A few years before COVID I read "Natural Experiments of History" on a plane ride. I didn't think much of the book, just something to pass the time. I had already read a ton of economics by that time, including Austrian economics, and this was a tiny book written by non-economists.
But there were a few lines in there that I thought really crystallized everything really well. One of the main questions that economics has always tried to tackle was the source of wealth, where wealth comes from.
Early thinkers thought the source of wealth was gold. More gold, more wealth. That's obviously not true at a macro level.
Later thinkers thought it was trade surpluses (mercantilists) or land (physiocrats).
It turns out the source of wealth is economic activity itself. More activity, more wealth.
Once the lockdowns came, I knew it would turn into a disaster. You lock things down you economic activity decrease. The poverty doesn't manifest right away, but it eventually does. The vast majority of people are too blinded to see the connection between the lockdowns and the subsequent poverty. Places like Australia in particular will be poor for decades to come as a result of embracing the extremely hysterical, feminine, and ignorant position that lockdowns were a good idea.
On a positive note, the lockdowns have created pockets of affluence. For example, Florida, Texas, and Nevada have boomed and will continue to boom since they are relatively free.
