Don Boudreau: I believe that if human beings remain rational, that history will look back upon the past two years as probably the single greatest self-inflicted damage to humanity short of shooting wars. He says he has no problem with a society that views it's elderly with reverence and thinks their lives might be worth more than we might think. But what happened with COVID is almost as if the goal was to, adding a few months or years to the lives of very old people was worth whatever costs the rest of society had to bear in order to do that. "I don't want them to have restricted lives in order to make my life better," said Boudreau.
Economist Don Boudreaux of George Mason University talks about the pandemic with EconTalk host Russ Roberts. Boudreaux argues that a perfect storm of factors created a huge overreaction, including unnecessary lockdowns that accomplished little at a very high cost in physical and emotional health. Instead, Boudreaux argues, we should have focused attention on the population most at risk of dying from COVID--the elderly and especially the elderly with co-morbidities. The conversation includes a discussion of externalities and the insights of Ronald Coase applied to the policies during the pandemic.