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Jim Bohannon asked me, as a final question, what I would do if I were the world’s economics czar, and to ignore political consequences for a moment. I had something like 15 seconds to answer.

My original answer was: “I’d eliminate my position.” But, as this was talk radio, both he and the listeners wanted to hear what I would say anyway. So I acquiesced and answered:

  1. Enforce sound money policies on all of the world’s central banks (e.g. returning to some sort of commodity standard)
  2. Eliminate all special privilege.

 There really wasn’t time to elaborate, or to think harder about what else to add. Without sounding like an anarcho-nutcase, which I suppose at times some might think of me as, I would have added the following to the short list if the time were there:

  • Force all corporate charters to run out (or at least be renewed);
  • Disallow corporate managers (owners?) to have zero liability. I really would consider some sort of partnership structure the standard we should aspire to;
  • Elimate all barriers to trade, including tariffs, subsidies, quotas and import restrictions;

Of course, there could be dozens more. But for the sake of a soundbite, I think I would stick with these to start.

UPDATE: Notice that as czar I would not propose the creation of anything, at least not as one of my top priorities.

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