J. Bradford DeLong's Blog, page 47

With Trump, the Cruelty Is the Point...

With Trump, almost always, this is true: the cruelty is the point: Steve M.: How It Must Pain Trump's Followers to Observe His Cruelty! https://nomoremister.blogspot.com/2020/05/how-it-must-pain-trumps-followers-to.html: ���As U.S. deaths from COVID-19 reach 100,000, President Trump���laser-focused as always on America's most serious problems...

...is picking a fight with Joe Scarborough, insinuating, despite all evidence, that Scarborough murdered Lori Klausutis, a staffer who died in the then-congressman's office in 2000. The pro-Trump New York Post assumes that most of Trump's supporters wish he would stop behaving this way:

"We suppose there are some Trump followers who enjoy this. The libs say horrible things about you, go ahead and say terrible things about them! There is a difference, though, between mocking someone���s ratings and hurting an innocent family with the memories of their tragic daughter because of a petty feud. A much larger portion of Trump���s support, we���d wager, are people who like his policies and brush off his personality���or try to..."

In The Atlantic, NeverTrump conservative Peter Wehner contends that Trump's supporters merely "tolerate" this behavior as a means to an end: "A lot of human casualties result from the cruelty of malignant narcissists like Donald Trump���casualties, it should be said, that his supporters in the Republican Party, on various pro-Trump websites and news outlets, and on talk radio are willing to tolerate or even defend. Their philosophy seems to be that you need to break a few eggs to make an omelet. If putting up with Trump���s indecency is the price of maintaining power, so be it..."

Do people really still believe this, nearly five years after Trump declared his candidacy? Do they believe that Trump's backers merely put up with his rages?... Repellent behavior is what they want. Wehner's Atlantic colleague Adam Serwer had it right in 2018: the cruelty is the point.... "It is not just that the perpetrators of this cruelty enjoy it; it is that they enjoy it with one another. Their shared laughter at the suffering of others is an adhesive that binds them to one another, and to Trump.... It is that cruelty, and the delight it brings them, that binds his most ardent supporters to him, in shared scorn for those they hate and fear: immigrants, black voters, feminists, and treasonous white men who empathize with any of those who would steal their birthright..." Trump's supporters could have had his policies without his personality at any time over the previous three and a half years. Mike Pence is ready to be a policy Trump without being, you know, Trump. If Trump voters don't like Trump's worst traits, they could have signaled this to pollsters and to their members of Congress. They didn't. They like this. No, let me put that more accurately: This is what they like...

#fascism #noted #orangehairedbaboons #2020-05-27

Noted: Yglesias: Suppress the Virus!

There seems to be one big piece of good news in the fight against Covid-19. The battle to keep the caseload low enough that hospitals do not collapse and the death rate rise from 1% to 4% or so appears to have been won, worldwide.

Now there is a second battle: to push the bulk of the potential caseload out beyond the date at which an effective vaccine arrives and so reduce the global death toll from its likely non-vaccine value of 50 million to a small fraction of that:

That battle can be lost.
That battle can be won expensively, through prolonged and expensive social distancing and other measures that push the virus ���s reproduction rate R down to near one.
That battle can be won quickly and cheaply, by sharp short-term massive virus repression, followed by controlling reemergences via large scale and frequent trace-&-test-&-isolate.

Sane, intelligent, and competent countries are trying for option (3) in this second battle, and it looks like many of them will succeed. The Trump administration and its crowd of grifters and enablers appear to have decided that (1), losing this second battle, is best for their personal pocketbooks and reelection chances.

The very wise Matt Yglesias protests:

Matthew Yglesias: Coronavirus Mitigation Could Kill Thousands. Suppress the Virus, Don���t Just ���Flatten the Curve��� https://www.vox.com/2020/5/6/21241058/coronavirus-mitigation-suppression-flatten-the-curve: ���With the disease seemingly beaten back domestically, Hong Kong is now in a position to start switching emphasis to a strategy focused on border controls.... The city has a clearly articulated strategy that it calls ���suppress and lift���: ease restrictions now when cases are at zero, but then clamp back down as necessary to push cases back down if they pop up. Taiwan has also had no new cases for several days...

