Russell Roberts's Blog, page 297

Some Covid Links

(Don Boudreaux)

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Thank goodness there remain in Great Britain some people who aren’t sheeple.

Tom Hodgkinson laments the dystopia ruled by the Covidocracy. Two slices:

In EM Forster’s novella The Machine Stops shopping is a thing of the past. The citizenry live in luxurious little cells and have everything they want – food, entertainment, medicine – delivered to them via tubes. They are physically weak and strong-looking babies are put to death. The people communicate via iPad type devices and rarely leave their rooms. When they do leave, they summon airships that arrive at their door in the manner of an Uber. They have thousands of online friends and spend their time attending or delivering lectures. The story was written in 1909 and is an astonishingly prescient vision of the present day.

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Western governments are now looking at China with something that appears a little like envy: how obedient, docile and eager to please their population is! How civic-minded! And how successful! Both left and right, at a certain level, are internally rejoicing over the expanding power of states and the extent of their own empires.

It’s been sad to me to see figures on the left who I formerly admired – two examples that spring to mind are George Monbiot and Paul Mason – join the Leninists and call for dissident voices to be banned. Monbiot and Mason, who may be outstanding polemicists but aren’t renowned for expertise on infectious diseases, have called for the Oxford epidemiologist Sunetra Gupta and various other scientists and hacks to be removed from polite society. Writing in the Guardian, Monbiot proposed censoring these heretics….

Jack Nicastro decries the phony distinction between workers who the authorities declare to be “essential” and workers who the authorities declare to be not. A slice:

One of the earliest verses of “2112” is the Priests of Syrinx incanting their collectivist philosophy and emphasizing that its legitimacy is not up for debate: “Work together/Common sons/Never need to wonder/How or why.” It would seem that many Americans have taken the Priests’ words to heart and are acquiescing wholesale to the edicts of governors and public health officials.

In contrast, those public health experts and concerned citizens who do call into question the morality of forced business closures and hard lockdown and social-distancing policies are straw-manned as science-deniers, selfish evil-doers, or both.

Instead, they are encouraged to accept the models devised by the computational simulations of epidemiological experts like Neil Ferguson – never mind that Ferguson’s doomsday predictions were called into question by AIER early on in the pandemic and have since been proven false by reality. Eerily, the Priests of Syrinx also appeal to the supposed infallibility of their “great computers/[that] fill the hallowed halls.”

CNN recently published a disturbing piece unironically entitled, “Even with hope on the horizon in this pandemic, what’s the point of ever leaving home again?” Again, the sentiment that an individual can be content while stripped of his freedom bears a striking similarity to the paternalistic rhetoric of the authoritarian Priests of Syrinx who claim that: “All the gifts of life/Are held within our walls.”

Rebecca D’Amato offers advice for how to deal with petty Covid-Hitlers. A slice:

The face: passive but slightly amused. Think of your expression if it had just occurred to you that you are dealing with an absolute nitwit but you do not want to be unkind. You don’t laugh at them or humiliate them, but you just can’t help thinking ‘Who ties your shoelaces for you’? and that thought creeps out on to your face.

Here’s yet another Covid hypocrite.

This Irishman living in Portugal, appearing on an Irish radio program, eloquently makes a strong case against lockdowns.

Quotation of the Day…

(Don Boudreaux)

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… is from page 127 of John Mueller’s superb 1999 book, Capitalism, Democracy, & Ralph’s Pretty Good Grocery:

Intellectuals who consider business to be boring, mindlessly repetitive, unsatisfying, or lacking in daring, courage, and imagination have never tried to run – much less start – one.

DBx: Yes.

Intellectuals – those whom Deirdre McCloskey labels as members of “the clerisy” – excel at talking, as well as at imagining all sorts of alternative realities. They then mistake their glibness and unconstrained imaginations for brilliance and an ability to engineer society and economy into the shapes of their dreams.

Making matters worse, intellectuals hold in contempt business people who actually do produce things of value – and who do so, not with coercion, but with persuasion. Business people persuade fellow human beings to engage with them in peaceful and mutually advantageous ways. Sadly, the only businesses for which intellectuals have any sympathy are those that cannot survive without consumers or taxpayers (or both) being coerced into transferring resources to those businesses.

