The popular narrative is that demographics are driving Japan's declining worker productivity. But the real culprit is government regulations and a lack of entrepreneurship.
Despite many attempts at doing so, governments have never been able to conjure up more goods and services through price controls and other regulations.
The shortages and lack of flexibility caused by government red tape during the COVID-19 crisis has forced many governments to rethink their many arbitrary and unnecessary regulations.
Central banks have created a brittle economy without real savings and without much room to maneuver. Central banks now want more of the same in a bid to fix what they broke.
Bureaucrats cannot conjure wealth from nothing. They only have what they extract from the private sector. Unfortunately, the bureaucrats are now starving the private sector of funding while making government budgets ever larger.
Over the years a chorus of critics has alleged that the textbook view of how a central banks buys government debt in "open market operations" is backwards. They argue that in reality commercial banks take the lead in making loans without regard to their reserves.
The federal government must accompany any loan forgiveness with a repeal of all programs for subsidizing and guaranteeing loans. Anything less would be a formula for socializing higher education.
Both renters and landlords have plenty of troubles when it comes to working together. But putting government regulators in the mix won't help matters.
Campaign finance laws favor incumbents and the rich and famous. Real change requires more freedom and decentralization in how campaigns are funded.
Many Americans could die in the coming weeks and months thanks to the FDA’s blockade on coronavirus testing. Should we consider those victims as martyrs for the principle of bureaucratic supremacy?
