OpenMarket: Business and Government

This review of Eric H. Cline’s 1177 B.C.: The Year Civilization Collapsed, was originally published at Inertia Wins. Despite covering events in the ancient past, Cline’s analysis is especially relevant to the present-day coronavirus response and the importance of supply chain diversity.

Political news and analysis always suffers from a recency bias—we tend to assume that the latest analysis and reportage is superior to what was posted yesterday, or last year. With that in mind, CEI is launching a new blog series called “Retro Reviews.” We’ll take a look back at the important writing of previous years (and decades) and do our best to extract the wisdom contained therein.

The Justice Department and Federal Trade Commission will now allow some collaboration between companies to address the corona virus health threat. They also warned a frazzled business community that certain practices could still land them in antitrust hot water. The uncertainty will prevent some ideas from being tried and deny citizens the benefits of what could have been.

Last Friday, President Trump nationalized General Motors, ordering the company to produce as many ventilators as HHS Secretary Alex Azar says is necessary to address the coronavirus crisis. Bluster from the White House doesn’t magically retool factories and retrain workers. Worse, meddling from administration bureaucrats far outside their depth may depress and delay production.

On Friday evening, the Trump administration announced it would stop collecting all tariff revenue for three months, effective immediately. In ordinary times, the news would have been front page news for days. Instead, as with many late-Friday news dumps, it has gone virtually unnoticed.

The Guardian recently published a story on a Greenpeace attack on CEI for pointing out that reusable grocery bags might contain dangerous pathogens, including COVID-19. I have no problem with people who choose reusable bags, but it’s good for them to know that they need to be washed after every use. I do have a problem with government bans and regulations that force people to use reusable bags.

The Senate passed a $2 trillion COVID-19 relief and economic stimulus bill by a 96-0 vote. The House passed the bill by voice vote on March 27. The House Democrats’ bill was so radical and most of it had so little to do with addressing the current health crisis or the resulting economic crisis that it discredited the more modest attempts to add irrelevant wind and solar tax credits to the bill in the Senate.

The Information Technology and Innovation Foundation recently hosted its latest virtual event, “Reforming Antitrust Policy for an Era of Global Competitiveness.” ITIF President Rob Atkinson set up the discussion with the premise that European Union and United States antitrust policy may need to change—that is, loosen—to accommodate the consolidation of national champion-type firms in China.

American consumers, worried about the future of the coronavirus pandemic have continued to buy out available stocks of key products. However, temporary shortages are the exception that proves the rule: the American consumer economy is doing an extremely good job under extraordinary stress, and we have a decentralized market economy to thank for that.

The Take Responsibility for Workers and Families Act is the most irresponsible piece of fiscal legislation to come out of the profligate Congress for a long time, at $2.5 trillion. It is an insult to a nation in the throes of a scary pandemic, witnessing horrific deaths from oxygen starvation, with no obvious end in sight.