A Pandemic Ramble [updated]

"It may sound noble to say, ‘Damn economics, let us build 

up a decent world’ but it is, in fact, merely irresponsible. 

With our world as it is, with everyone convinced that the 

material conditions here or there must be improved, our 

only chance of building a decent world is that we can 

continue to improve the general level of wealth. The 

one thing modern democracy will not bear without cracking 

is the necessity of a substantial lowering of the standards 

of living in peacetime, or even the prolonged stationariness 

of its economic conditions.”

~ F.A.von Hayek

"The generational effect of the corona-virus is cunning and baffling. By often being so mild in the young and healthy it turns people into heedless carriers. By often being so lethal in the old and sick, it makes carriers into potential executioners of friends and neighbours.... The evil genius of this virus is rapid transmission without making most of its victims sick enough to stay in bed."
The Curious Age Discrimination of This Virus - Matt Ridley, THE RATIONAL OPTIMIST

UPDATE:  "Dr David Skegg, emeritus professor at Otago University's School of Preventive and Social Medicine, also told Parliament's Epidemic Response Committee this morning that New Zealand's response was inadequate and that in particular we needed to step up testing. Unfortunately, we can't step up testing because we still don't have enough test kits."
Assessing the NZ Government's Handling of Covid-19 - Kiwiwit, THOUGHTS FROM 40 SOUTH

"Whether we’re locked down [sic], as people in many countries are, or left to take responsibility for ourselves, adults need to be adults. I’ll try to keep reminding myself that every time I hear the woman in the advertisement telling me to wash my hands often and well as if I was a child."
We Need to Be Adults - Ele Ludemann, HOME PADDOCK

"Robertson warns, though, that all of the support for hospitals and community providers to deal with the surge of patients and support for advice for people caring at home—all of it—is only the beginning when it comes to what needs to be done to support the health service.
    "And when he talks of ensuring 'the core of an economy' continues to exist, he is underlining the kind of mountain the country will have to climb once the Covid-19 pandemic ends.
    "Some authorities think NZ will return to normal quickly and easily if the government succeeds with its lockdown. Others think before it is over unemployment could have climbed to 15% or more of the workforce.
    "Many of the businesses in the tourism and hospitality industries may not survive.
    "Even while the crisis deepens there are industries which are proving how vital they are as pillars of the economy.
    "This week trade data for February showed a 4.5% ($212m) increase in the total value of goods exported in February compared with the same month last year. Dairy products, particularly milk powder, at $4.9bn, led the increase. Statistics NZ also said that in the week ending last Wednesday exports rose 3.7% while imports fell 11%.What New Zealanders will have to absorb in the period the country is locked down is that their standard of living will be permanently depressed unless those vital export industries — dairy, meat, horticulture, fishing — are given every encouragement and stimulus to expand production in the years to come.
    "Dairy farmers are not the enemy, as climate change warriors make out. They could be our saviour in the years to come.
    "Perhaps the Finance Minister ... will get to grips with this basic lesson from the crisis."

After the lockdown, the economy’s recovery will be dependent on dairy farms and their milk - POINT OF ORDER

"The most damaging enemies of Capitalism are not on the left. They are the fair weather capitalists, who pretend to defend it, but don't really believe in it. And, at the first challenge, or crisis, abandon it and claim it's utopian ideal.
    "Please don't call yourself capitalists."
"In a truly capitalist society, here is how the market responds..." - Yaron Brook, TWITTER

"Congress has asked all non-essential businesses to limit their hours or close entirely for an undetermined amount of time."

Government Accidentally Shuts Itself Down With Ban On Non-Essential Businesses - BABYLON BEE

“We spend billions on ‘public health’. But instead of preparing for pandemics like this, Public Health England has mostly been pestering people about drinking, smoking and sugary biscuits."

