{"id":750,"date":"2020-04-24T23:30:56","date_gmt":"2020-04-25T03:30:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/commoncents.blogwyrm.com\/?p=750"},"modified":"2023-04-01T10:09:06","modified_gmt":"2023-04-01T14:09:06","slug":"the-good-the-bad-and-the-corona","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/commoncents.blogwyrm.com\/?p=750","title":{"rendered":"The Good, The Bad, and the Corona"},"content":{"rendered":"

Well it is entirely obvious by now that life in the USA has changed due to the corona virus\u2019s clutch on the world as a whole.\u00a0 In these seemingly desperate times, as in similar crises, there is always a bit good mixed in with the bad and some other things worth commenting on as well.\u00a0 Let\u2019s start with some aspect of the good.<\/span><\/p>\n

The scene is 5:30 am on a Tuesday morning.\u00a0 I usually get up this early but ordinarily I stumble into my home office and look for research ideas or inspiration for a new blog.\u00a0 This day I did nothing of the kind.\u00a0 Shuffling off to the bathroom, I ran a comb through my hair, freshened my face, and changed from pajamas to street clothes.\u00a0 Slipping out of the bathroom I went downstairs, fetched my fob, and at 5:45 am left my house.\u00a0 My destination, the local supermarket, lay some ten minutes away.\u00a0 When I arrived I queued up behind the dozen or so people there before me, each keeping a 6-foot\u00a0 buffer between himself and his neighbors to the front and rear.\u00a0 A little after 6 am, the store opened and we all somberly entered in single file.\u00a0 Most, if not all, of us went straight down the paper products aisle looking for that one commodity that is to our modern situation what gasoline was to Mad Max - toilet paper.\u00a0 It was eerie and surreal to walk through an area of the store that until 2 months ago held an abundance of products to find just under a hundred packs of rolls that were mostly scooped up by myself and my fellow early-morning shoppers.<\/span><\/p>\n

There are many\u00a0 good aspects of this sorry situation but I\u2019ll only comment on three.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The first is that, despite the stay-at-home orders and the general shuttering of the economy, the American can do spirit has not entirely withered.\u00a0 There are still manufacturing activities going on in the country.\u00a0 The supply chains may be clogged but are not stopped and we still enjoy such a high standard of living that was entirely inconceivable a century ago.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The second is contextual and may not come home to everyone, even though it should.\u00a0 What we are experiencing with these various shortages is a small foretaste of what socialism would be like if we embraced it.\u00a0 Long lines, empty shelves, and desperation are always the earmarks of socialism and communism.\u00a0 No country on Earth, even the so-called socialist scandanavian nations, can have a vibrant economy under socialism.\u00a0 Denmark and Sweden (and probably the others in the fever dreams of politicians who believe in a Nordic utopia) have clearly rejected the label of socialism and pointed to their free-market practices.\u00a0 And well they should, because free-market practices are what fill shelves with toilet paper, sugar, napkins, ground beef and so on.\u00a0 And, touching on my first point above, we can see experientially just what happens when the market is not free and, hopefully, this will be the worst we\u2019ll ever see.<\/span><\/p>\n

The third is far more prosaic dealing with substitution as a by-product rule.\u00a0 Economists like to point out that when supply is low and demand is high and prices rise, consumers will substitute similar alternatives for the good they usually purchased.\u00a0 For example, people might switch to ground turkey if beef prices sharply increase.\u00a0 I think economists should have a field day with papers galore based on what I have observed.\u00a0 Everywhere I went in the supermarket, there were shelves totally missing contents next to shelves brimming with products very few wanted.\u00a0 I know that I have tried new items that I ordinarily wouldn\u2019t have purchased but it seemed that even in crisis, choosy mothers were finicky about what foods they were allowing in.\u00a0 It would be fascinating to see a breakdown of what threatened people still wouldn\u2019t touch and if the buyers of the various chains change how they purchase based on these observations.<\/span><\/p>\n

On the bad front, I\u2019ll focus only on one thing but a really bad one.\u00a0 The nation\u2019s governors, mayors, and elites seem to have let, in far too many instances, power go to their heads.\u00a0 The textbook example is probably found in Michigan where the following table compares the do\u2019s and dont\u2019s, courtesy of governor Megan Whitmer,\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
Do<\/b><\/th>\nDon\u2019t<\/b><\/th>\n<\/tr>\n
Purchase liquor, lottery tickets, and marijuana<\/span><\/td>\nPurchase seed, paint, and rugs<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Go boating with a canoe, rowboat, or kayak<\/span><\/td>\nGo boating with a power boat or jet ski<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Get an abortion<\/span><\/td>\nGet a biopsy or joint replacement<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

