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.

Labor Markets: Bruised, Battered, and Broken by Lockdowns and Mandates

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It’s tremendously sad to see a whole nation slip so far so fast into decline, as evidenced by the latest labor-market data that has profoundly impacted the most vulnerable. It is easily reversible but we seem to lack the wisdom and courage that would be required to turn this around. 

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Biden’s Vaccination Mandate: Where Are the Regulations?

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It’s true that Biden does not have the power to impose that directly but he might have the power to order a regulatory body under his authority to write rules that amount to the same thing. And even if the regulatory agency never gets around to it, the perception that the order is real and enforceable is enough to cause the outcome he desires. 

Biden’s Vaccination Mandate: Where Are the Regulations? Read Journal Article

These Travel Restrictions Must End 

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International tourist arrivals are down by 85% from 2019. A third of the world’s borders are shut. There seems to be no movement in the direction of reversing this disaster and reinstituting the wonderful world of 2019. In fact, there seems to be very little awareness that this has happened to us much less of the terrible consequences. Forget the freedom of movement; the Biden administration has only promised to open up “when it is safe to do so.” 

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Lockdowns Codified a Caste System

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They were assigned to the frontlines. They bore the burden, not only of doing the work but of being exposed to the virus and gaining natural immunities that the ruling class now tells them does not count for real immunity. Do they have reason to be resentful? The answer is clearly yes.

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Lies and Tricks, Dressed Up as Science

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The epidemiologists asked to advise governments almost invariably admitted that what they were advocating was only based on their projections of Covid cases and Covid deaths, devoid of any analysis of the effects these actions would have on public health, the economy, education and other important aspects of life. They nonetheless had no problem advocating lockdowns and other draconian measures.

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What If There Had Been No Lockdowns or Operation Warp Speed?

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Long before the vaccine was created, market signals from China indicated the virus wasn’t terribly lethal for the healthy, but much the same was revealed here. In other words, in a world without a vaccine, the healthy were going to get the virus, but the natural immunity achieved was going to render them less liable to get it again, and spread it.

What If There Had Been No Lockdowns or Operation Warp Speed? Read Journal Article

Intellectual Courage Is as Essential as it Is Rare

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We’ve long misconstrued who precisely can be part of the intellectual battle. Everyone without exception can qualify as an intellectual provided he or she is willing to take ideas seriously. Anyone and everyone is entitled to be part of it. Those who feel the burden and the passion of ideas more intensely, in Mises’s view, have a greater obligation to thrust themselves into the battle, even when doing so can bring disdain and isolation from one’s fellows – and doing so most certainly will (which is why so many people who should have known better have fallen silent). 

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A Specious Argument for Mandatory Vaccines

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In a world in which not every human being lives an isolated existence – that is, in our world – each of us incessantly acts in ways that affect strangers without thereby justifying government-imposed restrictions on the great majority of these actions. Therefore, justification of government obstruction of the ordinary affairs of life requires far more than an identification of the prospect of some interpersonal impact.

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