In the previous post on lockdowns (July 25th), I made the ethical/moral argument against lockdowns. In this part, I make the economic argument against lockdowns.

The economy is a complex set of interlocking activities undertaken by an arbitrarily large collection of individuals and collectives attempting to achieve their self-selected ends as best as they can given the limited means at their disposal and their imperfect understanding of how to realize those ends. Continue reading →

“Among the calamities of war may be jointly numbered the diminution of the love of truth, by the falsehoods which interest dictates and credulity encourages.” That’s a truth that Samuel Johnson (1709 – 1784) — the great English poet, playwright, essayist, moralist, critic, biographer, editor and lexicographer — appears to have articulated long ago.

The vested interests of the few and the credulity of the masses conspire to kill whatever is the relevant truth. The war against the Chinese Covid-19 virus is no exception. The fake and the false have reigned with little opposition. Unsurprisingly, it’s the masses’ inability to reason and ignorance that is to blame for this misfortune. That sounds elitist but it is an unavoidable conclusion. Continue reading →