The COVID-19 crisis and the see-sawing shutdown and stimulus policies resulting from it have inflicted significant damage on the U.S. economy. Economic damage is human damage. Work sustains us—ultimately our own physical health depends upon people’s ability to provide for themselves and their families in a robust and vibrant economy. As a result, everybody needs a clear glimpse at the economic future.

In this video, economist and Independent Institute Research Fellow Robert P. Murphy, author of the Independent book, Choice: Cooperation, Enterprise and Human Action, and Independent Executive Director Dr. Graham H. Walker discuss the policy directions needed to counteract the economic undertow of COVID-19. Dr. Murphy explores the impact of the backdrop business cycle for economic recovery, and examines the risks associated with unsustainable interest rates and unprecedented amounts of monetary inflation and debt issuance undertaken by the U.S. Treasury and the Federal Reserve Bank.

Prosperity can be secured, Dr. Murphy argues, but policymakers must take free-market-based, economically astute steps to achieve it.

Choice: Cooperation, Enterprise and Human Action, by Robert P. Murphy, with a foreword by Donald J. Boudreaux