Russell Roberts's Blog, page 343

Quotation of the Day…

(Don Boudreaux)

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… is from page 112 of University of Glasgow Senior Lecturer Craig Smith’s superb 2020 book, Adam Smith (footnote deleted):

What [Adam] Smith also wants to point out is that the differences between humans, unlike the differences between breeds of dogs, can be brought into a ‘common stock’ through co-operation. Philosophers and street porters can be useful to each other in a way that greyhounds and mastiffs cannot be. This is only possible through trade.

DBx: Trade is the great process for uniting humanity.

A Wonderful Tribute to My Beloved Colleague and Friend, Walter Williams

(Don Boudreaux)

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Nearly a week after my courageous colleague Walter Williams died suddenly, I still find myself tearing up, missing him – missing my friend and my hero.

This short tribute to Walter, by Nick Gillespie, is wonderful. Walter would be pleased.

On Hospital Utilization Rates in the U.S.

(Don Boudreaux)

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Here’s a letter to a Café Hayek commenter:

Mr. Jaehnig:

After reading my post on nationwide hospital utilization rates in the U.S. – a post showing that the rate today, in 2020, is not out of the ordinary – you comment:

Now do the state level of the same data. It won’t look as pretty Don. Simpson’s paradox got you. Be better.

You correctly understand that slicing and dicing data in one way can give a very different picture than is revealed when the same data are sliced and diced differently. So let’s indeed look at data on hospital utilization at the state level (including Washington, DC).

State-level data on inpatient occupancy of hospital beds are available for downloading from the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services. Here’s what these data show for the 31 days of November 4th through December 4th. Note that these are estimates. Each daily estimate for each state is offered with an upper bound, a lower bound, and a ‘best’ estimate of the utilization rate.

From November 4th through December 4th the highest upper-bound estimated bed-utilization rate is 98.98 for Maryland on December 4th. The lower-bound estimate for that same day in Maryland is 69.6%, with the ‘best’ estimate for that day being 84.29%. Assuming, reasonably, that the ‘best’ estimate is more accurate than either the upper- or lower-bound estimate, on December 4th more than 15 percent of hospital beds in Maryland remained unoccupied.

In the month spanning November 4th through December 4th, on only three days did any state have a ‘best’ estimate of hospital utilization rate of 90 percent or higher. In all three cases that state is Rhode Island, with 90.27% of its hospital beds occupied on November 12th; 90.37% occupied on November 24th; and 91.24% of its hospital beds occupied on December 3rd.

Further, during this same 31-day period, out of 1581 daily observations from all 50 states and DC, only 102 of these ‘best’ estimates of hospital utilization show utilization of 80 percent or higher (which include the three above-mentioned days in Rhode Island).*

The bottom line is that, when broken down to the state level – at least for the period November 4th through December 4th – there is no evidence that hospitals in the U.S. are close to running out of beds for patients.

Sincerely,

Donald J. Boudreaux

Professor of Economics

and

Martha and Nelson Getchell Chair for the Study of Free Market Capitalism at the Mercatus Center

George Mason University

Fairfax, VA 22030

* I counted these data by hand. I did so twice, and believe my count to be accurate. But it’s possible that I’m off by a small amount – but not enough to dilute my letter’s conclusion.

Walter Williams Memorial Service

(Don Boudreaux)

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Many of you have asked about a memorial service for Walter Williams. There will be one, but because of the Covid-19 situation, we as yet have set no date or location. I will, here at Cafe Hayek, post updates on the service.

Thanks to all of you for your kind words about Walter and your wish to be part of remembering the life and legacy of this great man.

Daily Confirmed Covid-19 Cases and Deaths, United States

(Don Boudreaux)

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These data are available here.