Some Covid Links

(Don Boudreaux)

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David Henderson relates his encounter with a homo avoidcovidous.

James Jeffrey argues that the tyranny that is engulfing Great Britain is more like that envisioned by Aldous Huxley than by George Orwell. Here’s his opening:

Having the jackboot of George Orwell’s 1984 stamping on one’s face would be preferable in a way. At least it would involve a sort of honesty from the oppressor about the oppression. Unlike the current pervasive underhand attrition that is sapping our democratic life blood, taking with it individual liberty, energy, creativity and love, steering us closer toward Aldous Huxley’s very un-brave “Brave New World”.

Orwell’s brutal dystopian depiction published in 1949 can be seen as a reply and an update, as Orwell saw it, to the warnings of Huxley’s earlier dystopian vision published in 1932. Huxley depicted a scientific dictatorship in which a passive population was subdued through scientific and psychological engineering while kept consistently useful to the ruling class.

Alex Starling makes a case against vaccine passports.

Writing in the Wall Street Journal, Florida governor Ron DeSantis advises against trusting elites who justify lockdowns and other Covid-19 restrictions by pointing to ‘The science.‘ Two slices:

The Covid-19 pandemic represented a test of elites in the U.S., from public-health experts to the corporate media. The results have been disappointing. Policy makers who bucked the elites and challenged the narrative have been proven right to do so.

To begin with, highly publicized epidemiological models were as consequential as they were wrong. The model produced by Neil Ferguson of Imperial College London—which forecast millions of Covid-19 deaths in the U.S. without mitigation efforts—sparked panic among public-health elites and served as the pretext for lockdowns throughout the U.S. and Great Britain. The lockdowns failed to stop the virus but did a great deal of societal damage along the way—damage that a more targeted approach, seeking to reduce total harms, would have been able to avoid (and did, in places like Sweden and Florida).

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Perhaps most damaging to public trust was the public-health campaign urging “15 Days to Slow the Spread.” This short-term mitigation, we were told, was necessary to buy time to prepare hospitals for any patient surges. But that reasonable aim was soon transformed into a lockdown-until-eradication approach that left no end in sight for most Americans. Going from “save the hospitals” to “zero Covid” represents one of the greatest instances in history of moving the goal post.

Matt Welch reports on teachers’ unions’ continuing efforts to use Covid as an excuse for teachers not to do their jobs.

Phil Magness writes that “the disease models were tested and failed, massively.” Two slices:

As noted above, the 2.2 million figure for the US (and corresponding 510,000 figure in Britain) were “worst case” scenarios in which the pandemic ran its course. According to the underlying theory of the ICL model, these catastrophic totals could be reduced by the adoption of NPIs – the escalating suite of social distancing measures, business and school closures, and ultimately full lockdowns that we observed in practice over the last year.

Aside from its 2.2 million worst case scenario, ICL offered no specific projections for how its proposed mitigation measures would work in the United States. Ferguson did however tell the New York Times on March 20, 2020 that a “best case” American scenario would still yield “about 1.1 million deaths,” giving us a glimpse of what he believed to be possible under NPI mitigation. The March 16th report similarly “predict[ed] there would still be in the order of…1.1-1.2 million in the US” under the most optimistic mitigation strategy, barring a large increase in hospital ICU bed capacity.

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The repeated failures of the Ferguson/ICL model point to a scientific error at the heart of the theory behind lockdowns and similar NPIs. They assume, without evidence, that their prescriptive approach is correct, and that it may be implemented by sheer will as one might achieve by clicking a check-box in a Sim City-style video game. After a year of real-time testing, it is now abundantly clear that this video game approach to pandemic management ranks among the most catastrophic public health policy failures in the last century.

Charles Oliver reports on a small manifestation of Covid Derangement Syndrome.

