Donald J. Boudreaux

“Although it’s possible to imagine bizarre scenarios in which a country’s rising trade deficits might be evidence of economic decline, none of these scenarios is realistic in the case of the United States. American trade deficits are evidence of American economic health, at least relative to many other countries, rather than of economic hardship.” ~ Donald J. Boudreaux

“Given that one of Tyler’s most intriguing arguments in Stubborn Attachments is that we discount the value of the future far too greatly – implying that we value the present far too much relative to the future – I believe that the 2018 Tyler Cowen would be a most intriguing, perhaps even confrontational, guest of the 2020 Tyler Cowen on Conversations with Tyler. It’s a conversation that I’d very much like to hear!” ~ Donald J. Boudreaux

“People around the world, engulfed by the fear instinct, have allowed themselves to be stirred by the media – and by their political ‘leaders’ – into an hysterical terror over Covid-19. It’s too bad that Hans Rosling is not alive in 2020 to help the forces of sanity fight Covid Derangement Syndrome.” ~ Donald J. Boudreaux

“What I believe is deranged is the failure to put Covid-19 in proper perspective. It is deranged to behave as if the risks that Covid poses to kindergartners, to college students, and to healthy young people are indistinguishable from the risks that Covid posed to your elderly father, or poses even to me, a 62-year-old.” ~ Donald J. Boudreaux

“By failing to take account of Covid’s differential impact on people according to their age, governments have compromised their credibility. By falsely treating everyone from kindergartners through college students and even middle-aged folks in normal health as if they all are as imperiled by Covid as are residents of nursing homes, governments signal a disregard for relevant facts. They reveal that they’ll seize upon any crisis, inflate it opportunistically, and use it as an excuse to grab more power regardless of the underlying realities.” ~ Donald J. Boudreaux

“This deeply illiberal collectivist ideology thrives on irrational fear brought on by unusually poor information. And it refuses to acknowledge that Covid-19’s dangers, while indeed real, are not as great as suggested by daily screaming headlines, and are heavily confined to infirm groups on whom preventive attention should be, but isn’t, focused. It’s time for a revolt against Covid collectivism.” ~ Donald J. Boudreaux

“The economy is people – people producing, trading, cooperating, and consuming. Reasonable people disagree over what are the best policies to deal with Covid-19. But contrary to the impression conveyed by your tweet, no serious person argues for sacrificing lives to ‘the economy’ as a lifeless abstraction.” ~ Donald J. Boudreaux

“Tamping down the Covid hysteria by making available accurate information about this disease is what well-informed and public-spirited governments would do. Yet such governments are largely mythical. Real-world governments behave quite differently.” ~ Donald J. Boudreaux

“Nancy Pelosi presides over a chamber of politicians who vote on taxing and spending bills that transfer money from some Americans to other Americans – a fact that (inexplicably!) propels Ms. Pelosi to boast that she and her colleagues, not taxpayers such as Mr. Blitzer, feed poor Americans. On top of this appalling pretension, Ms. Pelosi expects CNN’s audience to believe that she and her Congressional colleagues ‘know’ poor Americans in a way that non-politicians don’t.” ~ Donald J. Boudreaux

“The fact that Nafeez Ahmed, Sam Hammond, and some others dismiss anti-lockdown arguments with ad hominem accusations is evidence as powerful as evidence gets that these people have no idea what an intellectually respectable argument is.” ~ Donald J. Boudreaux