IN THIS SPECIAL EXTENDED BULLETIN:

Let’s face it, you’re confined indoors and bored stiff, so I’ve extended this bulletin a bit. Among other things, you’ll find:

• DO-TANKING: More thinking! More virtual meetings! More reports! More future plans!
• HOT TAKES (NEW!): ASI boffins’ thoughts on the Covid-19 crisis.
• OTHER STUFF: Schools; On our Megablog; Round the Web; Meeja.

I guess the Extinction Rebellion roadblocks are now restricted to only two people. (So the cars could probably drive around them, if any cars were allowed on the roads.) And it’s going to take them a lot longer to dig up anyone’s lawn. My local council is stepping into the breach, with a new magazine telling us what we can do to stem climate change (which is, of course the number one threat facing hu… oh, on reflection, scrub that thought.)

In other news (well, actually there is no other news so I’m making stuff up) world markets went glum when President Trump told everyone they’d have to work like normal, and chirped up again when told there was $2 trillion of other people’s money up for grabs. (Some of us have offspring like that.) And Parliament is suspending itself. (There’s always a silver lining — Ed,).

But I digress…

DO TANKING

Think tank staff are of course essential workers, precisely because of the political madness pandemic that is always with us. But we are helping the war effort by working from our tiny garrets, making use of whiz interwebbery gizmos which means that you are never away from the simultaneous sight and sound of your colleagues, (Aaaargh!—Ed.) Of course, we’re still very much in daily touch with all those who develop, decide and report public policy. (We’re even taking work home! Haha! Geddit?—Ed.)

Speaking of think tank staff, please say a warm welcome to our latest recruit John Macdonald. Don’t worry, we haven’t hired the Shadow Chancellor, we’ve poached this John with very different and very sound views from Conservative Campaign Headquarters. Our new Head of Government Affairs, John will be responsible for getting MPs back onto the straight and narrow at the end of this crisis and ensuring sound policy is progressing through our parliament (a tough gig or an impossible ask? — Ed.). Any hints, tips, or you're an MP wanting to say hello, drop him a line via [email protected].

HOT TAKES

I’ve asked colleagues to chip in their musings on our present discontents. (Aren’t you impressed that, of all the newsletters you’ve had in the past ten days, this is the only one that hasn’t yet mentioned the v-word?)

I'll kick off with mine, and try to set a high-minded tone. In his Nobel Lecture Coping With Ignorance, economist F A Hayek observed that ‘information’ isn’t such solid stuff as you might imagine. It’s not sitting on library shelves waiting to be plucked down. On the contrary, it exists only in the minds of individuals. And individuals’ understanding can be patchy, distorted or completely up the spout. So when politicians try to respond to ‘facts’ that change as quickly as we’ve seen in the last month, don’t be surprised that their policy proposals change quickly too. I never thought I’d say this of politicians, but the rest of us are just as ignorant: cut them some slack (have we all come down with something? — Ed.).

Daniel Pryor: The Peter Hitchens and Brendan O'Neills of this world are understandably worried about our civil liberties in the midst of escalating restrictions on freedom. (In 1799, after all, we were told that the new—2.5%—income tax would be ‘temporary’.) But let’s fight this battle once the dust has settled. It does neoliberals no favours to oppose emergency measures that will ultimately save many lives. We believe in doing what works and right now there are (sadly) good reasons to shut down pubs. When this has all blown over, the grim reality of top-down controls will provide ample motivation to fight any opportunistic moves by politicians to keep hold of their new powers.

Matthew Lesh: In recent days we have witnessed a lot of ‘Disaster Socialism’: our oh-so-intellectual opponents like Grace Blakely or Ash Sarkar exploiting this crisis for their ideological hobby-horses and claiming this is the end of free markets. The reality could not be more different. Now more than ever we are dependent on complex global supply chains to keep feeding us, entrepreneurs like Dyson to construct thousands of ventilators from scratch, and medical science innovators to develop tests, medication and vaccines. We won’t win the war against Covid-19 despite the market, we will win it by harnessing the spontaneous order that brings out the best of human creativity.

EDUCATION

Young Writer on Liberty 2020: Entries are now closed—thanks to everyone who entered—and the winners will be announced shortly on the ASI website. Keep your eyes peeled for a new competition to keep your young relatives busy and engaged with ideas during this shutdown.