Let’s hope that Jordan Schachtel is correct that Covid derangement is lessening. A slice:

A once panicked population, which for the past year has been captured under the spell of COVID hysteria, is slowly coming to the realization that power drunk governors, bureaucrats like Anthony Fauci and the “public health” cartel, and other snake oil salesmen have done so much residual harm in the name of a virus, while never contributing in a positive manner to anything related to COVID-19.

In recent months, when it was becoming clear that their latest avenue for panic was reaching its end point, the “public health” gang seamlessly shifted to another issue of “concern.” From lockdowns, to curfews, to masks and the like, these draconian moves were not met with much hostility. Despite our best efforts to inform the public that COVID-19 — with its 99.8% recovery rate — is a virus to manage by individuals with medical doctors, the “public health” terror campaigns worked incredibly well.

However, now a full year into the “two weeks to slow the spread” campaign, we are seeing real signs of resistance.

“Sunetra Gupta is right about lockdown – ministers should hang their heads in shame” – so writes Kathy Gyngell.

Quotation of the Day…

(Don Boudreaux)

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…is from page xiv of University of Notre Dame philosopher James Otteson’s excellent and hot-off-the-Cambridge-University-Press book, Seven Deadly Economic Sins (2021):

But one of the primary intellectual virtues is to know the limits of one’s knowledge, and to proportion one’s beliefs (and the strength of one’s beliefs) accordingly.

DBx: Indeed so.

Unfortunately, this intellectual virtue is more rare than chaste prostitutes.

The world swarms with people itching to use coercion to impose their intellectual visions on humanity. From proponents of industrial policy to congregants of wokeness, enthusiasts for income or wealth ‘redistribution,’ champions of “corporate social responsibility,” demanders of minimum-wage legislation, and lovers of lockdowns, there is a superabundance of arrogant people – left, center, and right – who fancy themselves and their puny imaginations to be fit to lord it over their fellow human beings.

The arrogance is mind-blowing. The ignorance is stunning.

Bonus Quotation of the Day…

(Don Boudreaux)

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… is from page 11 of my former student Alex Nowrasteh’s and GMU Econ alum Benjamin Powell’s hot-off-the-Cambridge-University-Press book, Wretched Refuse? (2021) (footnote deleted):

Humans, as economist Julian Simon long argued, are the ultimate resource. It is human creativity that turns nature into natural resources and raw materials into valuable capital and new technologies. Unfortunately, much of humanity, by accident of birth, lives in countries where human creativity is constrained. Though not the only reason for low productivity, lousy governance is often what prevents humans from making the most of their creativity and potential.

Who Says Capitalism Doesn’t Work?

(Don Boudreaux)

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I’m starting here at Cafe Hayek a new series titled “Who Says Capitalism Doesn’t Work?” (I almost titled it: “Who Says Ordinary Americans Aren’t Amazingly Prosperous?”)

The series will feature goods, services, events, and experiences that only a people magnificently rich can afford.

Here’s my first entry. It comes from an ad that appeared within the past hour at Cafe Hayek; here’s a screenshot of that ad:

And here’s the site that I got to when I clicked on that ad.

Literally, Americans’ pets today eat better than did most of our pre-industrial ancestors.

Some Non-Covid Links

(Don Boudreaux)

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Writing in the Wall Street Journal, David Neumark – one of the leading researchers on minimum wages – predicts that “raising the minimum wage will definitely cost jobs.” A slice:

To provide an accurate reading of the research, Peter Shirley and I surveyed the authors of nearly all U.S. studies estimating the effects of minimum wages on employment published in the past 30 years. We asked them to report to us their best estimate of the employment effect, measured as the “elasticity,” or the percent change in employment for each 1% change in the minimum wage. Most authors responded, and in the few cases in which they did not, we pulled this estimate from their study.

The results are stark. Across all studies, 79% report that minimum wages reduced employment. In 46% of studies the negative effect was statistically significant. In contrast, only 21% of studies found small positive effects of minimum wages on employment, and in only a minuscule percentage (4%) was the evidence statistically significant. A simplistic but useful calculation shows that the odds of nearly 80% of studies finding negative employment effects if the true effect is zero is less than one in a million.

