There’s almost universal agreement that virtually shutting down the economy, however painful, is necessary to stop the spread of the Wuhan virus. One of the few dissenting voices has been Peter Hitchens. In conversation with Spiked’s Brendan O’Neill, the British author questions whether the effects on society are in proportion to the problem.
At Least He Paid his Losing Bet
Paul Ehrlich, author of the spectacularly incorrect 1968 best-seller The Population Bomb, recently died at 93. Despite his longevity, Ronald Bailey points out in Reason, Ehrlich did not live to see even one of his numerous apocalyptic predictions come true. The world’s population certainly grew, but not merely larger, richer and fatter too. Most famously, Ehrlich once bet economist Julian Simon that the world was approaching economic collapse – but in 1990 had to mail Simon a cheque.
