NY Post Editorial Board: The COVID Pandemic’s Lasting Impact on the Economy and Other Commentary

Urbanist: COVID’s Lasting Impact

The pandemic’s “impact on economy, our way of life, the state of democracy and the world will resonate for years” with “some unexpected wrinkles,” notes Joel Kotkin for The American Mind. It has so far “largely favored big companies” with Big Tech as the chief “initial winners” even as it “ravaged Main Street, eliminating over 100,000 more businesses than would occur normally,” per the Fed. Yet “a whole new generation of entrepreneurs have begun to emerge”: “After years of decline, new business formations rose from roughly 3.5 million in 2019 to 4 million last year. Self-employment, pummeled at first, has recovered more rapidly than conventional salary jobs, as more Americans reinvent themselves.” And US manufacturing is now surging, with employment “expanding more rapidly than in almost four decades” as “the trend to reshoring has accelerated.”

Republican: Dems Driving Lawlessness

“As a nation, we are now seeing the highest spike in murder rates in decades,” observes Rep. John Katko (R-NY) at The Hill. “Democrats have spent years defunding, disarming, and demonizing law enforcement while progressive prosecutors in places like New York City are picking and choosing which laws to enforce,” while “activist judges are releasing repeat offenders on little or no bond.” Yet Democrats care “more about deflecting” than addressing the crime crisis. A “pervasive antagonism towards police stoked by the left is contributing to brutal increases in violent crime.”

Analyst: The Return of King Gold?

“The blocking of Russia’s central-bank reserves,” warns The Wall Street Journal’s Jon Sindreu, means “military and economic blocs are set to drift farther apart.” The problem: These “assets are someone else’s liability — someone who can just decide they are worth nothing.” Russia’s still earning hard currency with its energy exports, yet “the entire artifice of ‘money’ as a universal store of value risks being eroded by the banning of key exports to Russia and boycotts of the kind corporations like Apple and Nike announced.” So, “at the very least, more of Russia’s money will likely shift into gold and Chinese assets.” And “financial and economic linkages between China and sanctioned countries will necessarily strengthen if those countries can only accumulate reserves in China and only spend them there.” This will “further the deglobalization trend and entrench two separate spheres of technological, monetary and military power.” Investors “may not be ill advised: buy gold. Many of the world’s central banks will surely be doing it.”

Libertarian: Murthy’s Misbegotten ‘Misinfo’ Fight

US Surgeon General Vivek Murthy “asked tech companies to do their part by turning over data on ‘COVID-19 misinformation,’ ” writes Jacob Sullum at Reason — which is “more than a little creepy in a country where people have a constitutional right to express their opinions.” “If you say something that goes against the ‘best available evidence’ ” according to “government officials,” that’s “misinformation.” But “what counts as misinformation can change”: Questioning “the evidence in favor of general masking during the first few months of the pandemic . . . was not misinformation, because it was consistent with the CDC’s position.” Then the CDC flipped. Treating “dissent from the official line on public health issues . . . as an urgent threat” is both “fundamentally illiberal and inconsistent with freedom of speech.”

From the left: Dems Still Delusional on Trump

After a filing by the House Jan. 6 committee, “Many of Trump’s critics have once again leapt to believe that opaque legal developments might vanquish the former president, a familiar pattern since Robert Mueller became a household name in 2017,” remarks The Atlantic’s David A. Graham. In fact, “The hope that a prosecution can solve a political problem is a false hope.” The obvious better answer: “Trump’s opponents defeated him in the 2020 election. If there is any solution to the persistent threat of Trump, that will be political too.”

— Compiled by The Post Editorial Board

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