My intrepid Mercatus Center colleague Veronique de Rugy understandably finds unsettling the similarities of the policies of Biden with the policies of Trump. A slice:

Biden seems to have also embraced much of the same Trump trade agenda that many on the left used to criticize as protectionist, politically driven and unnecessarily aggressive toward our trading partners. They were also rightfully critical of his abuse of Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962, which authorizes the president to impose tariffs in the name of national security. Unfortunately, so far, Trumpian-style abuses continue under this new administration. The Cato Institute’s Scott Lincicome and Inu Manak note that Biden’s first trade action was to reinstate “tariffs on aluminum from the United Arab Emirates under Section 232.”

James Bovard is not impressed by what he calls Joe Biden’s “Burn-Rate Rescue Act.”

George Leef refutes the commonplace but fallacious idea that prosperity is created by government spending. And my intrepid Mercatus Center colleague Veronique de Rugy piles on.

Michael Barone’s latest column is on Joe Biden’s “chameleon-like transformation” over the years – that is, Biden’s reversal of positions on many issues. (Barone ends his column by asking if anyone has a better explanation than the one offered in the column. I [DBx] do: Biden is a creepy, unprincipled human being who’ll do and say anything for power.)

Here’s David Henderson and the late Judge Stephen Williams on tax policy.

Arnold Kling provides links to two initiatives to fight wokeness.

Speaking of wokeness, Robby Soave has more on this social cancer. Here’s his conclusion:

The new enforcers of morality—the pitchfork-wielding employees of progressive media companies and their swarms of social-media allies—have decided that no one may dwell in their midst unless they were born without sin. This poisonous approach will, if anything, make people more reticent to apologize or acknowledge wrongdoing. Instead they’ll shrug and say, “What’s the point?”

Mark Perry issues a wise warning.

Scott Lincicome explains the unhappy consequences of protectionism on the cost to Americans of construction materials.

Some Covid Links

(Don Boudreaux)

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In Reason, Robert Jackman writes from London of the on-going Covid-19 tyranny still in full force in what was once a free country. A slice:

Eleven weeks in and we’ve seen only the most minor relaxations. Since March 8, it’s been permitted for two people to meet outside for a coffee—provided it’s in a public space. From March 29, this limit will be extended to six people, and to private gardens. Meeting indoors will remain illegal until the middle of May.

The enduring lockdown is quite surprising. Goodness knows that if you’d said this time last year the U.K. would still be in lockdown—and all under “freedom-loving” Prime Minister Boris Johnson—you’d have been laughed out of town. That’s before you factor in the vaccines, of which some 50 percent of U.K. adults (and virtually all seniors) have now received at least one dose.

Yet here we are: 12 months into restrictions and our once-cherished approach to liberty has been totally inverted. Lockdown, once a temporary aberration, has instead become the default. The burden of proof is placed on those arguing for freedom, rather than those wanting to remain in lockdown.

And Jeffrey Tucker writes of the on-going tyranny in Massachusetts. A slice:

Among the things now permitted in the state are small weddings. However, dancing at such events is strictly regulated, so much so that it is effectively abolished. The website doesn’t explain the details of this regulation but a friend in the catering business was the recipient of a direct letter from the once-respected Department of Health. It explained that people at a wedding party can only sit at square tables that seat six, and each table must be six feet apart from other tables, even though people have started to admit that there is zero science to back this rule.

It gets crazier. If there is to be dancing, the venue must create a circle on the floor out of tape next to a table, and the only people allowed in the circle are those at the table and not people from other tables. Additionally, while they are dancing, they must be wearing their masks.

(DBx: I ask yet again: How can anyone encounter such descriptions of what is going on in the name of fighting Covid and not see that Covid Derangement Syndrome is both real and lethal to the mind, body, and soul?)

Ilya Somin reports some happy news: “Another federal district court rules against CDC eviction moratorium.”

TANSTAFPFC (There Ain’t No Such Thing As Free Protection From Covid).

From the Lancet is yet more documentation of the truth of TANSTAFPFC.

