No Light at the End of the Vietnam Tunnel

"Light at the end of the tunnel" was a phrase made famous during the Vietnam war.  Its initial use is not clear, but it grew to be used sardonically to mean the opposite--there is no way out of this mess.

This history seems to be forgotten by the Trump administration according to this post.

Why Trump's Ratings Are Up

My guess of the reason for Trump's approval ratings to be rising is three-fold:

• he's no longer doing his rallies.  I'd guess independents and Democrats don't like his behavior during the rallies, so that helps.
• he's talking from the White House in the press briefing room.  While he's still doing Trumpisms, there's a veneer of presidential behavior.
• Republicans are feeling better about Trump, and Democrats are worried about the virus, which impacts willingness to respond to pollsters and how they respond.

Peeves: Flaunted and Dispersed

"Flaunt" means to show off.  When writing about people disobeying  Covid-19 rules you mean "flout".  Your "aunt" might be showy, a "lout" definitely isn't.

"Dispersed" means to scatter.  When writing about payments from stimulus programs, you mean "disbursed".   (Did your college have a "bursar"? )

Epstein Dead and Buried (Metaphorically)?

Gregory Cochran is an anthropologist who is very much a contrarian.  On his West Hunter blog he posts occasionally, mostly on the evolution of humans.  He seems to be on the conservative side, at least in that he argues for the impact of evolution on human traits, etc.  In other words, he's not politically correct.

With that understanding of his leanings, I was surprised to read this takedown of Richard Epstein, who recently speculated on the outcome of Covid-19, arguing that concerns were over done. Most notably he predicted deaths in US would be 500 or les.

I only know that predictions vary very widely, and everyone who positively asserts a prediction is overdoing it.

But Cochran's post is a great example of taking no prisoners.

Claw Backs on Covid Aid

Personally, my wife and I fall into the category Steven Pearlstein described Friday--people whose income is not siigniicantly impacted by Covid-19. See this more recent post on Politico.

I don't know whether we will receive anything under the measures now being put together in  Congress.

It strikes me that in the absence of the right infrastructure to focus payments you could include a clawback provision. For us, the IRS would know on our 2020 taxes that we received Covid money. If our adjusted gross income for 2020 doesn't show a decrease from 2019, i.e., we weren't hurt by the pandemic, then tax the Covid money, 100 percent or something less.

[Updated:  Here's Greg Mankiw proposing the same thing.]

The Lack of Governmental Infrastructure

One of things crisis  fighters run into is the lack of governmental infrastructure. 

In the Great Recession a bit part of the problem in helping people whose houses were under water was the lack of any infrastructure which had direct contact with mortgagees.  Instead people like Geithner had to design programs to work through banks, but because the mortgages often had been been sold on/collateralized from the original loan maker it wasn't an effective program.

We now come to 2020 and Covid-19.  The programs under discussion now want to make direct payments to people.  But the government doesn't have that infrastructure.  The best we can do is write checks to those who filed a tax return with IRS in the past, but that obviously misses a lot of people: those who weren't required to file, those who joined the country more recently, those who never filed a tax return--i.e., tax evaders.

My Predictions?

I don't really have any, but I just saw a Politico post following up on various predictions made about Obamacare.  They mostly were wrong.  So with that in mind I'll venture this: at least 80 percent of the predictions ever offered about Covid-19 will turn out to be wrong.

Nicholas Kristof at the Times sketched the best and worst cases for the outcome. I'll venture the prediction that the outcome will be closer to the best than the worst.

Will the Cost of Fighting Covid-19 Exceed the DAmage It Causes?

John Hinderaker at Powerline blog ends a post on the Covid-19 virus (he uses "Wuhan virus" which is an indicator of his viewpoint) with this sentence:

" But policymakers need to consider the possibility that the damage done by the extreme measures being taken to slow the spread of the virus will ultimately prove to be greater than the harm done by the virus itself."

My reaction was--we should hope that's the case.   But I've had to struggle with figuring out whether my kneejerk reaction was valid, or just liberal bias.  Let me try now:

1. Covid-19 is a case of natural disaster.
2. Natural disasters vary widely in their causes and destruction: think of Hurricane Katrina or Sandy; earthquakes and tsunamis, droughts, floods, forest fires
3. It seems to me that forest fires are a decent parallel with forest fires.  Why-both fires and epidemics occur over significant time, not the minutes of an earthquake or the days of a hurricane. That extended time period means humans can fight them, can hope to mitigate effects, limit their scope. 
4. So consider the Paradise CA fire of a couple years ago.  Suppose, instead of a downed transmission line, it had started as campfire which escaped the firepit. But there was a fire station near enough and someone with a cellphone who saw the escape. In short, the Paradise fire was contained within a couple acres by the exertions of a fire crew over a day.  The cost of fighting the fire would maybe have been $1K, more than the burn damage.  Given that scenario,should we not fight the fire because of a cost-benefit ratio.
5. In summary, when considering natural disasters the correct cost-benefit analysis is not money expended versus damage incurred; it's money expended versus some combination of probability of damage and the cost of the damage.

In Lieu of Mail Elections

There's a move, led in part by my former candidate for President, Amy Klobuchar, to move to mail elections in the fall.

I've reservations about mail elections because I like the feeling of community you get by voting in person.  I've reservations about moving to mail for our national elections, fearing that people are underestimating the difficulty involved, particularly when you consider counties are basically in charge of elections (remember the butterfly ballot). IMO there would likely be a number of snafus in November because the Harshaw rule applies.

I'd suggest an alternative in case Covid-19 is a danger in November--move to multi-day elections.  Instead of "election day" we'd have maybe "election week", or 2-3 days  That way we'd not need to change the technology, just spread out the people as they come to vote, so they can maintain their 6 foot distance.  The big hurdle that comes to mind is the burden on the people manning the polling places--older folks usually and more vulnerable to sickness.  But, if the virus is still an issue unemployment will be higher, providing a pool of potential hirees.

[Update--it seems the Klobuchar/Wyden proposal allows in-person advance voting, which is the same as an "election week"--I knew she deserved my support

Innovation--Uses of Social Media

I think it's true that whenever things change some humans adapt to it.  It's like invasive species in biology--when a new ecological niche opens some opportunistic species will take advantage of it.

Anyway, what seems to be going on today is, given the challenge of Covid-19, humans are finding ways to use the internet and social media to counter its effects.  Using Amazon to order supplies, using Zoom for online learning, having a community sing over media, joining friends for online meals.

These uses aren't unprecedented, I'm sure, but tweaks on existing uses and expansion to new audiences.  These uses and audiences are likely to persist even after Covid-19 becomes a normal part of the world's health picture.

Kevin Drum has a post today arguing the greater speed of information exchange now as compared to 1918's Spanish flu explains a greater economic impact.  I'd agree, but also point to the advantages this speed offers--we can learn from the esperiences of others much quicker than in 1918.