We are a commune of inquiring, skeptical, politically centrist, capitalist, anglophile, traditionalist New England Yankee humans, humanoids, and animals with many interests beyond and above politics. Each of us has had a high-school education (or GED), but all had ADD so didn't pay attention very well, especially the dogs. Each one of us does "try my best to be just like I am," and none of us enjoys working for others, including for Maggie, from whom we receive neither a nickel nor a dime. Freedom from nags, cranks, government, do-gooders, control-freaks and idiots is all that we ask for.
As a general rule, when the New York Times, the Washington Post, National Public Radio, Public Broadcasting Service, NBC, CBS, ABC, MSNBC, and CNN begin to parrot a narrative, the truth often is found in simply believing just the opposite.
We find 3 new hires for every 10 layoffs caused by the shock and estimate that 42 percent of recent layoffs will result in permanent job loss. Our survey evidence aligns well with anecdotal evidence of large pandemic-induced demand increases at some firms, with contemporaneous evidence on gross business formation, and with a sharp pandemic-induced rise in equity return dispersion across firms. After developing the evidence, we consider implications of our evidence for the economic outlook and for policy responses to the pandemic. Unemployment benefit levels that exceed worker earnings, policies that subsidize employee retention, occupational licensing restrictions, and regulatory barriers to business formation will impede reallocation responses to the COVID-19 shock.
In the rush to care for patients with COVID-19, are we forgetting the millions of victims of government shutdowns?
Some random estimates are that up to 1/3 of American small businesses will go bankrupt or completely out of business. Sounds as extreme as 2.2 million deaths, but we'll see. That's the heartbeat of America. Not to mention suicides and substance abuse with broken hopes and dreams.
"They" offered 2 weeks of shutdown - almost national - to "flatten the curve." People went along with that, although it really was appropriate mainly to NYC and the NY metro area. Whether that worked or not we'll never know, but viruses pass through and curve down anyway. It is their natural course so no policy can take much credit for that.
What ensued is that the goalposts moved, and keep moving. We can pray for the dead and their families, but let's remember the lives destroyed by COVID hysteria. In the end, if there is an end, that could be more people and more despair.
Somebody needs to write the book. If I had the time, the ability to write snappy prose, and the research energy that I had in college, I would do it. Right now, I am trying to keep our business on life support. I am not optimistic.
Rebellion against governors’ irrational and unscientific shutdown orders is growing across the country. As we have noted before, the revolt is especially strong in rural areas. What is striking is how sane and thoughtful the critiques from red America are, compared with the submissive hysteria that dominates most urban areas.
Those who talk of governments “following the science,” “acting on the science,” most of whom could not give a coherent account of the science of anything, are like dogs who yap because the other dogs are yapping.
Besides deaths, there were also doomsday projections about hospital capacity, but those models also proved to be grotesquely exaggerated. On March 29, Columbia University projected a need for 136,000 hospital beds in New York City. The maximum ever used was under 12,000. At peak, New York City still had around 1 in 6 hospital beds open and around 1 in 10 ICU beds open. Hospitals had capacity, both in New York City and in Sweden.
What if Dr. Fauci was correct in the beginning, when he declared a nasty flu?
I spoke with one of my local pharmacists today. He was harried. I asked him what was up. He told me all four of his assistants had taken a leave from work, then got copies of their unemployment papers from the government.
They are all getting $1600/week from COVID unemployment, and he only pays them about $1000/week.
He is an immigrant from Russia. He was not happy with the situation. Stereotypically cranky Russian. Asked me "Where is the work ethic?" How did he even know about that old fashioned phrase?
There really are two Americas here: Those still getting a paycheck from government, corporations or universities, and those who are unemployed, or seeing their small businesses suffer due to shutdowns. And the America still getting paid is, so far, not showing a whole lot of sympathy for the America that isn’t.
He tactfully does not include the comfortably retired among the paycheck population. Is this an optimist-pessimist thing, or a rich and poor thing? Or is it nothing?
In my neck of the woods, traffic is up, bars are re-opening as speakeasies, Home Depot is full of customers. In other words, people are fed up. Many states are "opening up," whatever that means, but people are doing it regardless. Some of it is necessity, some of it is a refusal to live in fear, and some of it is people realizing that much of this is pointless.
From my end, I am back in the office today, fishing this weekend, and getting together with friends on Sat. night. No masks - enough of that except for the supermarket which still requires them. Time's up for the extreme stuff.
What are our readers doing this weekend? Quarantining, Soft Quarantining, or doing your best to get back to normal work, recreational, and social life?
