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Some Covid Links

Posted: 01 Aug 2021 02:56 AM PDT
[link removed]

(Don Boudreaux)




Tweet
The Wall Street Journals Editorial Board is understandably critical of the
CDCs incompetent and inappropriate fear-fueling messaging on masks and
vaccinations. A slice:

Instead, the CDC on Tuesday issued murky new guidance, without backup
evidence, recommending that vaccinated people resume wearing masks indoors
in some cases because unpublished studies suggest they could transmit the
virus. But on Thursday the Washington Post ran an alarmist story on an
internal CDC slide presentation with the unpublished evidence, which
triggered a media panic that could undermine vaccinations. Only on Friday
afternoon did the agency release some of its evidence and offer a calmer
explanation.

What a fiasco. The CDC should be a source of fact and reason, not a
hair-on-fire spreader of fear. The agency could start by explaining that
Covid cases have been increasing across the U.S. and that more vaccinated
individuals are testing positive. But most of these “breakthrough” cases
are mild or asymptomatic.

Sheldon Richman decries the transformation of the science into religion.
Two slices:

The popular slogan today is “Believe in science.” It’s often used as a
weapon against people who reject not science in principle but rather one or
another prominent scientific proposition, whether it be about the COVID-19
vaccine, climate change, nutrition (low-fat versus low-carb eating), to
mention a few. My purpose here is not to defend or deny any particular
scientific position but to question the model of science that the loudest
self-declared believers in science seem to work from. Their model makes
science seem almost identical to what they mean by, and attack as,
religion. If that’s the case, we ought not to listen to them when they
lecture the rest of us about heeding science.

The clearest problem with the admonition to “believe in science” is that it
is of no help whatsoever when well-credentialed scientists–that is, bona
fide experts–are found on both (or all) sides of a given empirical
question. Dominant parts of the intelligentsia may prefer we not know this,
but dissenting experts exist on many scientific questions that some
blithely pronounce as “settled” by a “consensus,” that is, beyond debate.
This is true regarding the precise nature and likely consequences of
climate change and aspects of the coronavirus and its vaccine. Without real
evidence, credentialed mavericks are often maligned as having been
corrupted by industry, with the tacit faith that scientists who voice the
established position are pure and incorruptible. It’s as though the quest
for government money could not in themselves bias scientific research.
Moreover, no one, not even scientists, are immune from group-think and
confirmation bias.

..

Public policy is about moral judgment, trade-offs, and the justifiable use
of coercion. Natural scientists are neither uniquely knowledgeable about
those matters nor uniquely capable of making the right decisions for
everyone. When medical scientists advised a lockdown of economic activity
because of the pandemic, they were not speaking as scientists but as
moralists (in scientists’ clothing). What are their special qualifications
for that role? How could those scientists possibly have taken into account
all of the serious consequences of a lockdown–psychological, domestic,
social, economic, etc.–for the diverse individual human beings who would be
subject to the policy? What qualifies natural scientists to decide that
people who need screening for cancer or heart disease must wait
indefinitely while people with an officially designated disease need not?
(Politicians issue the formal prohibitions, but their scientific advisers
provide apparent credibility.)

..

Most people are unqualified to judge most scientific conclusions, but they
are qualified to live their lives reasonably. I’m highly confident the
earth is a sphere and that a water molecule is two parts hydrogen and one
part oxygen. But I do not know how to confirm those propositions. So we all
need to rely on scientific and medical authorities–not in the sense of
power but in the sense of expertise and reputation. (Even authorities in
one area rely on authorities in others.)

But we must also remember that those authorities’ empirical claims are
defeasible; that is, they are in principle open to rebuttal and perhaps
refutation, that is, the scientific process. Aside from the indispensable
and self-validating axioms of logic, all claims are open in this sense.
That process is what gets us to the truth. As John Stuart Mill pointed out
in On Liberty, even a dissenter who holds a demonstrably wrong view on a
question might know something important on that very question that has been
overlooked. To our peril do we shut people up or shout them down as
heretics. That’s dogma, not science.

Under the headline Left-wing scientists are far from omniscient, Freddie
Sayers wisely warns of be duped by scientists such as Neil Ferguson. A
slice:

One thing these characters will not do post-pandemic, however much we might
wish it, is pack their bags and slope off back to their university seminars
and academic journals. I don’t think it is impugning their integrity to
suggest that they have enjoyed their new-found power — who wouldn’t? It is
against human nature to relinquish influence once you have it. So keep that
slot open on Question Time: the voice of science in the public debate is
likely to be a constant feature from now on. On a whole raft of issues —
from obesity and alcohol to climate change — scientists will be organised
and visibly pursuing their agenda on the airwaves.

In part this is the result of a long-term move towards interdisciplinary
academic fields that cross over into politics. “Public Health”, for
example, which has provided some of the most visible commentators on Covid,
is the science of how best to organise society to achieve the best overall
health outcomes — it is therefore collectivist by design.

Martin Kulldorff:

When @gbeclaration [the Great Barrington Declaration] advocated focused
protection of older high-risk people, lockdowners pulled a fast one,
falsely claiming it was a let-it-rip strategy. Sadly ignorant about public
health, they could only imagine lockdowns or nothing.

Also from Martin Kulldorff:

Lets start with zero Lockdown. Will improve health more than any other zero
X.

Heres Pierre Lemieux on Covid-19 and the inefficiencies of coercion by the
state.