What a Real Public-Health Crisis Looks Like - Christopher Snowdon, LAST ORDERS PODCAST

"Before the COVID-19 pandemic, we might have thought that 'the experts' knew best and could guide us. But there is more than one area of expertise. And the speed, scale, and scope of this pandemic mean that we don’t know which areas of expertise matter or how to balance competing considerations coming from those that do. It would be a mistake to try to find one person to blame for what might turn out to be a case of expert failure. The root problem is not faulty expertise or bad actors. The root problem is that we are asking experts and politicians to do more than is humanly possible...
    "Each of us has expertise that few others have. In this sense, we can say that the division of labour is a division of expertise. And that’s what creates trouble at a moment such as this when we are driven to seek out the experts’ advice when taking collective action. The world’s governments today are turning to the experts. But to which experts? Which silos of expertise matter?
    "We are struggling with the tradeoff between stopping the virus and stopping the economy. Epidemiologists warn us to maintain social distancing. They want to put much of the economy on hold. But economists warn us of unemployment and cascading bankruptcies. Psychologists warn us that unemployment and isolation promote substance abuse and suicide. And so on. Who can adjudicate their competing frameworks?
    "Unfortunately, no one can be a grand meta-expert rising above the many lesser experts. The meta-expert would have to know everything, in which case we would not have a division of knowledge at all. Every expert is a lesser expert with prefabricated problems and solutions that define their expertise and apply only to one thin slice of reality. Their disciplinary expertise makes certain problems relevant and prescribes certain solutions to those problems, and only those problems. But this means that when politicians take the collective action recommended by their experts, somebody else is deciding for us 'what is and is not relevant to us.' And those prefabricated 'relevancies' will reflect some areas of expertise and not others, some slices of reality and not others."
Part 1: Which Experts Matter in a Pandemic? - Roger Koppl, ECON LOG

"University of Auckland senior lecturer and epidemiologist Simon Thornley writes:
    'We don’t want to squash a flea with a sledgehammer and bring the house down. 

    believe that other countries, such as Sweden, are steering a more sensible course through 

    this turbulent time.'
"It will probably take months to see which approach to containing the virus, limiting deaths and not damaging the economy too much worked best, but the situation in Sweden doesn’t look that good at the moment compared to New Zealand, and not great compared to many countries.' ...
    "Dr Siouxsie Wiles responds: "For anyone who comes across the opinion piece of an epidemiologist suggesting lockdown is like using a sledgehammer to hit a flea: he studies diet not infectious diseases. Don’t listen to his reckons."
Sweden’s different Covid strategy looks shaky - YOUR NZ

"They found that at that very moment when they first got sick, they had incredibly high levels of virus, sometimes 10000 times that we saw with SARS, in their throats. Meaning they were infectious at that point already and they hadn’t even had symptoms yet of really any nature, they weren’t coughing yet. And that’s where we’re concerned because that’s the kind of transmission [with this virus] …
Joe Rogan Michael Osterholm Podcast Transcript: Infectious Disease Expert Talks Coronavirus - REV.COM

"Even now, people don't understand that a rising number of confirmed infections means a falling fatality rate. Put simply, it is good news. Paying the price here for a failure of math education."
What does the growing number of coronaviruscases really mean? - Jeffrey Tucker, A.I.E.R
"Today, my latest thoughts about how to reopen smart.
    "There is one goal to public health policy right now: Reducing the transmission rate, aka reproduction number.
    "If one person gets it, how many does he or she pass it on to? If the transmission rate is over one, the virus grows exponentially. For example, if the transmission rate is 2, then we have 1000 cases this week, 2000 next week, 4000 the week after that, and so on. If the transmission rate under one, the pandemic ends. If the rate is 0.5, then we have 1000 this week, 500 next week, 250 the week after that and so on.
    "The second goal of health policy is to keep hospitals going so that those who do get it stay alive. That's what ventilators, masks and so on are about."

