1. A podcast that Brandon Adams did with me this morning. He asked good questions. Maybe my answers were a bit long, but I think you will like it. I recommend listening at 1.5x speed.
let’s not pretend that the pandemic illustrates the case for big government. The US already has big government. And this is what it does: agencies, laws, reports, PowerPoint presentations… and then — when the endlessly discussed crisis actually happens — paralysis, followed by panic.
Today, the US has fallen back on the old 20th-century playbook of pandemic pluralism (states do their own thing; in some states a lot of people die), but combining it with the 2009-10 playbook of financial crisis management. The result is insane. A large chunk of the economy has been shut down by government order; meanwhile the national debt explodes, along with the balance sheet of the US Federal Reserve.
Pointer from John Cochrane. I am in the process of writing an essay tentatively titled “Changing the Playbook” The two paragraphs above are almost a precis of the essay, including his use of the term “playbook.”
2. Earlier, John Cochrane wrote,
The greatest financial bailout of all time is underway. It’s 2008 on steroids. Yet where is the outrage? The silence is deafening. Remember the Tea Party and occupy Wall Street? “Never again” they said in 2008. Now everyone just wants the Fed to print more money, faster.
Read the whole post. Of course, I have not been silent. Coining the expression Lockdown Socialism is about as loud as I can get.
3. A reader sends long the list of educational institutions receiving funds under the CARES act. I’m sure that as a taxpayer you are happy to contribute to this cause.
4. Christopher Avery and others write,
Some researchers have conjectured that exposure to a higher “viral load” can result in more severe illness. . .As American doctors Rabinowitz and Bartman comment, “Dose sensitivity has been observed for every common acute viral infection that has been studied in lab animals, including coronaviruses”
Pointer from Tyler Cowen, who recommends the whole paper. There are little nuggets scattered throughout. But I don’t think that the economist’s training to think in terms of mathematical models is the best way to approach the problem. “Patterns and stories” is a better framework.
5. Tyler Cowen quotes from a correspondent.
Protecting the most vulnerable effectively while infecting the least vulnerable quickly could theoretically save almost everyone for this particular disease.
That is a succinct statement of the results of my analytical matrix Sooner or Later, Mild or Severe.
“It’s 2008 on steroids. Yet where is the outrage? The silence is deafening. Remember the Tea Party and occupy Wall Street? “Never again” they said in 2008.”
The Tea Party started in June 2009. It had everything to do with the party and I suggest the color of the man in the White House and nothing to do with the 2008 financial collapse. Occupy Wall Street started in 2011. John Cochane should stick with economics. Speaking of which, if Tyler Cowen wants to deliberately infect himself, his wife and daughter, I don’t think anyone is stopping him. It isn’t going to happen. Ever. I love the rigor of economics. What is showing up recently on this blog isn’t that.
Let’s say I want to be deliberately infected. What is legal? Even hanging around homeless camps is not essential or sheltering in place. I don’t think I can even buy my own antibody tests to see if it worked.
You write: “I’m sure that as a taxpayer you are happy to contribute to this cause.” That sort of remark is out of date. As an American now–in the present moment–I am happy (or not) to see contributing to this cause *imposed upon future taxpayers*.
No one really knows that young people are not vulnerable. We only know that the vast majority have no major repercussions within a few months of infection. Plenty of common diseases return after a long period of no symptoms e.g. AIDS, chickenpox/shingles etc.