When demand rises and supply does not, competition dictates that prices increase.
During the present crisis, states are competing with other states and the federal government for the short supply of medical equipment essential for the care and treatment of the soaring number of people infected by the corona virus.
Yet despite having signed a law enabling the federal government to take charge of the manufacturing and distribution of necessary medical gear, the president refuses to order it into action.
Result: The economic law of supply and demand takes effect and prices soar.
Meanwhile, people die.
Inevitable, say conservatives. The government cannot, should not and must not step in and control the marketplace. That's socialism, they argue, and socialism is evil. It goes against all the principles of the free market system that America was founded on.
Similar arguments were made in the 1930s, when President Franklin D. Roosevelt sponsored a wide range of government actions to rescue the nation from the Great Depression.
Programs such as unemployment insurance, Social Security retirement plans and others were widely condemned as "socialist," and government had no responsibility for the welfare of workers in a free market society.
In the long run, they argued, things will return to balance.
But as economist John Maynard Keynes said at the time, "In the long run we are all dead."
Today, the death rate in America is soaring as the corona virus pandemic continues to rage around the world.
More than 1,000 Americans have died of the disease in just eight weeks.
"You don't make the time line. The virus makes the time line," said Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infection Diseases.
There is no long run for this viral pandemic.
In the short run, doctors and nurses are dying, even as they are forced to decide who gets what little care they are able to give.
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