Beyond testing -- The central question for pandemic policy - John Cochrane, GRUMPY ECONOMIST

"NZ scores 54 in preparedness for a pandemic [35th in the world] ..... Behind South Africa at 55, Italy & Indonesia (56), Australia (75.5), UK (77.9), Canada (75.3) and USA (83.5) at the top."
Ranked: Global Pandemic Preparedness by Country - VISUAL CAPITALIST

"How should we think about and critically evaluate the torrent of information and reporting coming out daily about the pandemic?
    "That’s one of the crucial issues that philosophers Onkar Ghate and Gregory Salmieri address in a special episode of ARI’s web series, Philosophy for Living on Earth. You can watch the entire discussion below.
    "The discussion addresses the need for objectivity in evaluating the information we receive, identifying the proper role of government, and understanding the vital role of business.
    "The expertise of experts and specialists is crucial, and the ability to communicate that expertise is what allows non-experts to stay informed about complicated and technical subjects. Yet, Ghate and Salmieri point out, this does not mean accepting any expert’s statement on faith. Laymen must be able to distinguish a reliable expert from an unreliable one. Salmieri offers valuable insights on this score; a reliable expert must provide justification for his conclusion rather than simply assert it and respect the fact that he is communicating about his area of expertise to a non-expert."
COVID-19’s Impact on Business and Politics - Paul Taske, NEW IDEAL

"The Federal Reserve has unleashed what’s frequently been called a bazooka in its efforts to calm markets. Its next step could be to go nuclear.
    "Should conditions on Wall Street deteriorate significantly, the central bank could go where it’s never gone before: to passively intervene in the stock market for the first time ever... "it is clear that they will go into whatever nook and cranny in the market that starts to choke,” said Quincy Krosby, chief market strategist at Prudential Financial."
‘Nothing is out of the question’: What it would take for the Fed to start buying stocks - CNBC

"As with current Fed policy, there would be both winners and losers if the Fed did nothing. Either way, there will be pain, but without the Fed we'd actually build the foundation for a more sound and lasting economic system."
What If the Fed Did Nothing? - Noah Bonn, MISES WIRE

"With the stock market now crashing and many people facing unemployment in the wake of the ongoing pandemic, governments are reacting with a variety of measures allegedly aimed at stabilizing the markets and promoting economic security. What effects will these measures have on the economy? Will they address the root causes of the crash--or might they aggravate the situation?"
"Some of the questions covered in the discussion include:
* How does this crisis compare to the 2008 crisis?
* What did the markets look like before the pandemic hit?
* How has the coronavirus affected the markets?
* What will be the short-term and long-term consequences of the measures taken by the Fed?
* What is an optimistic, yet realistic, scenario for the future, and what can we learn from this crisis?"

... the Pandemic's Damage to the Economy - Austina Vergana Cid, NEW IDEAL

"The less agile and adaptive a society is, the more severe its impotence in a crisis. Thanks to an obsessive reliance on monetary policy to fix every problem, our society has increasingly abandoned innovation and productivity."
The Political Management of the Coronavirus Crisis - Rahim Taghizadegan, MISES WIRE

"Global Supply Chains began to truncate in the aftermath of the financial crisis of 2008. The global COVID-19 lockdown has accelerated the process. Businesses will reassess the trade-off between efficiency and resilience. Supply chain resilience is not without cost."
Is this the End of Globalisation? - Colin Lloyd. A.I.E.R

"Government institutions, including central banks, have long been responsible for increases in the cost of living. But the burden often falls most on those who are just starting out in their adult lives."
How Governments (and the Fed) Make Life Harder for Young Families - Bradley Thomas, MISES WIRE

"Household debt-to-GDP ratios in countries including France, Switzerland, New Zealand and Nigeria have never been higher, according to a January report from the Institute of International Finance."
A global consumer default wave is just getting started - ECONOMIC TIMES



