Dan Sutter, an economist who heads the Manuel Johnson Center for Political Economy at Troy University, interviewed me in June about my recent article in Reason titled “Economic Lessons from COVID-19,” Reason, June 2021.
The 30-minute interview is up.
Some highlights:
3:00: How incentives matter.
5:25: Extra federal unemployment benefits and a free summer vacation.
8:00: Opportunities for teenagers.
8:50: Mises, Hayek, and the socialist calculation debate.
9:50: Polanyi, The Tacit Dimension.
10:30: How the central planning insight applies to COVID.
12:00: How the private sector responded.
13:20: Value is subjective.
15:00: My value of going to my cottage.
16:00: What my wife tells people that I do as an economist.
17:00: What’s wrong with one size fits all and why “We’re all in this together” is literally true but figuratively false.
19:15: Externalities.
20:50: What happens when the polluter pollutes himself.
21:40: Least-cost avoider.
22:20: Focus on elderly.
25:15: COVID vaccine–subsidies versus price controls.
29:00: My summary.
READER COMMENTS
Alan Goldhammer
Jul 23 2021 at 5:47pm
Maybe you should have covered public shaming in the discussion. This is the approach that Alabama Governor Kay Ivey is now taking with respect to vaccination, “It’s time to start blaming the unvaccinated folks, not the regular folks. It’s the unvaccinated folks that are letting us down.”
Is this a libertarian response? Will it change the trajectory of vaccine uptake in Troy University’s home state?
Jon Murphy
Jul 24 2021 at 1:01pm
Public shaming is backfiring. It’s undermining confidence in the vaccines and public health apparatus. I doubt the governor’s comments will change much.
john hare
Jul 23 2021 at 6:16pm
It’s the unvaccinated folks that are letting us down.”
Maybe it’s time to let people that make bad decisions pay for them. “Free” emergency room care for some has been abused something awful. And raising everyone’s insurance and taxes to pay for the free riders is not good. So let the unvaccinated take responsibility for their own decisions. No need for blame or other mind games.’
Thomas Lee Hutcheson
Jul 24 2021 at 6:31am
The point is to make the unvaccinated take responsibility for the harm they do to others.
Jon Murphy
Jul 24 2021 at 1:00pm
Remember thy Coase!
Thomas Lee Hutcheson
Jul 24 2021 at 6:28am
Now I wish there were a transcript! Audio is great for passive listening, but not for thinks where one wants to say “Woah!” It works only when the interviewer asks very challenging questions, the ones the listener would liked to have seen addressed.
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