The COVID-19 pandemic is having a negative impact on all aspects of human life, and the U.S. economy is no exception. The virus outbreak and governmental reactions to it have sent the stock market crashing and dealt a major economic blow.

In a special installment of our webinar series Philosophy for Living on Earth, the Ayn Rand Institute’s chief philosophy officer, Onkar Ghate, sat down with finance and economics specialists Yaron Brook and Rob Tarr to talk about the effects of the virus and government intervention on the markets and the economy. The discussion covered many aspects of the ongoing financial crisis and approached the topic from a perspective informed by the philosophy of Objectivism.

Some of the questions covered in the discussion include:

* How does this crisis compare to the 2008 crisis?* What did the markets look like before the

pandemic hit?* How has the coronavirus affected the markets?* What will be the short-term and long-term

consequences of the measures taken by the Fed?* What is an optimistic, yet realistic, scenario

for the future, and what can we learn from this crisis?

Stay tuned for future installments of our webinar series, where we will

continue to analyze the effects of the pandemic from the principled perspective

of Ayn Rand’s philosophy. And please consider donating to ARI if you value our

unique and rational evaluation of this crisis.

Watch the full discussion between Ghate, Brook and Tarr, below.

Audio only: