A National Review “Theory” of Business Cycles

John Tamny seems to think that recessions cannot happen unless government policies create them:

But if you believe these predictions you also have to believe an economy can be strong one day and weak the next, or that strength in one quarter will lead to weakness in the next. Economies don’t work that way. Rather, they tend to move glacially in one direction or the other, with recessions most always and everywhere the result of legislative mistakes. To paraphrase J. & W. Seligman president Charles Kadlec, “good economies don’t die of old age, but due to governmental error.”

Wow! Private shocks to aggregate demand never occur? Good to know that the oft predicted 2008 recession is an impossibility. But then one is left wondering why we had the 2001 recession.