The quality of the models being used by politicians to set COVID-19 policy is only as good as the data collected. Unfortunately, the data is not very good. Meanwhile, real costs arise from the ruined economy.
Thanks to regulations and a lack of private spending, Italy's healthcare system had very limited capacity even before the current crisis.
The coronavirus demonstrates how crises become local.
How much must total mortality increase to justify a global suspension of commerce and the rule of law? One percent? Ten percent? And what if overall mortality doesn't even go up?
Modern central banks have already moved far beyond what was once considered the proper role for a central bank as a "lender of last resort." Now Keynesians and MMTers want to take things even further.
The Left conveniently ignores dozens of state-dominated and state-controlled medical systems and decides that the lack of preparedness for COVID-19 was all the fault of those small slivers of healthcare systems that are actually private.
What the economy needs now is more real savings and more real production. Creating more money will not help with either of these things.
What we can learn from the Patriot Act is that during a time of crisis governments can pass legislation that impacts citizens’ lives long after the crisis of the day has passed.
The truth is that you and I need goods and services to live, not electronically printed dollars.
Whatever happens with the virus, the real story, the real historical change, is probably economic. Abenomics—Japan's ultra-Keynesian experiment—seems to be dead.
