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June 16, 2020 - Dennis Prager Show
08:03
Ridley says UK is Facing a Big Economic Hole As Result of Pandemic
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He writes as interestingly as he speaks, which is a big compliment.
A lot of authors don't know how to speak, which is not an insult at all.
It's like saying a lot of composers don't know how to sing.
I mean, they're different arts.
But he obviously has mastered both.
His book is How Innovation Works and Why It Flourishes in Freedom.
I love freedom.
I love it.
I subscribe to Give Me Liberty or Give Me Death.
Deeply.
That's why I don't walk around in fear.
And I wanted to ask you about the economy of Britain.
Has it been shattered?
Yes.
We are facing a big economic hole as a result of this pandemic.
We were in pretty good shape before it.
We had very low unemployment, relatively dynamic.
We're facing millions unemployed, and we don't even know the extent of it yet.
By one estimate just this week, the GDP has already fallen by 20%.
That's one-fifth, which takes us back about 20 years in terms of the size of the economy.
The only way we're going to get back...
to giving people full employment, good jobs, growth and prosperity is to unleash the entrepreneurs of this country.
And there are plenty ready to be unleashed.
We're not going to get back that way by sort of spending a bit more government money here and there.
Yes, we've got to look after people who are in trouble, but we've also got to strip away The red tape, the regulations, the bureaucracy that has prevented entrepreneurs from creating businesses and employing people and starting jobs.
That's the message I keep trying to give to our government.
I'm not sure it's getting through yet.
Boris Johnson's instincts are the right ones, but he's surrounded by an enormous bureaucracy of people who like to do things slowly.
And do things carefully.
And that isn't what we need right now.
We need someone who gets the point of liberating and unleashing the animal spirits of the British entrepreneur.
Boris Johnson was opposed to the lockdown at the beginning.
His instinct, just like Trump.
Also, that was his instinct.
But what would have happened here, I'm sure would have happened there.
Every death would have been called the Johnson death.
That's part of the problem, is that the politicians are taking the blame.
And there was a significant scandal in this country, which was very similar to what happened in New York, which was that a lot of the deaths occurred in hospitals and care homes.
And they occurred because the virus got into the care homes and hospitals, and the people in them were not only not given sufficient personal protective equipment, but they were not tested enough.
And they were also encouraged to return patients from hospitals to care homes to make room for the expected arrival of sick people with COVID-19.
What that did was it seeded the virus into the care homes.
23,000 people were discharged from hospitals in the UK into care homes.
And I know of one which absolutely adamantly refused to take a hospital patient on the grounds that...
Although they had a vacancy, they did not want to take the risk, and they were absolutely right.
Now, that's a scandal.
That's right.
But to blame that on the politicians rather than the bureaucracy that took that decision seems to me wrong.
Right, right.
Now, look, in one case, the case of Andrew Cuomo of New York State, I do believe that one can blame me.
He actually made an edict that you had to take the...
You could not, quote, discriminate, unquote, against COVID-19 patients and accepting them into elderly care homes.
Really?
Yes, I know, I know.
Your reaction is perfect.
Really?
That's exactly right.
It's uncanny.
But my only point was, am I right?
Boris Johnson's original instinct was not to have a lockdown.
Yeah, no, Boris Johnson wanted to do as much as possible voluntarily, and then around the middle of March, a proposal was, sorry, a forecast was produced by Imperial College London based on a model.
Yeah, exactly.
Well, I think it was half a million for the UK, and it's going to be two million in the US. So let me ask you a question.
Forgive me.
Is the UK printing money like we are?
Yeah, I think so.
I can't remember now.
But yeah, quantitative easing.
Yeah, there was some extra done of that.
And that will add to...
Well, in some ways, I hope it feeds through into inflation because that will be a way of getting the debt down eventually.
But it'll be very brutal if it does for a lot of people.
Yes.
One final question.
Do you call yourself a conservative?
I don't mean by party, I mean philosophically.
Okay, yeah, now I'm a conservative with a big C, but no, I don't call myself a conservative philosophically.
I call myself a classical liberal or a libertarian.
I'm someone who just...
Thinks that the more free we make people, and the less we wrap them up in bureaucracy, the better off they'll be.
That doesn't really, because I'm very in favor of innovation and change and that kind of thing.
So I'm not a conservative in the sense of not wanting the world to change.
I want the world to change a lot.
Right.
But right now, and you're totally free to differ with me.
I always tell that to guests.
But right now, I don't see very big difference between a classical liberal and a conservative, at least not in America.
That's right.
I mean, I think there's no doubt that if you are on the side of liberty, if your instinct is people should be as free as possible to make their own mistakes and to make their own opportunities, then you are more at home in the Conservative Party in the UK than in any other party.
The paternalist...
Everybody must do what they're told.
Instinct is much stronger in the Labour Party and the so-called Liberal Party.
So are you, are the Ridleys of the UK increasing or decreasing?
Oh, yeah, I thought you meant, am I having lots of babies?
No, no, that's very funny.
When I asked it, I thought, is he taking me literally?
Are the Ridley thinking types increasing?
Well, you know what it's like.
The media makes out that what everybody wants is sort of more spending, more taxing for five years, and then four years.
And every four years you get a glimpse of what the public really thinks.
And in December we had an election.
And in that election, Boris Johnson said, I want to liberate people.
I want to unleash Britain's potential.
I want to leave the European Union.
I want to free us up.
And he got a huge landslide victory.
Matt Ridley, it is a joy to talk to you, which is the only reason I keep talking to you.
His book is superb.
How Innovation Works.
He's for freedom.
Thank you, Matt Ridley.
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