Misis: When It Comes to Masks, There Is No "Settled Science"

When It Comes to Masks, There Is No "Settled Science"

7/28/2020 | Chris Calton

As the “fifteen days to slow the spread” continues to extend indefinitely, the issue of mask mandates has become increasingly contentious. The debate has been exacerbated by the inconsistency of the recommendations of authorities (political, scientific, and imaginary). Early in the pandemic, both the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the World Health Organization (WHO) advised against the use of masks, except by those who are particularly vulnerable (the elderly and immunocompromised) and their caretakers.

Many of us with some understanding of economics made such arguments at the outset of the debate, not necessarily because of any epidemiological expertise. When you understand the principle of scarcity, policies mandating that healthy teenagers vie for medical products with their more vulnerable grandparents is a formula for exacerbating the most severe outcome of any viral infection. In fairness, many medical experts raised exactly these concerns, even if they did not enjoy the media attention of their more demagogic counterparts.

Regardless of whether or not you agree with the masks-for-all policy, it is heartening to see how well entrepreneurs adapted to the spiked demand...

READ THE ARTICLE AT MISIS.ORG.. .

The ‘Pseudo-Ethics’ Of Social Justice In Economics, Politics And Religion

WRITTEN BY: PATRICK WOOD AUGUST 3, 2016

Introduction

“Social Justice” is a phrase that you see everywhere today. Global Warming is all about social justice. The United Nations sponsors an annual World Day of Social Justice.  The Peaceful Uprising  website states that Climate Change Is A Social Justice Issue.

The U.N.’s own website states,

“For the United Nations, the pursuit of social justice for all is at the core of our global mission to promote development and human dignity. The adoption by the International Labour Organization of the Declaration on Social Justice for a Fair Globalization is just one recent example of the UN system’s commitment to social justice.” [emphasis added]

One Christian blogger recently wrote,

“As we strive for social justice and attempt to love our neighbors, are we relying on Christ, or are we relying on the military, political leaders, the government, church authorities, institutions, and abusive ideologies?” [emphasis added]

Social justice is a slippery bar of soap, but it surely sounds important, doesn’t it?

The term has a long history, definitive philosophy and uniformly disastrous results to any society who dared to embrace it. Plus, others have written extensively about it.

Spoiler ahead. According to famed Austrian economist F.A. Hayek, social justice nothing more than “pseudo-ethics” that “fails every test which a system of moral rules must satisfy in order to secure a peace and voluntary co-operation of free men.”¹

^{Read at Technocracy.News...} 

Caught in a Budget Trap #tcot

by Jagadeesh Gokhale

This article appeared in The Hill on November 29, 2012.

The recent drumbeat from the political left on the disastrous effects of "austere" budget-cutting in European economies is intended to sandbag against similar policies in the United States. The key contention is that spending cuts have made budget balancing more difficult in European countries: supposedly, lower public spending in those countries reduced employment and income, reduced government revenues and increased the ratio of government debt to Gross Domestic Product. The left concludes that, to avoid a similar experience, the U.S. should increase spending in the short term, instead of cutting it, and attempt a "grand bargain" to balance long-term spending and taxes.

The problem is there may never be a "right" time to transition to the promised long-term structural budget resolution.

Read the article at The Cato Institute…

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Gokhale, Jagadeesh (2012, November 29). Caught in a Budget Trap. Retrieved November 29, 2012, from The Cato Institute Web site: http://www.cato.org/publications/commentary/caught-budget-trap

Exclusive Interview with F. A. Hayek

by James U. Blanchard III

SOURCE

Link above to the article detailing Blanchard's interview with F.A. Hayek in 1984. The following excerpt is from that interview:

Q: That leads me to another question. What do you think accounts for the fact that capitalism has had such a bad reputation among the intellectual elite? Is it a simple matter of envy, or is there a more fundamental reason?

Hayek: Yes, this is a very curious story. It was the enormous influence of Karl Marx's teaching that capitalism has created the proletariat. It's curious because the fact is true, but the capitalist hasn't created the proletariat by expropriating anybody. On the contrary, he has created a proletariat by enabling people to live who otherwise could not have lived. He has created a proletariat by keeping people alive! In that sense, the proletariat is a creation of capitalism, and all these people just wouldn't exist without capitalism.

Q: If capitalism wasn't here to provide the labor, the jobs, and the capital, millions of people would not exist.

Hayek: Only capitalism could have created what I call the extended society, which is based on the utilization of infinitely more resources than any other system could have used.