Monthly Archives: April 2020

Archive of posts published in the specified Month

We Have Run Out of Other People’s Money

Economist Greg George, PhD, noted in this environment that the problem with the states in the most critical condition before the Covid shock is not that they are too big to fail but that they are too big to save. We are being forced to face limits we have long ignored.

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Covid Thoughts 2020 04 25

New data indicates that the disease arrived here much earlier than we thought, has already spread to many more people than we thought, and based on the estimated cases as compared to diagnosed cases the mortality is much less than we thought.

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Get the Whole Story

If your initial reaction to a post or an article is outrage, pause and ask if you have the whole story. A piece of the truth can be more misleading than all of a lie. I can mislead more by what I leave out than in what I disclose.

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Covid Thoughts 2020 04 18

Shuttering large swaths of the economy is a huge unquantifiable cost we would only consider in such a dire health care scenario.  It appears that new information reflects a significant overestimation of the mortality.  When we referred to the mortality, we compared the number of deaths to the number of DIAGNOSED cases and compared that rate to the last flu which measures the number of deaths to the number of ESTIMATED cases, understanding that many who have the flu that never see a doctor. 

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A Permanent War Footing

The left learned to respect the power of government during their control of the economy during WWI and WWII and sought to use that same power to further the cause of social justice, but wars end and the country returns to a different footing.  The battles of social justice go on forever and becomes a permanent war footing with a similar economic outcome. 

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Progressive Tension

While the Progressives sought to extend the restraints of political power to economic power, Hayek sought to bring political power to recognize economic realities. This new era of conservatism reaffirmed the genius of the founders of our constitution that dispersed power was best suited for the dispersed knowledge that generated our dynamic economy.

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Sacrificing Liberal Values

Democracy is a means to an end, not the end itself.  That is why the founders constrained it with federalism, checks and balances and strategically staggered terms. The objective should be the upholding of liberal values particularly those in the Bill of Rights.  Modern liberalism (as opposed to the classical liberal tradition now called conservatism) has become illiberal advocating the restraint of free speech and unlimited central power, identity politics and political correctness.  

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The Opposite of Stock Repurchases

While we need to be concerned about the financial condition of essential industries, we should not lose sight of the need to be concerned with the financial condition of the nation they want to bail them out.

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