The argument that the typical household’s and individual’s quality of life has not improved for decades, says Strain, “borders on the absurd.” Leave aside the vast but difficult-to-quantify product quality improvements (e.g., cellphones before and after smartphones; automobiles in 1990 and 2020). Between 1983 and 2016, the median net worth for a family increased from approximately $52,000 to $97,300.
Speaking of Michael Strain and his excellent new book, here’s a podcast on it.
Equally pointless would be tax relief – or subsidized loans – to employers. Yes, during the crisis many fundamentally healthy firms might encounter liquidity challenges. Such firms, however, would have no trouble borrowing the necessary liquidity from banks and other capital-market sources. Supplying such liquidity is among the core functions of capital markets. Nothing about the coronavirus crisis renders capital markets unable to perform this worthwhile function.
John O. McGinnis is correct: Elizabeth Warren’s appeal is greatest in faculty lounges. A slice:
But being a central planner does not get you much traction outside the faculty lounge. Technocracy does not stir people’s souls. And being a planner can trip you up as a politician. Warren faded when she could not successfully cost out the enormously expensive government takeover of health care. For a planner not to have a plan about costs is fatal. But revealing the full costs and taxes realistically needed to pay for that plan would have been equally fatal.
Here’s wisdom from David Harsanyi.
