“The Flawed COVID-19 Model That Locked Down Canada” By Peter St. Onge and Gaël Campan, courtesy of IEDM Before mid-March, most Canadians saw COVID-19 as an overseas problem. The emphasis was on returning Canadians stuck in China, and there had been a single COVID-19 death in Canada, a BC man in his 80s with […]
Tag: Covid-19
Public health responses and their economic costs
“The consequences of the Covid-19 lockdown: what does history teach us?” By Sergio Beraldo, courtesy of IREF Last February, this website hosted an article titled “The unintended consequences of coronavirus”. At the time the article was published, the situation was not at all dramatic in Europe. For example, the official Covid-19 […]
How South Korea, Taiwan leveraged tech to contain COVID-19… and win FDI
By Frank Bickenbach and Wan-Hsin Liu, courtesy of IFW Kiel In the coronavirus crisis, Taiwan and South Korea have shown that they dispose of efficient governance systems, high-quality research and public services and highly developed digital skills and infrastructures, and that they can successfully use these capacities to meet challenges. These capacities are among […]
COVID-19 will force change on UK’s welfare state
“Very unlikely” current welfare system will survive the Covid-19 pandemic, says new IEA briefing By Dr. Stephen Davies, courtesy of IEA Radical changes to the welfare system are historically associated with major crises and events such as wars, civil unrest, famines or epidemics. There is no reason that it will this time be any different, says a new […]
EU Budget: Transfers or low-interest loans?
“Ten questions and answers on the Franco-German proposal” By Jürgen Matthes, courtesy of IW Koeln Germany and France have proposed a European Recovery Fund of €500 billion, based on large loans taken out by the EU to be transferred exclusively as grants to EU member states particularly affected by the COVID-19 crisis. The legal […]
Washington Beyond the Headlines: Admin Has Chopped 570 Regulations
By Andy Blom, TES Washington Editor America is opening up! Kind of. Different states, curiously reflecting their red/blue political leadership, are opening at different paces. Except, of course, for the House of Representatives which apparently feels that the best way to represent the American people is to not go to work. Oh well, that’s […]
Emergency COVID-19 Stimulus Programs Are a Short-Term Solution
By Thomas Hoenig, courtesy of the Mercatus Center The federal government and the Federal Reserve have implemented unprecedented spending and monetary policies to combat the economic crisis resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic. These policies, while necessary in the short term, place an ever larger mortgage against the nation’s future income; and extending them […]
Coronavirus Has More Americans Rethinking Plastic
This article was originally published in Issues & Insights. By Bill Collier and Jon Decker One overlooked policy response to the coronavirus has been a changing of attitudes toward plastic. While plastic has drawn the ire of environmentalists in recent years due to concerns regarding pollution, some businesses are now being forced to […]
The Great EU Airline Refund Scam
By Bill Wirtz, courtesy of the Austrian Economics Center At first 12, now 16 EU member states are looking to overturn rules requiring airlines to refund passengers with cash payments if their flight had been cancelled as a result of COVID-19 travel restrictions. The companies have been lobbying the European Council to disable […]
Killing the patient to save the finger: COVID-19 is a metaphor for our time
By Martin J. Stransky, MD, courtesy of The New Presence In the coming months, the current CoV19 epidemic will be increasingly viewed from a social, political, and economic perspective. Though the epidemic isn’t over yet, some telling conclusions can already be drawn regarding laws of human nature and our current society. […]