Mises Wire

Africa is in no position to bring a halt to economic activity. Urban poverty and huge debts present an apparent choice between rampant disease and mass impoverishment.

From New York to London to Brussels to Tokyo, central banks in the last two weeks have embraced a wide variety of extraordinary inflationary measures to prop up insolvent banks and governments.

It is thanks to global trade that we now have access to many more resources for treatment and prevention of disease, including COVID-19.

The coronavirus crisis has unleashed two types of bankruptcies that are very different, have different causes, and should require different solutions.

The Danish state believes that the nation can avoid economic collapse if the state pays private sector workers' salaries. This, it is thought, will allow private companies to avoid layoffs. But there's a downside.

The Fed's portfolio is now 35 percent larger from the time the Fed promised to "taper" back its portfolio and "normalize." It is increasingly clear that there will not be any normalization. Ever.

This year, as in 2006, the real estate industry is in denial about the state of the economy.

Current global bailouts may put off global busts for quite some time. But they will weaken output and employment gains. People's standard of living will stagnate or even fall, even in the short term. With this comes impoverishment and perhaps even social unrest.

It is tempting to assume both money supply inflation and price inflation will come soon as the central banks pump new money. But if banks aren't lending because the economy is in disarray, the money supply may actually shrink, and prices may even fall.

Ludwig von Mises explained how "war socialism" doesn't win wars. Similarly, "COVID-19 socialism" won't win the "war" on disease.