Louisville, KY Mayor Greg Fischer comes in a close second when <\/span>he ordered churches to cease \u2018drive-in\u2019 services<\/span><\/a> where each car was at least 6 feet from neighboring ones but wouldn\u2019t ban drive-through food pickup, where the distances between strangers was much closer and number of direct-interactions much higher.\u00a0 I challenge anyone to find the logical rhyme-and-reason of these allowances and prohibitions.\u00a0 The table listings smack of lobbyist influence and crony-capitalism.\u00a0 Milton Friedman certainly seems vindicated in his belief that big government exists to grant favors.\u00a0 In addition, all sense of cost-benefit analysis and awareness of hidden costs seems to have gone out the window in shuttering the national economy.<\/span><\/p>\n

Sure COVID-19 seemed like the super-flu \u2018prophesied\u2019 in <\/span>Stephen King\u2019s <\/span>The Stand<\/span><\/i><\/a> back at the beginning of March but now the emerging evidence seems to indicate that the communicability of the disease is much higher and the lethality a lot lower.\u00a0 Still cries persist that even one life lost is too many.\u00a0 What utter nonsense.\u00a0 Below is a table adapted and supplemented from <\/span>CDC data<\/span><\/a> indicating how people died in 2017.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
Cause of Death<\/b><\/th>\nNumber of Deaths<\/b><\/th>\n<\/tr>\n
Heart Disease<\/span><\/td>\n647,457<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Cancer<\/span><\/td>\n599,108<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Accidents<\/span><\/td>\n169,936 (including <\/span>37,133 traffic deaths<\/span><\/a>)<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Chronic Lower Respiratory Diseases<\/span><\/td>\n160,201<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Stroke<\/span><\/td>\n146,383<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Diabetes<\/span><\/td>\n83,564<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Influenza and pneumonia<\/span><\/td>\n55,672<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Nephritis, Nephrotic Syndrome, and Neprhosis<\/span><\/td>\n50,633<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Suicide<\/span><\/td>\n47,173<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
COVID-19 (as of 4\/24\/20)<\/span><\/td>\n44,973<\/span><\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

 <\/p>\n

I get that social distance impeded the immediate spread (although the Chinese Communists could have nipped it in the bud if they hadn\u2019t lied) but let\u2019s get people back to work.\u00a0 We don\u2019t shutter the economy because over 600,000 people die of heart disease, no doubt aggravated by working in close proximity to other people.\u00a0 The unseen cost of keeping the economy moribund will cause more addictions and more suicides for years to come.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

I\u2019m not the only one advocating for a measured approach to the risk imposed by COVID-19.\u00a0 Heather Mac Donald, in her article <\/span>The Deadly Costs of Extended Shutdown Orders<\/span><\/i><\/a>, argues quire convincingly that focusing on saving \u201cjust one life\u201d effectively does more harm than good and that our governing elite are using anything but the science of risk analysis to make policy.<\/span><\/p>\n

I\u2019ll end on an ugly note, since the blog title suggests a more than passing similarity with a famous western.\u00a0 The behavior of my fellow man can be very ugly, despite certain philosophers claiming that tragedy and crisis bring out the best in people as it shakes them from their complacency.\u00a0 The scarcity of toilet paper could be understandable as a supply-side problem if I didn\u2019t see a neighbor 3 streets away try to scurry into her home in the early hours last week.\u00a0 With two 20-packs of toilet paper under each arm and another 20 pack in the trunk one has to wonder if she eats it or has she simply given into panic and fear and is hoarding.\u00a0 Let\u2019s just say that my answer to that question doesn\u2019t favor toilet paper as any part of the food pyramid.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Well it is entirely obvious by now that life in the USA has changed due to the corona virus\u2019s clutch on the world as a whole.\u00a0 In these seemingly desperate... Read more ><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-750","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/commoncents.blogwyrm.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/750","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/commoncents.blogwyrm.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/commoncents.blogwyrm.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/commoncents.blogwyrm.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/commoncents.blogwyrm.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=750"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/commoncents.blogwyrm.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/750\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1116,"href":"https:\/\/commoncents.blogwyrm.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/750\/revisions\/1116"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/commoncents.blogwyrm.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=750"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/commoncents.blogwyrm.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=750"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/commoncents.blogwyrm.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=750"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}