The Latest from Cafe Hayek

(Don Boudreaux)

Tweet

Writing in the Wall Street Journal, UCLA medical-school professor Joseph Ladapo rightly laments the “epidemic of ‘Covid Mania’,” correctly noting that “[t]he problem isn’t only the overreaction to the virus but the diminution of every other problem.” Two other slices:

The novel coronavirus has caused suffering and heartbreak, particularly for older adults and their loved ones. But it also has a low mortality rate among most people and especially the young—estimated at 0.01% for people under 40—and therefore never posed a serious threat to social and economic institutions. Compassion and realism need not be enemies. But Covid mania crowded out reasoned and wise policy making.

Americans groaned when leaders first called for “two weeks to slow the spread” in March 2020. Months later, many of these same Americans hardly blinked when leaders declared that lockdowns should continue indefinitely. For months Covid had been elevated above all other problems in society. Over time new rules were written and new norms accepted.

Liberty has played a special role in U.S. history, fueling advances from independence to emancipation to the fight for equal rights for women and racial minorities. Unfortunately, Covid mania led many policy makers to treat liberty as a nuisance rather than a core American principle.

…..

Covid mania is also creating new conflicts over vaccine mandates. The same people who assured the public that a few weeks of lockdown would control the pandemic now argue that vaccinating children, for whom no vaccine has yet been approved, is essential to end the pandemic. Children account for less than 0.1% of Covid deaths in the U.S. Is enough known about vaccines to conclude that their benefits outweigh potential risks to children?

“Yes” is the answer of a salesman, not a scientist. Mandating a vaccine for children without knowing whether the benefits outweigh the risks is unethical. People who insist we should press on anyway, because variants will prolong the pandemic, should be reminded that a large reservoir of unvaccinated people in the U.S.—and in the world—will always exist. We cannot outrun the variants.

My colleague Bryan Caplan defends his ageless hypothesis against pushback from Jeremy Horpedahl.

Robby Soave is rightly critical of many on the political left who are addicted to Covid-19 panic porn. A slice:

Well, nope: COVID-19 deaths and cases continue to fall in Texas, even without a mask mandate or capacity restrictions on businesses. The same is broadly true of Florida, which relaxed its restrictions all the way back in September and has managed to weather the pandemic more successfully than super locked down states like New York and California.

This is good news! It’s more evidence that warmer weather does make it harder to spread COVID-19—in large part because the heat and sunshine allow people to socialize outdoors, where there is a significantly lower risk of transmission. It also shows that the vaccines are working. Fully vaccinated people are essentially immune from serious disease or death, and according to the latest data, they are very unlikely to carry or transmit COVID-19 at all. The message to the unvaccinated should be: Go get vaccinated. The message to the vaccinated should be: Rejoice! You can go back to normal life.

But the frustrating truth of the matter is that Team Blue doesn’t want to hear this. Many people—predominantly liberals—who claim to Follow the Science and Trust the Experts no matter what are nevertheless captivated by pandemic panic porn. By asserting, for instance, that social distancing and masks should be mandatory even for the vaccinated, they bizarrely fixate on the minuscule risk of post-vaccination infection.

(DBx: No surprise here, alas. The reaction to Covid from the start has rested on a lamentable inability to put risks into context. This inability quickly led to the deranged supposition that no amount of risk of coming into contact with SARS-CoV-2 is tolerable – or, what is the same thing, that no cost is too high to pay for even the most minuscule reduction in the risk of coming into contact with SARS-CoV-2).

Sherelle Jacobs reports on the continuing grip of Covid Derangement Syndrome in Britain. A slice:

The variant risk, then, is no more immediately terrifying than our five-year NHS backlog or that cancer research now faces its biggest setback in generations. And yet the Government seems captivated by the horror of a mutant punishing us for a sinful orgy of summer freedom. This is only in part explained by its fear that, after delaying the first lockdown, they will be accused of failing to act again. It is, more disturbingly, testament to the psychological power of the precautionary principle. Policy makers have become bewitched by the potentially infinite damage from existential risks, however remote or manageable they are in practice.

Over 40 years, the precautionary principle has mestasised from a fringe worldview propagated by environmental lobbyists to a groupthink mantra incorporated into everything from the Maastricht treaty to pesticide control. Despite its unscientific principles, demanding a level of certainty about safety that can never be reached and replacing trial and error with the elimination of error by banning trial, a weird synergy with predictive modelling has lent it academic credibility. Its intrusive hyper-caution has an aesthetic appeal for big-state politicians.

Sarah Manavis also ponders the grip of Covid Derangement Syndrome.

How can anyone learn of Australia’s policy and not believe in the reality of Covid Derangement Syndrome? Here’s a slice from an essay by Annabel Fenwick Elliott, who may never again see her father:

It is quite possible that I will never see my father or siblings again. That’s the logic behind Australia’s ongoing Covid policy, the country in which they live. Even if both he, my brother, sister, and I, are all fully vaccinated. Even though we therefore pose close to a zero risk of spreading the virus.

