Plans for Extended Unemployment Benefits, Wage Subsidies Risk Creating a Zombie Economy
Businesses need to be able to adjust to a world where COVID-19 remains an ongoing concern.
Economics
Restaurants Are Facing a COVID-19 Crisis. Price Controls on Food Delivery Services Won't Help.
Cities are imposing "emergency" regulations capping the fees that delivery services like Uber Eats may charge. That's a mistake.
Creativity Flourishes, Even Amid a Pandemic
Marveling at people's endless ability to love, connect, and create.
Would Gov. Cuomo Rather Have No Businesses in New York Than Businesses That Employ Fewer People?
His proposed law would require that corporations return bailout funds if they don't rehire the same number of employees.
America's Long-Term Debt Crisis Is Now a Short-Term Problem
Even in a healthy economy, rising debt and deficits posed challenges. The current crisis has magnified those problems.
When Government Programs Do More Harm Than Good
Shame on the U.S. government for making unemployment pay better than work.
Quarantine Fatigue and the Social End to the Coronavirus Pandemic
What might learning to live with COVID-19 look like?
Have We Crossed the Threshold of Doom?
The Reason Roundtable discusses eternal New Deals, multi-trillion-dollar mistakes, and sobbing face-first in the parking lot of life. Happy Monday!
Working From Home May Be a Permanent Feature of the Post-Pandemic World
That has interesting implications for where people will base themselves in the future.
Open Borders vs. COVID-19: A Soho Forum Debate
Center for Immigration Studies' Mark Krikorian debates George Mason University economist Bryan Caplan on immigration and coronavirus.
Coronavirus Curfews Are Counterproductive and Un-American
Making businesses close early will not stop the spread of COVID-19.
Anti-Porn Groups Target Websites' Ability to Accept Credit Card Payments
We've seen this before...
We Need Economists, Civil Libertarians, and Epidemiologists in the COVID-19 Discussion
The tradeoffs among considerations of health, prosperity, and liberty are catching up with us even if we don't want to acknowledge them.
Sen. Josh Hawley's Plan To Abolish the World Trade Organization Is Based on Fake Economics and False History
Hawley is charting the next path for the Trump-style anti-trade nationalism that has infected the Republican Party.
The New Great Depression? Unemployment Hits Levels Not Seen Since 1930s
Plus: tax revolts, Mrs. America, sex-worker comedy, reopening poll, and more...
Texas Will No Longer Send People to Jail for Violating Strict Social Distancing
Gov. Greg Abbott made the change after a Dallas salon owner was jailed for reopening her salon.
Andrew Cuomo's Morally Grotesque Rationale for Maintaining COVID-19 Lockdowns
Even the president is a better moral philosopher than New York's governor.
The U.S. Postal Service 'Unsustainable,' Says GAO. And That Was Before COVID-19 Hit.
The USPS has lost $78 billion since 2007, but could lose as much as $13 billion this year as the pandemic has crushed mail volume.
'This Was Avoidable': Michigan Republicans Sue Governor Over Emergency Response to Coronavirus
Some lawmakers allege that Gov. Gretchen Whitmer has overstepped the bounds of her authority.
Coronavirus Has Devastated Uber and Lyft's Business. Now California Is Suing Them.
A lawsuit filed yesterday by California Attorney General Xavier Becerra accuses the companies of misclassifying their drivers as independent contractors.
New CRISPR Coronavirus Test Could Be a Pandemic 'Game-Changer'
Cheap accurate testing would enable the safe reopening of the U.S. economy.
'Feeding My Kids Isn't Selfish': Salon Owner Gets Jail Time for Reopening in Dallas
Texas salons are allowed to reopen on Friday. Shelley Luther will be sitting in jail.
The Coronavirus Butterfly Effect
Global manufacturing is an intricate ecosystem of specialized players, their fates closely intertwined.
United Airlines Received $5 Billion From Taxpayers to Protect Employees' Paychecks. Now It's Cutting Hours for 15,000 Workers.
Lawmakers who voted for the $50 billion bailout of the airline industry are just shocked at these companies' behavior.