(HT Lyle Albaugh)

Fighting CDS-20

(Don Boudreaux)

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Here’s another informative discussion of Covid-19 and humanity’s deranged reaction to it. (HT Sheldon Richman)

Drop the “It’s Guided by the Science” Pretext

(Don Boudreaux)

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Humanity is repeatedly assured that the lockdowns and other restrictions imposed in the name of fighting Covid-19 are justified by “the science.” This tale from the start – that is, even back in March – has struck me as dubious, as politicians are politicians and not scientists. Today this tale strikes me as being so utterly absurd as to be criminally reckless.

In the areas that I know best – trade, minimum wage, and antitrust – politicians and their hirelings almost never give evidence of being able to grasp even the simplest scientific tenets. To listen to politicians pronounce on economic topics is to hear mostly nonsense. The recognition of scarcity and the resulting need to make trade-offs is routinely ignored. Politicians left and right often describe the goodies they promise to arrange for their constituents as being either free or as paid for by “the rich” who, demonized in cartoonish ways, deserve to have their pockets picked.

That such people as Gavin Newsom, Andrew Cuomo, Mike DeWine, Larry Hogan, Bill de Blasio, Muriel Bowser, and Joe Biden care about, and are guided by, science is simply ridiculous. They care about, and are guided by, their and their parties’ electoral prospects. (Forget here that the question of whether or not to lockdown – and, if so, how harshly – is not one that can be answered by science.)

Nevertheless, in the new hysteria that arrived in March, I can kind of, sort of, just barely understand why people panicked and, thus, negligently put trust in the ‘scientific’ judgment of politicians.

But what’s the excuse today, nine months into this tyranny? How can anyone this side of dementia believe, say, that Gavin Newsom is guided by “the science” when his policies prevent private restaurant owners from doing exactly what his policies allow movie producers to do? (See the poignant, now-viral video available here.) How can any sane person suppose that Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear is acting “on the science” when he orders a halt to in-person instruction in K-12 schools – including private ones – while permitting not only pre-schools and universities, but also the likes of theaters, bowling alleys, and gambling parlors, to remain open?

The Covid restrictions aren’t based in science, and anyone who today continues to treat them as such reveals his or her own rejection of science and rationality. These restrictions are a deranged response to the hysteria stirred by news media that thrive on frightening their audiences – audiences who then, conveniently for the kinds of persons who do what it takes to win high political office, tolerate politicians exercising with little or no restraint that which these politicians most desire to exercise: power.

Quotation of the Day…

(Don Boudreaux)

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… is from page 71 of the 1969 Arlington House edition of Ludwig von Mises’s 1944 Yale University Press book, Omnipotent Government: The Rise of the Total State and Total War (available free-of-charge on-line here):

If the government were sincere in its antimonopolistic gestures, it could find a very simple remedy. The repeal of the import duty would brush away at one stroke the danger of monopoly. But governments and their friends are eager to raise domestic prices. Their struggle against monopoly is only a sham.

DBx: Yes indeed.

Anyone who asserts the need to use antitrust as a means of combating monopoly and who also endorses – or even refuses to speak out against – protective tariffs is someone who is so deeply inconsistent or ill-informed that you can, and should, ignore all that he or she pronounces on economic matters.

Bonus Quotation of the Day…

(Don Boudreaux)

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… is from page 89 of the original edition of Michael Polanyi’s 1946 book, Science, Faith, and Society:

Apart from meaningless sense impressions there is no experience that abides as a ‘fact’ without an element of valid interpretation having been imparted to it. This is true even of facts of everyday life, the nature of which depends on the accepted interpretation of events – whether magical, astrological, mythological, naturalistic, etc.

The “Science” Driving 2020’s Covid Lockdowns is Medieval

(Don Boudreaux)

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Here’s a new video from Ivor Cummins.

Watching the entire 22-plus-minute length is worthwhile. But pay special attention to Cummins’s identification, starting just after the 16-minute mark, of the likelihood that many deaths attributed to Covid-19 are likely misattributed. (To die with Covid is not necessarily to die of Covid.)