“If the whole country were vaccinated, you couldn’t just open the borders,” said Australia’s health minister Greg Hunt last week, dashing any hope that international travel will recommence this year, as was previously indicated. “Australia is in no hurry to open those borders, I can assure you”, its prime minister Scott Morrison confirmed yesterday.

The Australian government has also backed away from its promise to have its entire population inoculated by October. Due to inevitable supply issues, it looks like this won’t happen until 2022. Even then, it won’t allow vaccinated foreigners to visit. Even its own citizens, some 40,000 of whom are still stranded abroad, even if they’ve had the jab too.

Thing is, this is infinitely more ridiculous than banning all cars everywhere lest anyone die in a crash. It is drastically more insane than forbidding families from hugging come next flu season, even if they’ve all had the flu jab. It is further horrifying proof that democratic leaders are in no rush to release this North Korea-esque grip on their own people: No-one in. No-one out. No questions. Just obey.

Amidst all this bad news about Covid Derangement Syndrome, let’s hope that Jeffrey Tucker is correct that the lockdown paradigm is collapsing.

Phil Magness understandably wonders “how many people caught covid because Fauci disrupted the vaccine supply chain for over a week in order to put a warning sticker about an extremely rare complication on the J&J box…”

(Don Boudreaux)

Tweet

… is from page 325 of Richard Epstein’s great 1995 book, Simple Rules for a Complex World:

No one can expect miracles from a system of limited government – but the smaller the size of the government and the more disinterested its administration of the laws, the more likely it is that diverse communities can thrive under its rule. Communitarian values, rightly understood, are best served by small governments, not large ones.

DBx: It’s worth pointing out that nor should anyone expect miracles from a system of unlimited, or “Progressive,” government. Yet the belief in such miracles is a staple among the crowd that is so oddly insistent on applauding itself as grounded in reality and attuned to “the science.”

“Progressives” are self-unaware in their belief in miracles.

(Don Boudreaux)

Tweet

In my latest column for AIER, I argue against ad hominem argumentation. A slice:

An even weaker argument against the Great Barrington Declaration is the observation that some people associated with AIER say, write, or tweet some things that other people find to be beyond the pale.

I don’t wish here to assess, and much less to defend, everything ever said or written by everyone affiliated with AIER. Undoubtedly, were I to survey it all I’d find much with which I disagree. But the same is true for every organization under the moon and stars.

Of relevance here is the irrelevance to the merits of the Great Barrington Declaration of what AIER associates Mr. X and Ms. Y said or tweeted.

Had the Great Barrington Declaration been penned by individuals known chiefly for their membership in the Libertarian Party, by Fox News interns, or by Miss Grundy’s sixth graders as a class project, dismissing it merely by pointing to the identities and affiliations of its authors would be acceptable. But this Declaration is co-authored by world-renowned scientists, each of whom is expert in the public-health challenges presented by Covid-19. Furthermore, this Declaration has been endorsed by a large number of other credible scientists. Under these circumstances, ad hominem dismissals of the Declaration simply carry no credibility.

Substantively criticizing parts or the whole of the Great Barrington Declaration is legitimate. Indeed, such criticism is welcome; it’s part of the scientific process. But in far too many cases people dismiss the Declaration with nothing more than ad hominem assertions and attempts to establish guilt by association. The conclusion that I draw from these sorts of dismissals is that those who offer them actually have no substantive criticism of the Declaration. After all, because substantive criticisms would carry more weight even with Miss Grundy’s sixth graders, anyone with such criticisms to offer would present them front and center rather than resort to ad hominem argumentation.

The greatest compliment paid to the Great Barrington Declaration, therefore, is one wholly unintended: Many of its staunchest opponents offer against it nothing beyond ad hominemattacks and accusations of guilt by association. This Declaration must indeed be powerful!

…..

George Leef e-mailed to alert me to a potential confusion in my remarks above regarding members of the LP and sixth graders. I ought to have been more careful in my wording.

Ultimately, the only legitimate argument against any claim (or set of claims, such as the Great Barrington Declaration) is an argument that goes to the substance of the claim. No claim has its legitimacy established or debunked merely by pointing to the identity of those who put forth the claim. But the identity of those who put forth the claim is nevertheless an important source of information about whether or not it’s worthwhile to spend scarce time considering the claim.

A Declaration on how to deal with Covid-19 put forth by Miss Grundy’s sixth graders is so likely to be mistaken or vacuous as to justify a refusal to spend scarce time considering it and debunking it (if it is indeed mistaken or vacuous). But a Declaration written by eminent scholars such as Profs. Bhattacharya, Gupta, and Kulldorff cannot and ought not be dismissed so easily. Grappling with the substance of what they offer is necessary.

(Don Boudreaux)

Tweet

… is from page 86 of the Second Edition (1999) of R.W. Grant’s The Incredible Bread Machine:

Only upon the premise of individualism can a free society be built. In fact, individualism was the implicit philosophical principle underlying the American concept of government as servant rather than master. The real significance of the American Revolution lay not in a military triumph (for other nations have won independence only to lapse back into tyranny), but in the partial triumph of the philosophy of individualism.

