According to a Goodman Institute study by David Henderson and Charles Hooper, studies suggest that there are at least 11 drugs that can substantially reduce mortality in patients who contract Covid-19. These drugs are widely used, safe, and convenient. Because they are generic, most of them cost $1. A few of them cost $5.
Inflation has been driven by an explosion of federal spending, which rose to 40% of GDP. Spending surged as the pandemic shutdown reduced employment and production during that period by an average of 7%. In this textbook case of inflation, $1.20 of income began chasing 93 cents of goods and services – a process greased by expansive monetary policy. That mismatch sent inflation to a 40-year high.
Beginning around 1980, the federal government and public health agencies began demonizing meat and saturated fat as the major cause of obesity, diabetes, and cardiovascular disease in the U.S. and around the world. They promoted a low-fat diet with increased consumption of carbohydrates instead. Obesity in the US has been steadily increasing ever since.
Sadly, these top-down public health campaigns served up a perfect nutritional storm for higher levels of obesity, diabetes, high blood pressure, and cardiovascular disease. And this was done while mounting, high-quality, peer-reviewed nutritional research suggested the basis for their advice was completely wrong.
Greenland ‘s ice mass is melting—but more slowly than it did a decade ago, and its level right now is about the same as in the 1930s. But little of this information reaches the media or even the reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)…
Review of The Debt Trap: How Student Loans Became a National Catastrophe, by Josh Mitchell (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2021) 261 pp.
Spending Plan, The $3.5 Trillion Mistake!
Inequality is almost universally condemned by the intellectual elite. But most of the rest of the world doesn’t think inequality is such a bad thing. According to polling by Gallup, there are 138 million people in the world today who would like to immigrate to the United States. Most of these people are poor. They tend to live in egalitarian surroundings – they and their neighbors are all equally poor. (The country with the highest percentage of would-be immigrants is Liberia.) Yet they want to come to a country with a great deal of inequality, knowing they would start out at the bottom of the income ladder.
What does the average economist know about environmental science? Probably no more than any other reasonably educated person. Yet economists have three talents that are sorely missing from most discussions of environmental policy – particularly policies related to climate change. They understand (1) the scientific method, (2) cost-benefit analysis and (3) how costs and benefits affecting different generations can be evaluated over time. More
Joe Biden says that corporations aren’t paying their fair share of taxes. He also says his plan to raise corporate taxes won’t harm anyone who makes less than $400,000 a year. Virtually all economists know these statements are false. Yet, John Goodman thinks there has ever been a time in recent history when there has been such a large gap between what economists know and what politicians say.
The Goodman Institute is doing work not done by any other organization – especially in the areas of tax, health care and entitlement policy. Without our work the nation might not have obtained tax reform. Now we need to defend it. The Trump administration used many of our ideas to deregulate the health care system – often by executive order. And we have developed a unique set of policy ideas for three groups of people who are critical in elections: seniors, women and people with pre-existing conditions.