The Trump Administration Is Still Charging 25 Percent Tariffs on Disinfectants Used To Combat COVID-19
"The tariff is making it more difficult for companies to supply our nation's essential workers with antiseptics and sanitizing products they need."
Masks Can Be a Symbol of Privacy and Personal Responsibility, Not Tyranny
Plus: Family Dollar guard murdered over mask enforcement, doctors see "multisystem inflammatory syndrome" in kids with COVID-19, and more...
It's 'Access' to Birth Control Versus Employer Beliefs Again at the Supreme Court
The Obamacare contraception mandate continues to cause legal trouble.
Lockdown Is Ending, Whether Governments Approve or Not
Executive orders may have encouraged the lockdowns, but they always depended on voluntary behavior.
America Wasn't Ready for Coronavirus
Early takeaways from the country's response to a pandemic
What It's Like To Be a Rational Optimist in a Pandemic
Matt Ridley on how the coronavirus caught him by surprise, the crucial role of dissent in politics, and the importance of innovation for survival
The Seen and the Unseen of COVID-19
As long as it's neither safe nor legal to conduct normal business, Bastiat's seen economic activity is beyond our reach. The unseen doubly so.
Dems' Hazard Pay Proposals Are a Recipe for a Lot Fewer Essential Workers
We need essential workers right now. We also need markets and the price signals they provide.
The Consequential Frontier
The "privatization" of space has already expanded the possibilities of the cosmos for all mankind far beyond what six decades of federal bureaucracy could.
Sen. Josh Hawley Wants a Bogus Criminal Investigation Into Amazon
The lawmaker says that the company's data practices violate antitrust law. They do not.
Trump's 'National Security' Steel Tariffs Are Just Old Fashioned Protectionism. Here's the Data To Prove It.
The department has granted just 1 percent of the tariff exemption requests that were challenged by domestic steel producers.
San Francisco's Economically Ignorant COVID-19 Response
If politicians really want to help citizens, they should brush up on the laws of supply and demand.
The National Labor Relations Board Wants To Punish a Conservative Publisher for a Joke About Unions
The Federalist's Ben Domenech is fighting the government in court.
Make an Anti-Union Joke, Prepare to Be Accused of an Unfair Labor Practice
The NLRB's prosecution of a conservative journalist should be worrisome.
The Executive Order on Meat Processing Doesn't Compel Companies With Sick Workers to Stay Open
Plus: Justin Amash seeking L.P. nomination, pandemic hasn't halted FDA war on vaping, and more
'Why Is a Liquor Store Essential and I'm Not?' Asks Store Owner During N.Y.C. Coronavirus Lockdown
It's time to push back on arbitrary classifications that punish businesses and customers alike without clearly helping public health.
'We Have Flattened That Curve': Some States Move Forward With Reopening Their Economies
But testing remains a key issue in some of those states.
China Is Rolling Out a Government Digital Currency. We Shouldn't Try to Copy Them.
Western countries aren’t immune to the siren call of surveillance via commerce-tracking.
Michael Strain Wants You To Believe in the American Dream
The economy is broadly healthy and that it's benefiting nearly everyone—including the lower-income households who need it most.
Latin America's COVID-19 Dilemma: Pestilence or Famine?
Amid growing unrest, oil-dependent nations may have no choice but to open their economies.
There Is No China Crisis
Unless we cause one by overreacting to Asia's changing political and economic landscape
Michigan Gov. Rolls Back Some of State's More Insane Coronavirus Restrictions
The strict stay-at-home order received a great deal of backlash for its more arbitrary prohibitions.
Social Security Will Be Insolvent Even Sooner Than Expected, Thanks to COVID-19 Pandemic
A new report from the Social Security Administration expects the program to hit insolvency by 2035. Some experts say it could happen as soon as 2028 if there is a serious recession.
Is It Time to End the Coronavirus Lockdowns? A Soho Forum Debate
Economists David Henderson and Justin Wolfers debate whether the coronavirus lockdowns are doing more harm than good.
