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:
- Enforce sound money policies on all of the world’s central banks (e.g. returning to some sort of commodity standard)
- 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.
88491 415111Ill create a hyperlink to the internet page about my private weblog. 506528