Some of the largest expansions of government power and unconstitutional abuses have come during times of pressing crises, not unlike the coronavirus. The government routinely tries to paper over these abuses by saying they are temporary, and that anyone who resists is guilty of making the present crisis worse. It’s the same story over and over again.

Mario Rizzo at NYU has a great article has a great article in this issue of the Freeman explaining how Keynesian stimulus packages can't restore confidence to an economy.  He argues that in order to restore confidence in the market, which Secretary Geithner has claimed is the goal, we have to fix the causes of the problem rather than the symptoms.  A stimulus package does not correct, even in Keynesian terms, the "collective irrationality" that lead to a housing bubble in the first place.