America’s relationship with the free market is on the rocks as a result of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. Economic commentators have already begun calling the current crisis a recession. The government response to this apparent recession has been unprecedented. But there is another, better way to tackle our economic woes. If we take a look back at our history, we can find a model in President Warren Harding’s wildly successful laissez faire approach to tackling the Recession of 1920.
As many Americans are now realizing, the worst part of working from home is the unsettling feeling that comes with waiting. Our livelihoods and dreams are suspended, and thoughts turn. We’re seeing Congress react with a massive spending binge that may ultimately do more harm than good and the economy is rapidly cratering.
In 1930, Congress passed the Tariff Act introduced by Sen. Reed Smoot (R-Utah) and Rep. Willis Hawley (R-Ore.). The bill raised tariffs -- or taxes paid on imports into the United States -- on more than 20,000 imported goods. Against the advice of more than 1,000 economists, President Herbert Hoover signed Smoot-Hawley into law.
Positive economic news in recent months point towards an economic recovery. But, excessive government interventions are holding down growth and monetary manipulations threaten to derail any long-term economic stability.
This week, a global warming climate change alarmist group decided it would be great fun to petition the World Meteorological Organization to start naming violent storms after prominent deniers of their theory, despite a complete lack of evidence that violent storms are any more numerous today than in other years: "[W]e propose a new naming system, one that names extreme storms caused by climate change, after the po
The Obama administration is fond of reminding the American public that private sector jobs have grown by 4.1% over the past 28 months. The detail they are leaving out, however, can be found in this Commentary by the Joint Economic Committee Republicans . Though private sector jobs have been growing, as the President claims, this is the slowest recovery in American history.
Many can recall the short story The Masque of the Red Death by Edgar Allen Poe, in which Prince Prospero attempts to avoid the plague that is ravaging the country side by barricading himself and a number of his closest friends in his abbey. However, despite Prince Prospero’s best efforts he and his friends all fall victim to the plague.
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.