Economics

Economics articles featuring analysis of the global censorship industrial complex, impacts on public health, free trade, liberty, and policy.

All Brownstone Institute economics articles are translated into multiple languages.

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Where Did All the Workers Go?

Where Did All the Workers Go?

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How can you generate far more deaths in 2021 – ascribing them to unvaccination – with a dramatically smaller number of unvaccinated people? In 2021, perhaps 20-40% of these group life insureds were unvaccinated. In 2020, 100% of them were unvaccinated, yet mortality barely rose. The math doesn’t come close to working. 

Where Did All the Workers Go? Read Journal Article

dystopia

Technocratic Dystopia Is Impossible 

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Grand utopias cannot be realized because, while imagination is unconstrained reality has limits. What is a dystopia other than the role of an NPC in someone else’s utopia? In this case, the utopia is the dream of psychotic elites who imagine that they can have the end products of mass cooperation without the open society that enables it. Much damage can be done in the attempt, but it is only a question of how far it can get before it cancels itself. 

Technocratic Dystopia Is Impossible  Read Journal Article

local alternatives

What a Local Alternative Is Really Like

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Demand for local processors has swelled in the last three years because shutdowns and lockdowns scared people about food sources being jeopardized and supply chains disrupted, so they sought local alternatives. With economic uncertainties looming, families and friends processing their own, or neighbors’, farm animals may become more common.

What a Local Alternative Is Really Like Read Journal Article

freedom slipped

Forty Years of Freedom Slipped Away So Quickly 

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We dare not relent lest the despotism we experienced only very recently be repeated and entrenched. We know now that it can happen, and that there is nothing inevitable about genuine progress. Our job now is to regroup and recommit to living free lives, never again believing that there are magical forces at work in the world that make our role as thinkers and doers unnecessary. 

Forty Years of Freedom Slipped Away So Quickly  Read Journal Article

political economy pandemic response

The Political Economy of the US Pandemic Response

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In this essay, written from a broad economics perspective that incorporates an understanding of incentives, institutions, information, and power, we address the following three broad questions: (1) What were the roles and responsibilities of our institutions when faced with a threat like Covid? (2) What were the costs and benefits of the response that transpired? (3) What is the need and potential for institutional and social reform?

The Political Economy of the US Pandemic Response Read Journal Article

progress

Are We at the End of Progress?

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All those dreaming of control like to believe that they should rule the world in order to save it from some great danger. At the end of the day, this is simply a selfish fascist fantasy. The West is now encumbered by huge layers of parasites whose living is made out of exaggerating fears and stealing from people under the guise of saving them. The EU Commission is a particularly glaring example of such a group, but they are everywhere today: people just trying to make a buck, but costing their society dearly.

Are We at the End of Progress? Read Journal Article

The SBF Scandal: The Players and the Money

The SBF Scandal: The Players and the Money

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Building off the success of Bill Gates, Sam Bankman-Fried, and his many associates, clearly saw philanthropy as the path to influence, power, and protection. At the same time, many nonprofit organizations saw an opportunity too; to build their own empires through promised millions and billions from a crypto genius in the Bahamas who had an unusual passion for pandemic planning. 

The SBF Scandal: The Players and the Money Read Journal Article

Twitter Ministry of Truth

Twitter Became the Ministry of Truth

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The Twitter story is not a one-off case, nor is it evidence that Wall Street and the homegamers alike are comprised of greedy fools who will fall for anything. To the contrary, the destructive outbreak of corporate moonlighting in behalf of woke ideology and partisan causes was born, bred and matriculated by the money-printers at the Fed.  At the end of the day, it is bad money that leads to bad, value-destroying behavior in the C-suites—just one more instance of the “malinvestment” which is the inherent result of monetary inflation.

Twitter Became the Ministry of Truth Read Journal Article

pandemic history

Pandemic History, Retold and Adjusted for Financial Return

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The rapidly-growing pandemic preparedness industry is dominating global public health and proving increasingly lucrative. Past authoritarian approaches of the type relied heavily on revising history to lend credence to their claims. Here follows such an attempt, recommended as background for their next round of white papers.

Pandemic History, Retold and Adjusted for Financial Return Read Journal Article

twitter files

The Twitter Files: Just the Beginning 

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What pertains to Twitter is surely true at Google (therefore YouTube), Facebook (therefore Instagram), Microsoft (therefore LinkedIn), and even Amazon (many great books were blocked from publication and distribution). At this point, one would have to be completely blind about the reality of what we’ve dealt with for almost three years: in the name of virus control, the country, its laws and traditions, its liberties and rights, were taken over by a junta with different ideas. 

The Twitter Files: Just the Beginning  Read Journal Article

Bankman-Fried pandemic

Sam Bankman-Fried and the Missing Billions for Pandemic Planning

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The display was disgusting but entirely predictable if you understand something about how our own hunger games are played. In this decade and a half of easy money, a whole class of people has risen to the top of the cultural echelon not by productive labor but by educational credentials and being part of the corporate float. They have come to believe that the system makes sense simply because it has benefited them. This is why they so gladly took to pandemic controls when they were at their height.

Sam Bankman-Fried and the Missing Billions for Pandemic Planning Read Journal Article