The Everyday Economist

Our friend James Pethokoukis of U.S. News and World Report recently asked me to provide my thoughts on a federal government bailout to “fix” the housing market and stabilize the economy. You can read my thoughts here (along with those of Russ Roberts, Dean Baker, Don Luskin, Craig Newmark, John Tamny, and Daniel Mitchell).

Alex Tabarrok has the cure. Think, for a moment, about the long-run:

Forget the talk of recession. The world is about to enter a new era in which miracle drugs will conquer cancer and other killer diseases and technological and scientific advances will trigger unprecedented economic growth and global prosperity.

Pie in the sky optimism? Perhaps. But there are reasons to be optimistic, and they rest not on science fiction but within the badly misnamed “dismal science,” economics.