LETTER FROM THE EDITOR
My worry is that we’re going to emerge from this pandemic having learned the wrong lesson. gold standard. Maybe we each should have received a $1 million stimulus check on the condition that we seal ourselves into a six-foot personal Ziploc bag for the duration. I expect we’ll be arguing about this forever.) The wrong lesson I worry we’ll learn is... The Need for Central Planning. America’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic was a chaotic mess. Former- President Trump couldn’t think of what to do or say, which didn’t keep him from doing and saying everything he could think of to make the situation more confusing. Fifty states, Washington, D.C., plus various U.S. territories had more than 50 different sets of pandemic rules and regulations,
Covid has me worried... I suppose what I should be worried about – given that I’m a 73-year-old who smokes and drinks and whose idea of exercise is getting up at 3 a.m. to take a leak – is getting the disease. But personal worries are a bore. (Do you really want to know exactly where I’ve been squirting my hand sanitizer?) General worries are more interesting. (Now that the weather’s getting warmer, should we insist that all children fill their Super Soakers with Purell?) My worry is that we’re going to emerge from this pandemic having learned the wrong lesson. Not necessarily the wrong medical or epidemiological lesson, or even the wrong monetary or fiscal lesson... (Although, post-plague, it will be fascinating to sort out who was right and who was wrong about measures to contain the contagion and ease its economic effects. Maybe we all ought to have gone mask-less into the mosh pit while central banks returned to the
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American Consequences
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