More data roll in to reveal that “lockdowns serve no useful purpose and cause catastrophic societal and economic harms.” A slice:

Lockdowns were explicitly not recommended even for severe respiratory viral outbreaks in all pandemic planning prior to 2020, including those endorsed by the WHO and the Department of Health. The reasons for ignoring existing policies and adopting unprecedented measures appear to have been (i) panic whipped up by the media (especially scenes from China), (ii) a reluctance to do things differently to neighbouring countries and (iii) the unfaltering belief in one single mathematical model, which latterly turned out to be wildly inaccurate (Imperial College, Neil Ferguson).

Freddie Sayers identifies and properly criticizes another instance of media bias – this one at the FT – in reporting on Covid.

GMU Econ alum Thomas Hogan explains that a restoration of genuine economic vitality requires that lockdowns be ended. A slice:

The evidence is clear: Lockdowns and restrictions are causing high unemployment in many states. Such restrictions make it illegal to employ workers or to be employed. Neither fiscal spending nor monetary expansion can reduce unemployment where working is not allowed. Such policies are also not likely to improve states that are open and already experiencing strong economic growth.

Here’s insight from James Charlick. A slice:

The government’s mantra that ‘we are all in this together’ should send shivers down your spine. Coupled with an ‘ends justify the means’ Covid policy and you have the credo of all hives. A techno-feudalistic Great Reset powered by 5G interconnectivity, robotics and surveillance is the perfect template for a hive ruled by a queen. In that hypothetical world, the queen is an oligarchy powered by artificial intelligence. Individuality for the 99.999 per cent (that’s being generous) would be extinct; I don’t recall worker bees having personalities.

There are similarities between hives and religious cults. The cult adherents always centre their attention upon the cult leader (the hive’s queen). They are consumed by the leader’s ideology. And there is a common good. Many commentators have rightly remarked upon the devotional fervour of the pro-lockdowners, the pro-maskers, the defenders of the NHS and those who call for mandatory vaccinations for everyone.

What is an example of the social individual versus the hive mind? Let’s take lockdown. The pro-lockdowners largely agree with one another about lockdowns and restrictions. The consensus is that the measures do not go far enough. If I discuss lockdowns with any pro-lockdowners, they present the same assertions to me, almost as if they are reading from a script. Otherwise, all I get is blank stares, or uncomfortable silence, or insults, or a request for me to stop talking. Maybe the lockdown fans are already exhibiting a proto-hive mind?

By contrast the Hive People’s sworn enemies, those who are anti-lockdown, have quite divergent views on a variety of issues, from masks to testing to ‘social’ distancing to vaccines to vaccine passports. Some are willing to compromise with the government on certain issues, and others will have none of it. There is a wider spectrum of thought and a greater variety of belief systems present in the anti-lockdown camp. It runs the gamut of humanity and is a valid demonstration of the power of individualism and open inquiry.

Quotation of the Day…

(Don Boudreaux)

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… is from Virginia Postrel’s brilliant October 23, 1999, speech, “Dynamism, Stasis, and Popular Culture” (link added):

Do you want “simple rules for a complex world,” or complex regulations designed to make the world simple?

DBx: If you are wise, you want the former and are repulsed by the latter – repulsed both by the latter’s means as well as by its end.

Scott Atlas, Jay Bhattacharya, Sunetra Gupta, and Martin Kulldorff Talk with Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis

(Don Boudreaux)

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Here are voices of reason, genuine science, true liberalism, and enlightenment.

One week ago tonight I was in Destin, Florida with my dear friend Andy Morriss – and we were enjoying a maskless, normal evening at a crowded restaurant. The experience was like 2019! It was glorious!

Thank you, Gov. DeSantis! I do not often thank politicians. But, yes, thank you, Gov. DeSantis, for your courage in resisting Covid Derangement Syndrome – and for hosting this excellent discussion among true exemplars of the enlightened mindset.

AND also – thank you, AIER, for your leadership in keeping alive the flame of liberalism amidst the darkness of Covid hysteria. Thank you Ed Stringham. Thank you Jeffrey Tucker.