ON THE BLOG

COVID19: How To Deal With Business Collapse and Keep the Economy on Track by Lance Forman:

“What the Government needs to do now urgently is set up a “COVID Business Interruption Fund” which would allow businesses to claim on a monthly basis for losses incurred and pay out with a very short turnaround i.e. days, not weeks, without the convoluted investigations typically made by insurers.  Companies could submit their last set of audited accounts to show what their gross margins are and the losses and the Government should reimburse right away. The process should be simple. Once the coronavirus subsides businesses can later be audited to ensure the claims were fair and reasonable.  Perhaps the insurance industry could supply the personnel to do these checks after the event.”


What should it cost to get one out of bed? by Tim Ambler 

"Chucking patients out of wards within an hour of being cured, rather than several days, should save the NHS money rather than costing them more but for reasons unexplained they are being given an extra £1.3bn to do so. If the DTOC figures are correct, that is about £430,000 per bed. I think I would get out of bed for that."

COVID-19 and Game Theory by John Macdonald

"Let’s take the case of supermarket stockpiling. The media might have us believe that the virus has led to a plague of ‘covidiots’; revellers and hoarders hell bent on and single-handedly clearing out supermarket shelves. But are people acting irrationally? At a collective level, it is leading to shortages of goods. But in a direct sense, people are acting rationally. It becomes optimal rather than suboptimal to start stockpiling if everyone else does because their stockpiling creates the very supply problem they are trying to avoid in the first place."



By all means, argue for what you want, matey by Tim Worstall 

“This insistence upon bans upon importation, the demand that such and such must be enforced, it’s the argument, the acknowledgement, that all don’t agree. For if all did indeed desire those higher standards, at those higher prices, then no one would ever buy the cheaper imports. To deny people the chance to make their own decision is that admittance that they would make a different decision. Thus the choice must be taken away so that the Tsar’s desires can be enforced.”

WONDER-WEB

• Sam B and Sam D explain why we’re supporting interventions now, to shut down socialism later on: 

"This is not a ‘normal’ recession like ones we experienced in 2008-09 or the early 1990s. If we treat this recession as a normal recession, it could cause lasting damage to the economy even after we end quarantine measures, and make it even harder to beat this virus before then.”

(It’s that word again—Ed.)

• How the Government abandoned its ‘herd immunity’ strategy by our very own Saloni Dattani:

"It is hugely unfortunate that the Government delayed aggressive social distancing measures, which will have already caused avoidable deaths and suffering, but it is encouraging that they quickly reconsidered many of their initial plans — for the damage must be mitigated swiftly."

• Drug dealers appear to be “price-gouging”:

 "Supplies of weed are already down and prices on an ounce have gone up from £160 to £240. That is an insane increase and I don’t want to pass that onto my customers, or have to start supplying product that isn’t suitable for them."

• Citymapper’s Mobility Index

• IEA’s Mark Littlewood on the state of the economy: 

“Relatively recent forecasts and predictions around growth rates, debts and deficits are worthless. Rishi Sunak’s first budget now reads like something from a different universe.” 

• The hidden and dark world of the indentured doctors that Cuba sends overseas: 

WHAT WE’RE READING/WATCHING

Working from home? (Or as business managers call it, ‘messing about?’) I thought you might like to know what our boffins at the Adam Smith Institute are reading on our Kindles or catching up with on Netflix.

Madsen, naturally, isn’t reading any books, he’s writing them. For my part, I thought I might re-read A Humane Economy or The Blind Watchmaker; but I haven’t quite got round to it. (But then you have procrastination down to a fine art—Ed.)

Daniel, through the strawberry clouds of his vape thingy, is glued to his screen rewatching his favourite movies and TV series——Interstellar, Humans and Utopia. (Abusing solvents again? Ed.) He’s also begun a hapless foray into streaming Call of Duty on Twitch and is making steady progress through Jane Jacobs’ urbanist classic The Death and Life of Great American Cities.

Morgan, quarantined with her voracious reader of a boyfriend, is feeling inspired to finish her to-read list – Little Women, some Bill Bryson (when else to read travel books), John le Carré, and if she’s feeling ambitious, a foray into the Russian classics. All this punctuated with copious amounts of Netflix.

AND I QUOTE…

This certainly seems apposite to Beijing right now:

"Government is a disease masquerading as its own cure."

--Robert LeFevre (1911-1986), Political Theorist, Educator, Journalist and Author 

Bye…

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