18 Comments

If the question is “do governments or free markets allocate scarce resources more efficiently, in general” it’s hard to see why this is even a matter of doubt any more.

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I remember reading an article a few weeks ago which stated that businesses were having trouble finding employees. The reason? Stimuli checks. Why go out and work when one can stay at home and receive the same or more money? Yet another example of government distortion in the economy.

A sad thing is how MSM peddles the narrative that the virus or the pandemic wrecked the economy. Hence, it's quite tough to explain to the average Joe that it was actually government reaction that wrecked the economy.

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The Broken Window Fallacy is a nice adjunct to this line of thinking and helps highlight all of the hidden costs associated with any govt spending.

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i liked the sand castle story. reminds me that fredric bastiat said French forts were a lesser way of stimulating the economy. heard of that from thomas woods. my life experience was in buying weapon systems for dod and my feel is multiplier from dod spending on weapons is about 0.5, and the weapons are largely sand castles as if the enemy would fight our way!

while bastiat's economic concern for french forts proved out in 1870, 1914 and 1940 as they were sand castles in use.

greenspan and the housing bubble, if ole alan had stopped the music a year early the bubble might not have hurt as badly. while krugman is so progressive as to forget mit taught him real math, and not parlor game math that got us in all this economic debt

treasury holdings are about $8trillion up from 4.2 trillion before the plague to gut the us economy was used to gut the us economy.

biden's recent 2 trillion whim is about 20% hard things and 80% degrade capitalism in the first world.

i do not do french but all i see from them is 'let the good times roll' and don't ask the price tag......

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Great post, as always.

Just think about how hard it would be to plan a birthday party for somebody you don't know. What kind of cake do you get? How do you decorate? Where is it held? Who do you invite? What kind of music do you play? The party is almost certainly going to be a disappointment to the birthday boy or girl. Now repeat this exercise trying to get somebody the best healthcare. Impossible.

I do want to add, though, that the increase in UI for WA is almost certainly because people are waiting upwards of 3 months to even get into the system. The state has basically yanked down all the phone lines, and people have no choice but to sit and wait for the system to get to them. It's a travesty and it's been going on for over a year.

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