...New Zealand has not done quite this well, but the government believes it has successfully identified and isolated all of the country���s coronavirus cases and is lifting restrictions, on the claim that the virus has been ���eliminated��� in the country. South Korea���s outbreak is now down to single-digit numbers of new cases per week.... The United States, meanwhile, is moving to open up on the basis of a vaguely articulated assumption that settling for mitigation is good enough....

The United States has not really tried the strategies that have made suppression successful. To accomplish that, America would need to invest in expanding the volume of tests, invest in more contact tracers, and create centralized quarantine facilities.... Since the US didn't spend April doing that, trying to achieve suppression���along the lines of Taiwan, Hong Kong, Korea, and New Zealand���would necessarily involve more delay and more economic pain. But doing so would save potentially tens or hundreds of thousands of lives and almost certainly lead to a better economic outcome by allowing activity to truly restart���

#coronavirus #noted #orangehairedbaboons #publichealth #2020-05-19

Coronavirus Scenarios: Twitter

Twitter: _In utilitarian order of desirability https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1258601578153431042.html: Plan A: stomp the virus immediately via trace-&-test-&-quarantine.
Plan B: after the virus gets established, lockdown until R is low enough & maintain lockdown long enough that you can then stomp the virus via trace-&-test-&-quarantine��� https://github.com/braddelong/public-files/blob/master/twitter/coronavirus-scenarios-2020-05-19.pdf

#coronavirus #orangehairedbaboons #publichealth #twitter #2020-05-19

What Parts of Marx's Capital Sing?: Twitter

Twitter: I got my last three lectures https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1258024765509349377.html to give in the next 31 hours, so goodbye! But first... With the exception of Chapter 10, The Working Day, Parts I- VI of Capital do not sing for me. Confused, and where not confused usually wrong��� https://github.com/braddelong/public-files/blob/master/twitter/marx-does-capital-sing.pdf

#moralphilosophy #twitter #2020-05-19

Keynes as Liberal: Twitter

Twitter: Keynes is, I think, better than Hobsbawm on this https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1262819618860613632.html: ���Whilst... the enlargement of the functions of government, involved in the task of adjusting to one another the propensity to consume and the inducement to invest, would seem to a nineteenth-century publicist or to a mentions contemporary American financier to be a terrific encroachment on individualism. I defend it��� https://github.com/braddelong/public-files/blob/master/twitter/keynes-as-liberal-2020-05-19.pdf

#moralphilosophy #twitter #2020-05-20

Hayek as Illiberal: Twitter

Twitter: I realize that this is a hell of a hill to die on https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1262816643366838273.html, but I have never understood classifying Hayek as any kind of "liberal". I have always thought that Sam Brittan had his number back in 1980��� https://github.com/braddelong/public-files/blob/master/twitter/hayek-the-illiberal.pdf

#moralphilosophy #twitter #2020-05-19

Noted: Jackson & al.: Global Economic Effects of COVID-19...

We really have very little idea what the long-term and even the short term economic effect of the coronavirus will be. We have a somewhat better handle on the human mortality costs: a worst-case scenario of 240 million worldwide deaths, a bad-case scenario of 50 million worldwide deaths, and hopes that vaccines and much better antiviral treatment protocols will arrive soon enough to substantially reduce that death toll. But virus suppression is now a lost cause���individual countries can suppress and can thus hope to insulate their populations until vaccine arrival, but for the globe as a whole, we are in mitigation mode. And as for morbidity? We really do not know enough to say much of anything: James K. Jackson & al.: Global Economic Effects of COVID-19 https://fas.org/sgp/crs/row/R46270.pdf: ���Since the COVID-19 outbreak was first diagnosed, it has spread to over 190 countries and all U.S. states. The pandemic is having a noticeable impact on global economic growth. Estimates so far indicate the virus could trim global economic growth by as much as 2.0% per month if current conditions persist. Global trade could also fall by 13% to 32%, depending on the depth and extent of the global economic downturn. The full impact will not be known until the effects of the pandemic peak. This report provides an overview of the global economic costs to date and the response by governments and international institutions to address these effects���

#coronavirus #macro #noted #orangehairedbaboons #2020-05-18

Noted: Salath�� & Case: What Happens Next?

