Again?

That’s every economist’s reaction to renewed calls for price controls.

The theory is so airtight, the empirical evidence so overwhelming. The consensus among economists on price controls is impressive, and it stretches back decades.

What’s more, the assumptions required to oppose price controls are so minimal. Economics can’t tell you to favor prosperity and social harmony, but how many people truly don’t?

Everyone above a certain age no doubt well remembers September 11th 21 years ago. I remember it most for the leadership, courage and principle that my husband and Independent’s founder and president, David Theroux, exhibited on the very day. He immediately worked with Independent staffers to craft and post on the Independent.org home page a Statement on the Terrorist Attacks, later refined as a Press Release:

… history teaches that crisis periods produce even greater problems and suffering as the heavy hand of unchecked government power crowds out civil society.

… Americans seek security, but not as an end in itself. We seek security to enjoy the blessings of liberty. Attempts to “trade” liberty for security can only produce neither. Instead, we must achieve security in a manner consistent with a diverse and open society, individual liberty, and the rule of law.

There are mounting concerns over profound learning loss due to prolonged school closures and remote learning. New data released last week by the US Department of Education reveal that fourth-grade reading and math scores dropped sharply over the past two years. 

Fingers are waving regarding who is to blame, but the alleged “learning loss” now being exposed is more reflective of the nature of forced schooling rather than how children actually learn. 

The current hullabaloo over pandemic learning loss mirrors the well-worn narrative regarding “summer slide,” in which children allegedly lose knowledge over summer vacation. In 2017, I wrote an article for Boston NPR stating that there’s no such thing as the summer slide. 

More than 50 government officials across a dozen agencies, the Epoch Times reports, were involved in applying pressure to social media companies to censor users. Officials refusing to provide answers include Dr. Anthony Fauci, Biden’s chief medical adviser and director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) since 1984.

The case, Missouri et al v. Biden et al, is now in federal court under judge Terry Doughty. Jenin Younes of the New Civil Liberties Alliance, and an attorney for some of the plaintiffs, notes that Dr. Fauci had “demanded that specific individuals, including two of our clients, Jay Bhattacharya and Martin Kulldorff, be censored on social media.” Dr. Bhattacharya, of Stanford Medical School, and Dr. Kulldorff of Harvard, are co-authors of the Great Barrington Declaration, which took issue with Dr. Fauci on the issue of lockdowns. 

Humans have always lived and worked in groups and instinctively seek to cooperate with others in their group while viewing people in other groups with hostility. People in the same tribe work together for their common good. People in other tribes are potential predators or potential prey.

Those tribal instincts have stuck with us in modern times, often in socially harmful ways. Tribal instincts are the basis for racism and lay the foundations for nationalism. Modern societies have developed institutions to channel tribalism in non-destructive ways, such as organized sports. Rather than going to war with those of another tribe, we play games against them, giving us the satisfaction of battling another tribe while minimizing the death and destruction that accompanies other types of battles.

Electoral politics also plays on tribal instincts. We choose sides, and it is us against them. How sides are chosen is, at least partly, up to the politicians who are up for election.

“Don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater” is a saying that seems to go back to 1512. We use the saying to warn a friend against a syndrome of erring: In jettisoning something bad, first separate out the things that are good.

The hazard is especially great in the higher or deeper levels of thought and sentiment. All is fuzzy, and emotions impel us in ways little understood. When we feel in our heart something to be bad, we often have trouble delimiting that something. In our ire, we are vulnerable to summary expressions and caricatures. The pile is gathered imprecisely, too broadly. Sometimes we start down a road that leads to profound error. Precious things are forsaken.

“The country got super rich and still managed to blow all its cash. That’s right America. We’re Nicolas Cage!”

That unique take on the growing problem of the U.S. government’s debt is contained in a YouTube video produced by Kite & Key Media. It’s entertaining. It’s educational. Enjoy!

Days after releasing a plan to phase out new gas-powered cars, Ben Zeisloft of the Daily Wire reports that California officials are “asking residents to avoid charging their electric vehicles in the interest of not overwhelming the power grid.” 

According to Cornell University College of Engineering researchers, most electric vehicle owners charge their cars when they return from work in the evening, a time of peak demand. 

When President Biden signed the badly misnamed Inflation Reduction Act, he claimed it would “achieve hundreds of billions in deficit reduction.” Several independent budget analysts reviewed the act’s newly enacted spending and tax increases and estimated its net impact on the growth of the national debt over the next 10 years. Here is a summary of their results:

• The Penn Wharton Budget Model anticipates it will reduce federal budget deficits by $264 billion.
• The Tax Foundation estimates the act will reduce the growth of the national debt by $324 billion.
• The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget predicts $330 billion in overall national debt reduction.

The Inflation Reduction Act recently passed by the Senate is an act of economic and financial illiteracy one would tend to associate with Argentine politicians, not with the Parliament of the world´s only superpower. The Senate Majority Leader has characterized it as “a legislative feat of the 21st century.” One wonders what he was smoking. Or perhaps he was right and this will become a lasting paradigm of U.S. politicians’ inability to learn any of the lessons of the last hundred years.