Noneconomists struggle to realize that scarcity results in the necessity of tradeoffs. During the COVID-19 pandemic, this difference in thinking causes them to wrongly accuse economists of "prioritizing money over lives."
“Whenever a single definite object is made the supreme end of the State…the State becomes for the time inevitably absolute.” We cannot allow combating a virus to overwhelm all other values in society.
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.
Contrary to Fed assumptions, we are not presently facing a problem of liquidity vis-à-vis Great Recession; we are confronted, instead, with a serious shortage of quality collateral.
Some anticapitalists have tried to claim "good" entrepreneurs don't make profit the primary goal. Yet, without profit, an entrepreneur cannot serve the people who depend on him or her for goods and services.