The best educational tool for learning about the epidemiology of COVID-19 that I have yet found. If you time, study it carefully and thoroughly: Marcel Salath�� & Nicky Case: What Happens Next? COVID-19 Futures, Explained With Playable Simulations https://ncase.me/covid-19/: ���Fear's not the problem, it's how we channel our fear. Fear gives us energy to deal with dangers now, and prepare for dangers later. Honestly, we (Marcel, epidemiologist + Nicky, art/code) are worried. We bet you are, too! That's why we've channelled our fear into making these playable simulations, so that you can channel your fear into understanding: The Last Few Months (epidemiology 101, SEIR model, R & R0). The Next Few Months (lockdowns, contact tracing, masks). The Next Few Years (loss of immunity? no vaccine?) This guide... is meant to give you hope and fear. To beat COVID-19 in a way that also protects our mental & financial health, we need optimism to create plans, and pessimism to create backup plans. As Gladys Bronwyn Stern once said, ���The optimist invents the airplane and the pessimist the parachute���. So, buckle in: we're about to experience some turbulence���

#coronavirus #noted #2020-05-18

Noted: Henry Farrell: "Public" Choice

Henry Farrell: ���Public��� Choice https://crookedtimber.org/2020/05/12/public-choice/: ���The public choice approach tends to prefer models that I suspect are particularly unlikely to be helpful in understanding key aspects of the public���s reactions to coronavirus.... Public choice [is] specifically unhelpful... [because] as described by the late Charles Rowley, longtime editor of the journal Public Choice, the public choice approach is a "program of scientific endeavor that exposed government failure coupled to a programme of moral philosophy that supported constitutional reform designed to limit government". In other words, it is not a neutral research program, but one that has a clear political philosophy and set of aims. Bluntly put, it starts from governments bad, markets good, and further assumes that the intersection between governments and markets (where private interests are able to "capture���" government) is very bad indeed. This is useful for understanding some aspects of politics.... There is an interesting affinity between public choice and Marxism, another analytic approach with an associated political program. Both agree on the awful things that can happen when government and business interests are in cahoots, even if each sees a different party as the serpent in its paradise.... [But] it���s a terrible starting point for understanding the public response to coronavirus.... The evidence from public opinion polling is emphatic. People... are in favor of stay at home orders, and closed schools and non-essential businesses.... If there is an instance of democratically legitimate coercion, then stay at home orders are it.... So why then, may the equilibrium break down? It���s clearly not because of express demand from the public. Nor because of cheating (some people may want to free ride, even when the potential rewards include getting sick and dying, but it���s hard to see how they are a majority, or can create one). The plausible answer is that private power asymmetries are playing a crucial role in undermining the equilibrium. Some people���employees with poor bargaining power and no savings���may find themselves effectively coerced into a return to work as normal.... If you���re not lucky, your employer���s power over you may very literally be the power of life and death.... Why don���t you just demand safe working conditions? Perhaps you���re an undocumented immigrant who fears retaliation...

#coronavirus #inequality #noted #politicaleconomy #publichealth #2020-05-18

Noted: Slavitt: ���COVID-19 a Uniquely Tough American Foe...

It now seems much more likely than not that of all the OECD nations the United States will turn out to have the worst coronavirus response: the highest death rate when this thing comes to an end, coupled with extraordinarily low benefits in terms of how many lives saved by the economic costs incurred. I suspect it will look in retrospect as though any strategy was better than the Trump administration's incoherent an inconsistent mix of strategies. Only Britain seems to have a chance of doing worse. And yet it is almost unthinkable that Boris Johnson will prove to be even less competent than his American counterpart: Andy Slavitt: ���COVID-19a Uniquely Tough American Foe https://twitter.com/ASlavitt/status/1257477774220066827. The rest of the world is figuring it out. The Czech Republic did it with masks. China with isolation. Germany with testing. Hong Kong with experience. New Zealand with alerts. Greece with discipline. The cost of these lessons is already too high. But it is not beyond our power to change it. But I���m afraid to change this, we do have to first face it���

#coronavirus #noted #orangehairedbaboons #publichealth #2020-05-18