All of the above very neatly explains why free, unfettered markets correlate so well with positive economic outcomes. Market signals are arrived at through the combined genius of tens of thousands, millions, and billions of human beings.
At the same time, it hopefully also explains why central planning always fails in miserable fashion. It’s not that there weren’t intelligent people running some of the Iron Curtain countries of the late 20thcentury, and it’s not that those in power didn’t avail themselves of expert opinion at times. The problem then was that individual genius, no matter how substantial, couldn’t come close to measuring up to the combined knowledge of the masses of people who make up what we call a market.
“In 1968,” says Nathaniel L. Moir in National Interest, “the H3N2 pandemic killed more individuals in the U.S. than the combined total number of American fatalities during both the Vietnam and Korean Wars.”
And this happened in the lifetimes of every American over 52 years of age.
I was 5 years old and have no memory of this at all. My mother vaguely remembers being careful and washing surfaces, and encouraging her mom and dad to be careful. Otherwise, it’s mostly forgotten today. Why is that?
Nothing closed. Schools stayed open. All businesses did too. You could go to the movies. You could go to bars and restaurants. John Fund has a friend who reports having attended a Grateful Dead concert. In fact, people have no memory or awareness that the famous Woodstock concert of August 1969 actually occurred during a deadly American flu pandemic that only peaked six months later.
Stock markets didn’t crash. Congress passed no legislation. The Federal Reserve did nothing. Not a single governor acted to enforce social distancing, curve flattening (even though hundreds of thousands of people were hospitalized), or banning of crowds. No mothers were arrested for taking their kids to other homes. No surfers were arrested. No daycares were shut even though there were more infant deaths with this virus than the one we are experiencing now. There were no suicides, no unemployment, no drug overdoses.
Media covered the pandemic but it never became a big issue.
With the expected peak of the coronavirus already passed in Florida, the state is finally seeing a significant slowing in new cases.
An update from Florida House Speaker Jose Oliva found that the state’s curve is flattening with a steady decline in new cases, something that will allow state officials to focus on restarting Florida’s economy.
“We did not choose to close.”
It’s a simple message from one of the American capital’s leading restaurateurs. “I could have easily kept my restaurants open and exercised great caution, and with the right guidelines kept it as safe as possible,” Rex Management CEO Noe Landini told The Federalist.
“Explain to me one thing,” he asked of the government delivery allowance and the order to end all dine-in service. “The food is being made in the same kitchens. That food is going to households. The virus can live on surface areas for a wide range of time depending on the type of surface area.”
In most countries in Europe and North America, governments have imposed lockdowns of their populations and economies. At first glance, this strategy would seem to strike a reasonable, if painful, bargain: pay the price of (hopefully temporary) limits on civil liberties and economic recession (if not depression) to slow virus spread. The price has been very high. In the U.S. alone, the bill has already reached trillions of dollars of lost economic activity and tens of millions out of work. The material pain may go beyond economic insecurity. Many Americans face the real prospect of food shortages.
Sweden, however, has forged its own path. The government is emphasizing voluntary action over government mandates. Elementary schools and businesses, including bars, cafés, restaurants and gyms, are open. The government has urged people to act responsibly and follow social distancing guidelines.
Stockholm has reasoned that COVID-19 will require sustained interventions, even under optimistic timelines for the development of a vaccine. If true, the economic hardship and sacrifices to civil liberties involved in long-term societal shutdowns would become unjustifiable. So, the Swedish Public Health Authority has elected to pursue what it regards as a feasible goal of slowing the spread to prevent the overwhelming of its health care system while protecting the most vulnerable populations.
Contrary to the media narrative, the data is unclear on how much good these shutdowns have actually done. And there is no scientific evidence to justify forcing Americans to stay in their homes for months on end.
What is clear is that the emergency phase of the epidemic is drawing to a close, and that our economy is on the verge of collapse. The next phase calls for cautious, prudent but immediate reopening of our economy. Different regions and communities and industries will reopen at different speeds. And that is exactly what America’s good governors and mayors are trying to do.
If you go to the LabCorp site promoting the new kit, however, you’ll notice a warning: “Not available in MD, NJ, NY, and RI.” As it happens, Maryland, New Jersey, New York, and Rhode Island are four of the states hardest‐hit by the virus. As the Associated Press explains today: “Those states have laws prohibiting testing with at‐home sample collection kits, according to LabCorp.” [Update: a Maryland health official says notwithstanding the AP description, his state’s law does not ban the home kit.]
