Andy Kessler: “No growth means no investment for innovation. This leads to stagnation—freezing everything in place. Then comes command and control. Experts to allocate slices of a finite pie…True collectivism. Eventually “Lord of the Flies” chaos…Everyone for himself. Growth is oxygen. Growth is how we afford virus vaccines and cures for cancer, Alzheimer’s and ALS. Growth is how we take people out of poverty. Growth lifts all ships…Capitalism is almost by definition sustainable and renewable, grow or die, because if growth stagnates—U.K., anyone?—capital moves elsewhere. Forget the bogus trade-off, profit is well-being because it creates more jobs instead of government honeypots to pay people not to work. Growth is fuel.”
Herman Narula on the metaverse: “What we realized is there’s no way to replace the real world. But there are experiences that can enhance the fulfillment people need and crave. When you think of people in the rich world, who can already meet celebrities and experience sporting events whenever they want, sure, the metaverse may seem less valuable. But if you can get this stuff on a phone—forget Meta’s obsession with VR headsets—if you can provide people with experiences that grow this fulfillment, it’s a very interesting business, especially for sports leagues, fashion brands, celebrities who are incredibly undermonetized.”
Richard Vedder: “Colleges perform two vital functions: They disseminate to the people (especially their own students) the knowledge and wisdom acquired through time in ways that enhance the common good, and they also expand that core of knowledge through research…We should rethink how we finance colleges and incentivize them to return to basics—emphasizing job one, teaching, and job two, doing worthwhile academic research.”
Bryan Caplan: “Conservatives needn’t buy any grand theory of government to continue and redouble their opposition to Big Government. They just need to remember how often their enemies will actually run the government. “Leftist politicians will be in command half the time, and leftist bureaucrats will decide day-to-day policy all the time.” It’s a bitter pill, but can you really doubt it?”
Samuel Gregg: “Protectionism may make American consumers pay more for often lower-quality goods, but tariffs and import quotas directly benefit those American businesses who resent the disciplines of competition and want to make it harder for others to enter “their” markets.” [via CafeHayek] Donald Boudreaux adds: “All protectionists – left, center, and right – aid and abet the plunder of fellow citizens by politically powerful producer groups. Fellow citizens as consumers, fellow citizens as workers, fellow citizens as investors, and fellow citizens as entrepreneurs all, as groups, suffer as a result of the special privileges bestowed by protectionist measures on protected producers…Protectionism is piracy – piracy carried out by brutes in suits.”
