It's a good thing when politicians recognize that there are people out there who are less fortunate than the political class. But this empathy only does anyone any good if policymakers refrain from socialistic government schemes that make poverty worse.
The story of how housing became so unaffordable for so many is a tragic one. But this is a story of our own making, thanks to decades of misguided government regulations.
The saddest aspect of this economic ignorance is that these evangelicals have completely ignored the real reductions in poverty rates in the past forty years, reductions that are due to liberalizing economies that once were in socialist straitjackets.
It's a good thing when politicians recognize that there are people out there who are less fortunate than the political class. But this empathy only does anyone any good if policymakers refrain from socialistic government schemes that make poverty worse.
The saddest aspect of this economic ignorance is that these evangelicals have completely ignored the real reductions in poverty rates in the past forty years, reductions that are due to liberalizing economies that once were in socialist straitjackets.
Measures of wealth inequality overstate actual inequality in terms of the standard of living of wealthy people relative to the rest.
While the Left has agitated for more government spying and harsher "lockdowns," Brazil's president—perhaps fearing economic implosion—has been reluctant to crack down.
Markets are not the enemy of equality. Regulated markets are. The income inequality that naturally occurs in the free market as a result of human uniqueness is needlessly amplified by restrictive government policies to the detriment of all.
Buttigieg's plan to repopulate depressed rural areas with immigrants reminds one of old Soviet schemes to ship people to Siberia to stimulate the economy there.
