproven science as to the nature of the disease.
The political machines that run America's cities are likely to keep running them when these protests and riots end. Taxpayers will be worse off, but politicians will be even more powerful.
COVID lockdowns (1) threw millions out of work, (2) increased police harassment of peaceful people, (3) cut people off from key institutions that reduce social conflict. This made a volatile situation far worse.
If we do not correctly take into account the opportunity cost, in terms of lives that can be lost from lockdowns, then we will most likely continue to make bad decisions in the future.
Americans were once harangued by government "experts" about the need to slow down on highways in order to save lives. Few listened. Today, laws demanding everyone "stay at home" may suffer a similar fate.
Governments often demand that you "ask what you can do for your country," but those governments never guarantee us anything in return for our sacrifice.
Although national tragedies tend to bring a country together, it seems clear that the coronavirus will leave America as divided as it has been in modern history.