DBx: Today is the 246th anniversary of “the shot heard ’round the world” – the start in earnest of the American Revolution. I fear that the liberalism, however imperfectly it was practiced, that motivated the American revolutionaries’ cause is now in its death throes.

By the way, I cannot recommend highly enough Rick Atkinson’s 2019 volume, The British Are Coming.

(Don Boudreaux)

Tweet

Andrew Gutmann explains – in this brilliant letter shared by Bari Weiss – why he’s pulling his daughter from one of New York City’s elite private schools. A slice:

I object to a definition of systemic racism, apparently supported by Brearley, that any educational, professional, or societal outcome where Blacks are underrepresented is prima facie evidence of the aforementioned systemic racism, or of white supremacy and oppression. Facile and unsupported beliefs such as these are the polar opposite to the intellectual and scientific truth for which Brearley claims to stand. Furthermore, I call bullshit on Brearley’s oft-stated assertion that the school welcomes and encourages the truly difficult and uncomfortable conversations regarding race and the roots of racial discrepancies.

I object to the idea that Blacks are unable to succeed in this country without aid from government or from whites. Brearley, by adopting critical race theory, is advocating the abhorrent viewpoint that Blacks should forever be regarded as helpless victims, and are incapable of success regardless of their skills, talents, or hard work. What Brearley is teaching our children is precisely the true and correct definition of racism.

I object to mandatory anti-racism training for parents, especially when presented by the rent-seeking charlatans of Pollyanna. These sessions, in both their content and delivery, are so sophomoric and simplistic, so unsophisticated and inane, that I would be embarrassed if they were taught to Brearley kindergarteners. They are an insult to parents and unbecoming of any educational institution, let alone one of Brearley’s caliber.

Also shared by Bari Weiss is this powerful essay by Paul Rossi, a teacher at Manhattan’s Grace Church High School. A slice:

Every student at the school must also sign a “Student Life Agreement,” which requires them to aver that “the world as we understand it can be hard and extremely biased,” that they commit to “recognize and acknowledge their biases when we come to school, and interrupt those biases,” and accept that they will be “held accountable should they fall short of the agreement.” A recent faculty email chain received enthusiastic support for recommending that we “‘officially’ flag students” who appear “resistant” to the “culture we are trying to establish.”

When I questioned what form this resistance takes, examples presented by a colleague included “persisting with a colorblind ideology,” “suggesting that we treat everyone with respect,” “a belief in meritocracy,” and “just silence.” In a special assembly in February 2019, our head of school said that the impact of words and images perceived as racist — regardless of intent — is akin to “using a gun or a knife to kill or injure someone.”

Imagine being a young person in this environment. Would you risk voicing your doubts, especially if you had never heard a single teacher question it?

While I disagree with some of what Georgetown University law professor Lama Abu Odeh writes here, much of it is correct and important. A slice:

The progressoriat are unable to talk about their impending demise because they have already used their own institutional power over decades to drive away conservatives. They turned their academic institution into a partisan echo chamber. Residing in an echo chamber only increases your moral certitude. Now they are being given a taste of their own brutal medicine. Meantime, the new elite is acting ruthlessly and impatiently and is only happy with declarations of complete submission. Any sign of hesitation on the part of a signatory—”Maybe we should talk about free speech too?”—is met with expressions of exasperation by the all-powerful members of the victim minority faculty. No hesitation or nuance is allowed: nothing but unequivocal loyalty oaths. The progressoriat can only repeat, “I believe in the cause. I believe. I believe. Believe me I believe.”

If this echoes a Maoist take-over, that’s because it is. It passes the sniff test.

John Cochrane writes a letter to Janet Yellen.

Also from John Cochrane is this post on inflation expectations.

Pierre Lemieux reports on Hitler’s version of MMT.

GMU Econ alum Alex Salter, writing in the Wall Street Journal, explains that “Keynesians have it backward: Growth is driven by production, not consumption.” Another slice:

Mr. Biden’s plan also largely directs resources away from uses that would increase productivity. Improvements in roads and bridges may boost how much companies can produce, and hence growth, by making it easier to move labor and goods across the nation. But that’s a minority of the bill’s spending; other expenditures will have the opposite effect. Take the proposal to invest in expanding clean energy and electric-vehicle charging stations. This is a rather elastic interpretation of infrastructure, and a wealth-wasting one besides.

The government is not good at picking investments. President Obama promised smart green projects. What we got was the Solyndra debacle, which consumed hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars while producing little of value. Those dollars are resources that could have been invested elsewhere. What Mr. Biden proposes amounts to a great many Solyndras. That’s an enormous amount of productive capital to squander.

In affirming his support for the protectionist Jones Act, Joe Biden polishes his Trumpian credentials as he harms the environment about which he, apparently falsely, claims to care.

Here’s David Henderson on Canadian banking compared to U.S. banking.

Peter Earle predicts the demise of woke capital.