The conventionally posed choice between fighting the disease and salvaging our economy is entirely wrong. The choice is not disease vs. economy. The disease is here, and there is nothing governments can do to stop it. (They can, of course, close down access to nursing homes, a mixed blessing if you are elderly.) The real choice is between the disease with a flourishing economy, and the disease with a devastated economy. The disease is a constant.
One of my favorite people to listen to, or read, is Mike Rowe. Lots of good, common sense. I've not always agreed with him, but I'm sure plenty of people don't agree with me all the time. It's all fine, as long as we understand each other's point of view. I completely understand Mike's, and respect it even when I disagree.
Mike's podcast recently told the story of the Staplehurst Train Disaster, in which Charles Dickens played a prominent (and for a long time largely invisible) role. He spun from that to a discussion on safety, and covered his conceptualization of "Safety Third" as a means of managing risk.
On my earlier post today, someone commented safety should always be most important. Here, Mike explains why that's simply not true. There are always other considerations. Read the article or listen to the podcast. Both are excellent.
Experts predict 70-90,000 sucides in the US due to economic disasters, crushed dreams. Hope that is not true, but I no longer believe anything, especially from experts. Wrong about everything thus far.
Mike "Mish" Shedlock provides a good review of the debate between what Sweden has done vs the rest of the world.
There are many reasons, all legitimately different from cultural and societal considerations, why Sweden would be successful with their approach. But that doesn't mean every culture is unable to utilize variations on it to make it work for them. He swung, and missed, on that point.
The primary discussion point is "what is a life worth?"
Whether you like it or not, and I'm just stating a fact, the idea of "one life saved is worth it" simply makes no sense whatsoever. Cuomo is very, very wrong about that...anyone who thinks that way falls short understanding of life.
There is a cost, or a value, to every life. It will vary based on relationships, love, and commonality. However, productivity of each life must also be considered. Losing a farmer and his family, so a farm that feeds 10,000 people goes abandoned, is far more damaging to society than losing the same number of people in a nursing home. Losing 20 doctors treating the virus is more damaging than losing 20 people who build apps. These are just simple facts of life. It's hard to swallow, and it's not something we want to consider, but it is very true.
Nobody wants to see anyone die, and as a country we've directed resources to saving as many as we can through pharma and academic research. In addition, we've implemented social distancing, masks, and a variety of other methods to reduce or limit spread.
In the meantime, we've learned it's not as contagious or deadly as we thought. That doesn't mean it couldn't mutate and become both. But it has not been as damaging as we were originally told, and we have developed more treatments for the symptoms - which, at this point, is the best we can do.
All of this adds up to one thing. Reopening is the only option. Nobody knows enough about the virus to categorically state when we will, or how we will, be 'safe'. But 'safety' is no longer the primary issue we should be considering. Whether we like it or not, we are far past that point. Now we're talking about simple long-term survival.
I like Mish's review. What he failed to do was connect the dots. Lack of knowledge about the virus and how it operates doesn't make us less 'safe'. But preventing us from earning a living, being productive, and living our lives as we see fit, does make us less safe. And less healthy.
How much of a lemming was President Trump? Or the state governors? All of them were, to one degree or another. Thus, we were plunged into the grandest of experiments in authoritarian paternalism, whereby we plebeians — i.e., those without government jobs — are deemed incompetent to judge if it's safe to take a dip in the ocean or a walk in the woods. We can, though, crowd into a Walmart or the local supermarket.
We've been told that we need to "flatten the curve" before we can reopen the country. We were told that we don't want to overwhelm our country's healthcare system.
But I think we've done this. In fact, many hospitals that have geared up for a covid-19 rush are nearly empty and are laying off staff.
But now, suddenly, it's different. Now we're being told that we can't reopen the country until we get widespread testing. And when you ask them how much is widespread, the response is always more than we have now.
Soon it will be we can't reopen the country until everybody gets tested.
Coming up:
We can't reopen the country until there are no new cases
We can't reopen the country until we have an infallible vaccine
We can't reopen the country until Luke Skywalker and his plucky band of rebels destroy the Death Star
We can't reopen the country until Marshall Dillon marries Miss Kitty
We can't reopen the country until Jerry Lewis releases his 'The Day the Clown Cried' movie to the public.
We can't reopen the country until the return of Halley's Comet.
We can't reopen the country until Arthur returns as the rightful king of England
But ultimately it all boils down to: We can't reopen the country until Joe Biden becomes President.
Another Scheme 
Image: I forget whence 
As Common Sense Returns to the Gender Debate,
The Maine Ship Captain 
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