Robby Soave reveals yet another instance of the Covidocracys hypocrisy and
appalling theatrics. A slice:

Whether or not [DC mayor Muriel] Bowser deliberately delayed the mask
mandate until a few hours after her [birthday] party had wrapped up, this
is bad behavior from a public official. There are a great many vaccinated
people in D.C. who would like to celebrate their birthdays this month
(disclaimer: Im one of them), but if they party in public, in many
circumstances they will need to wear masks to comply with the mayors
decree. No, this isnt the greatest burden in the world—but it is a needless
burden. Despite the recent paranoia about the delta strain of COVID-19, the
vaccines are holding up remarkably well at preventing severe disease and
death.

Throughout the pandemic, politicians and bureaucrats have asked the
citizens to make tremendous sacrifices. But time and time again, they have
shown us that they are not willing to do the same. The people are expected
to mask up and stay six feet apart, but our government leaders? Well, you
only turn 49 once.

The German newspaper Bild apologizes for being complicit in inflicting harm
over the past 16 months on children.

To enforce its deranged Covid restrictions, the government of New South
Wales is now using the Australian military. Behold the logic and the
authoritarianism:

With little sign that of restrictions reducing infections, [New South Wales
premier Gladys] Berejiklian said new curbs would be imposed on the
southwestern and western areas of Sydney where the majority of COVID-19
cases are being found.

Residents there will be forced to wear masks outdoors and to stay within
five km (three miles) of their homes.

With even tighter restrictions set to begin on Friday, New South Wales
Police said it had asked for 300 military personnel to help enforce
lockdown orders.

Michael Fumento reports on a country thats very, very different from
dystopian Australia: Sweden.




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Quotation of the Day

Posted: 01 Aug 2021 01:30 AM PDT
[link removed]

(Don Boudreaux)




Tweet
is from page 223 of Thomas Sowell’s important 1981 book, Ethnic America: A
History (footnote deleted; link added):

Black teenage unemployment in 1978 was more than five times what it had
been thirty years earlier. Among the factors responsible, a number of
government programs notably the minimum wage laws have made it more
difficult for blacks to find jobs, and other government programs notably
welfare have made it less necessary.

DBx: The footnote deleted from this quotation is to the linked report,
titled Youth and Minority Unemployment, and written in 1977 for the Joint
Economic Committee by my late, great colleague Walter Williams.




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Some Non-Covid Links

Posted: 31 Jul 2021 01:32 PM PDT
[link removed]

(Don Boudreaux)




Tweet
George Will rightly decries the pursuit of equity over equality. A slice:

Harlan’s Plessy dissent reflects modernity’s break with pre-modern
politics. This break has had three components: Treating citizens as
individuals rather than as members of collectivities (guilds, classes,
etc.). Guaranteeing the equal rights of citizens in, and against, the
state. And equal opportunity — all careers open to talents.

Art Carden reveals more of the marvels of free markets. A slice:

Over the last few weeks, my kids and I have been watching a series called
Made in a Day on Disney+. It’s a “how-it’s-made” program that dives into
how, for example, Jack Daniel’s makes whiskey and how McIlhenny makes
Tabasco sauce. Programs like these illustrate how it’s not just “whiskey,”
and it’s not just “hot sauce.” According to the program, Jack Daniel’s uses
a mix of corn from Alabama, barley from Montana, rye from Canada, yeast
from Tennessee, and water from a nearby limestone cave. They don’t use just
any corn, either: they use #1-grade corn. McIlhenny contracts with farmers
around the world to grow a specific kind of chile. They use vinegar from
Alabama. They started using their distinctive bottles when the founder was
able to obtain overproduced cologne bottles that would dispense the sauce a
drop or two at a time. Both companies age their products for years before
they are bottled and shipped, and they are scrupulous about quality
control. If they weren’t, their fickle and ruthless customers would punish
them by taking their business elsewhere.

Bryan Caplan is impressed with a new essay by Richard Hanania.

Phil Magness reviews Elizabeth Cattes new book on eugenics.

Bruce Yandle sensibly asks: Are Google, Facebook, and Amazon so good at
what they do that we must get rid of them? A slice:

If a firm offers goods and services that consumers voluntarily consider to
be superior, as based on their patronage, and if in so doing they provide
the same consumers with lower or no higher costs, and if that means that
the former suppliers now shunned by consumers are struggling and therefore
the count of competitors is falling, how can one argue that consumers are
being harmed?

Liz Wolfe warns against cheering on Beijings crackdown on oppression of Big
Tech.

Heres how the Editorial Board of the Wall Street Journal opens a recent
editorial:

Americans may be richer than they think and less unequal than they’ve been
led to believe. That’s the takeaway from a recent working paper by five
economists from the University of Wisconsin and the Federal Reserve, which
adds to standard wealth measures by including Social Security and pension
guarantees.

Scott Lincicome reports that Biden rejects open trade at a factory that
depends upon open trade. A slice:

As I explain in a new working paper on U.S. industrial policy (and as Cato
scholars have explained for decades), “Buy American” rules are just another
form of protectionism: they’ve been found, for example, to act as a barrier
to entering the U.S. market and to raise domestic prices in the same way
that a tariff does. Special provisions in the rules, moreover, make them
a particularly‐​generous handout for the U.S. steel industry (to steel
consumers’ clear detriment). The restrictions also encourage foreign
retaliation against U.S. exporters, and, far from improving federal
projects, routinely confound them (via higher prices, more paperwork,
project delays, etc.). Indeed, according to one recent (and quite relevant
for today’s purposes) study, “Buy American” restrictions tied to federal
transportation subsidies raised the price of domestically‐​produced transit
buses and discouraged the purchase of more efficient foreign‐​made buses,
thus lowering the quality and use of public transit (frequency and
coverage), increasing traffic congestion, and harming the environment.




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