"The world today faces the most ominous threat to freedom as we’ve known in many generations. The reason and occasion: a pandemic disease. It and the policy response to it has changed fundamentally almost everything we used to take for granted: the right to earn a living, the right to travel, the right to associate, and even hope in the future itself. The calamity has been unparalleled, with social, economic, and political consequences yet unknown. All we really know is that nothing will be the same.
    "The American Institute for Economic Research has now produced a book on the topic, written by our researchers in real time as the crisis unfolded. You will be struck by its prescience, first page to last. The book is available on Amazon now: Coronavirus and Economic Crisis...
    "A mere forty days after the first case of COVID-19 was reported in the US, even before rates of transmission or recovery could be accurately calculated, plans were in motion for over $4 trillion in government stimulus and bailout packages. Central banks unleashed a torrent of programs, flooding the world economy with money. And even at this point, the American Institute for Economic Research was still nearly alone in bringing liberal ideas and analysis to bear on the unfolding calamity.
    "The contributions of every economist and thinker in the liberal tradition have been vindicated throughout what are likely only the beginnings of this disaster: Menger’s and Fetter’s work on the subjective theory of value, which informed both the actions of individuals who acquired goods in advance and the prices that were later offered by people desperate to acquire them. The warnings of Hayek with respect to the pretense of knowledge, and of Morgenstern regarding the questionable accuracy of statistics in the social sciences. Ludwig von Mises’ observation that government intervention always results in further interventions owing to the unintended consequences of the first round of tinkering. And our own E. C. Harwood’s encouragement to be bold in the defense of liberty along with his counsel that “for integrity, there is no substitute.”
    "This book chronicles AIER’s coverage of the opening phase of the world coronavirus outbreak, through the full onset of the crisis, with speculations on the future of wealth and liberty in light of both the virus and the political response.
    "It includes contributions by Vincent Geloso, Jeffrey Tucker, Bruce Yandle, Pete Earle, James L. Caton, Raymond C. Niles, Robert E. Wright, Joakim Book, John Tamny, Robert Hughes, Stephen Davies, Brett Dalton, Scott A. Burns, Edward Stringham, Art Carden, Adam Thierer, William J. Luther, Allen Mendenhall, Stephen C. Miller, Veronique de Rugy, Max Gulker, Richard M. Salsman, and Richard M. Ebeling.
    "It is 250 pages.
    "May this book serve as important documentation of what this country and the world can learn for the future."
Coronavirus and Economic Crisis: The First Draft of History - Peter C. Earle, A.I.E.R.

"As power expands in a ratcheting-upward way, power becomes ever-more valuable and intoxicating to possess – meaning that competition to grab power becomes ever-more intense. This increasingly intense competition for power, in turn, selects those persons who are both most hungry for power and least bound by ethical restraints in pursuing and using it."
Leviathan and Crises - Don Boudreaux, A.I.E.R.

"With much of the world on lockdown [sic], the coronavirus pandemic has chipped away at individual liberties everywhere..."
Coronavirus and Autocrats: Never Let Pandemic Go to Waste - Yaroslav Trofimov, WSJ

And finally ... 

"Dear New Zealand Police, Aotearoa has not given you a blank cheque for your response to Covid-19...
    "Most Kiwis understand and accept the decisions the government has made. An overwhelming majority of the population has accepted massive restrictions on daily life and the sweeping away of civil liberties and freedoms...
    "You need to remember that you can only police the country effectively with the consent of the public. Contradictory messages and over-the-top enforcement will rapidly erode public goodwill and result in increasing failure to comply.
    "In turn, that will raise the spectre of order starting to break down. New Zealand does not want to go there...
    "The public was ... already anxious about mission creep in your use of armed teams. The sudden conferral of wide-ranging new powers on officers arising from Covid-19 exacerbates that worry...
    "You, the police, are there to uphold the law. New Zealand is ... not a police state.
    "We, the public, will obey the new laws. But we will also be policing your use of them."
An open letter to the police in a time of Covid-19 - Catriona MacLennan, RNZ NEWS

Here's Supergrass:

[Hat tips and thanks to Catallaxy Files, Vicki the Sane One, Rusty Bertrand, Spiked. Cartoon by Josh.]
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