The fact that people break curfew just proves that smaller, decentralized communities are better at organizing than a few top-down planners. Barbadian neighborhoods do a much better job of self-regulating.
What is the number of deaths due to disease which justifies the total abandonment of the rule of law and basic human freedoms? Sixty thousand? One hundred thousand? Three hundred thousand? Supporters of the current police state ought to pin down a number for us at which all rights are forfeit.
Collecting government data on the total number of cases of COVID-19 has always been a mess. The number is likely far higher than the "official" numbers, and this means government proclamations about fatality rates are little more than bad guesses.
Efforts by US policymakers to boost crude prices and to throw a lifeline to high-cost US crude producers is the exact opposite of what prices are telling us the market needs at this time.
During March 2020, year-over-year (YOY) growth in the money supply was at 11.37 percent. We're now seeing a trend similar to what we saw during late 2008 and early 2009.
Capitalists and entrepreneurs serve distinct functions in the real economy. Capitalists save money that then maintains production processes until final goods are produced. Entrepreneurs adjust the capital structure in light of uncertainty to produce the most desired goods. Capitalists are rewarded with interest, entrepreneurs with profit.
One of the important aims of the Anatomy of the Crash is to highlight the truly global nature of the monetary policy failings since 2008—not simply critiquing the actions of the Federal Reserve, but their colleagues at the European Central Bank, the Bank of Japan, and elsewhere.
GDP is fine for counting things like washing machines. But it is quite useless for counting other basic indicators of the quality of life.
If we're serious about maximizing the resources needed to combat COVID-19, we need an economy that is deregulated and flexible.
Ludwig von Mises and Ayn Rand held very different views about the origins of Nazism, and in this article I am going to describe these differences. Both involve German philosophical ideas.
