Cafe HayekCafe Hayek - where orders emerge - Article Feed

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Some Non-Covid Links

Posted: 15 Dec 2021 08:33 AM PST
[link removed]

(Don Boudreaux)




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Mike Munger writes with good sense, in the Wall Street Journal, about
inflation and Bidens Build Back Better beast.

Whatever you think of Congress’s bipartisan infrastructure initiative, its
timing is unfortunate. It will be sharply expansionary on the fiscal front,
with new demands on labor markets straining to find workers. All that cash
from Fed monetary expansion is out there ready to be spent. Mr. Biden’s
Build Back Better plan would make these problems worse by injecting
trillions into the economy.

Things aren’t yet so bad that a plan can’t make them worse. In a recent
paper for the Law and Economics Center at George Mason University, I
evaluated one policy for managing prices—a top-down approach directed from
Washington. I found that such plans are thwarted by information problems
(officials don’t know enough to direct resources or decide prices) and
incentive problems (the power to decide which prices will be allowed to
increase, and which will be held down, will be corrupted by politics).

We’re already stuck with supply-chain bottlenecks and too much cash. A
government price plan can only make things worse. Ain’t that a punch in the
mouth?

Also writing on Build Back Better is George Will. Two slices:

It is a sow’s ear made from the silk purse of his election, which was the
nation’s plea for temperateness. The everything-including-the-kitchen-sink
process that has produced BBB has completed the collapse of Biden’s
credibility, and his party’s. The process has resembled Winston Churchill’s
description of an intragovernmental negotiation: Britain’s Admiralty
favored building six battleships, and the economists favored four, so they
compromised on eight.

BBB treats all Democratic constituencies like baby birds with their beaks
wide open. Including journalists: There is a $1.7 billion payroll tax
credit of up to $25,000 for each local journalist an organization employs
in the first year and $15,000 for the next four — with the usual
make-believe that this dependency of media on government will then end. The
media will always proclaim their independence, but progressives’ politics
is always about multiplying dependent constituencies.

The promise of no tax increase for the 98.2 percent of Americans earning
less than $400,000 came with an unarticulated caveat and an invisible
asterisk. It meant no “direct” increases: Employees, shareholders and
customers of corporations will pay all corporate tax increases.

Congressional Democrats’ bookkeeping trickery — pretending to assume the
quick expiration of entitlement programs that they say are moral
imperatives forever — misstates by almost $3 trillion what Democrats
actually hope to make BBB cost over a decade. BBB would add entitlements to
Medicare while the 2021 Medicare Trustees Report announces that the
Hospital Insurance Trust Fund will be insolvent by 2026.

..

Biden’s banal response to rising gasoline prices has included directing the
Federal Trade Commission to investigate “anti-consumer behavior” by oil
companies and ordering 50 million barrels — less than Americans use every
three days — released from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. His
indifference to his cognitive dissonance is hilarious: He says fossil fuels
are an “existential” threat to the planet, and please, OPEC, pump more,
quickly, because cranky U.S. drivers are an existential threat to something
even more important than the planet: Democratic control of Congress.

4 Years After the FCC Repealed Net Neutrality, the Internet Is Better Than
Ever so reads a headline on a new report by Robby Soave.

James Pethokoukis reports on interesting research into Americas
entrepreneurial ecosystem.

Inu Manak and Alfredo Carrillo Obregon report some good news: 67 WTO
members agree to cut red tape in global services trade. A slice:

The benefits of this agreement could be significant. A recent joint study
by the Organisation for Economic Co‐​operation and Development (OECD) and
the WTO estimates that the annual savings in costs to services trade would
be approximately $150 billion USD. Breaking this down between participants
and non‐​participants shows that the potential cost savings to the deal’s
signatories would be around $135 billion, while non‐​signatories would
still see a $17 billion reduction in costs. The study goes on to say that
“Substantial benefits accrue in a number of sectors, including financial
services sector with USD 47 billion, business services with USD 36 billion,
as well as communications and transport services, with both around USD 20
billion.” This is a win‐​win.

Several scholars assess Randy Barnetts and Evan Bernicks new book, The
Original Meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment.

An Austrian Crown Prince once got advice from Carl Menger. A slice:

What Menger conveyed to Rudolf was both the place and the limits of the
state within the society over which he would one day rule. That is, Menger
emphasized the broad institutional order in the context of which the
ruler’s subjects were to be allowed to act on their own behalves,
respectively, out of which general economic and social improvement becomes
possible. As Menger said, “Given the complexities of the social
circumstances, only the individual’s (sic) themselves can judge correctly
the relative importance of their needs.” The government could never know
what was good for the individual better than the individual himself.

Bryan Caplan shares penetrating insights from the philosopher Christoper
Freiman.

AIERs new president is Will Ruger. Congrats Will and AIER!




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"Kinds of Order in Society" Part II

Posted: 15 Dec 2021 06:29 AM PST
[link removed]

(Don Boudreaux)




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My latest column for AIER is the second of a two-part series on F.A. Hayeks
insightful 1964 New Individualist Review paper, Kinds of Order in Society.
A slice from my column:

But the distinguishing feature of an organization is not found in the kinds
of goals (such as profit) that it is consciously established to pursue.
Rather, the distinguishing feature of an organization is simply that it is
consciously designed and established to pursue some particular goal or
goals, whatever it or these might be. And so the actions of every person in
an organization can and will be judged by how well those actions contribute
to the achievement of the organization’s goals.
Spontaneous Orders

Spontaneous orders differ categorically from organizations. Spontaneous
orders, like organizations, are highly useful to individuals. But unlike
organizations, spontaneous orders are not designed and created. They emerge
as unintended consequences of the actions of persons, each of whom is
pursuing his or her own individual goals with no awareness that those
actions will give rise to a larger order. While a spontaneous order assists
each individual in the pursuit of his or her goals, such an order, unlike
an organization, itself has no goal towards which it aims. And because a
spontaneous order as such has no goals, the actions of the individuals
whose choices give rise to the spontaneous order cannot be judged by how
well or poorly they promote the goal of the spontaneous order – for, again,
the spontaneous order has no goals.

The most obvious example of a useful spontaneous order is language.
Language is clearly (to use a phrase much-favored by Hayek) the result of
human action but not of human design. Languages emerged from human beings
attempting to communicate with each other. Yet no one consciously decided
what specific words and sounds refer to, or mean, in any language. The word
“chair” emerged over time to mean the particular thing that it today means
to those who speak English.

Being undesigned, it follows that language was not designed to serve any
purpose or to achieve some particular goal. It would be silly to talk about
the goal of the English language or of the Korean language. And yet
language does indeed enable each of us as individuals to better pursue our
own goals. The shopper uses language to explain to the store clerk just
what items he wishes to buy, and the store clerk, at the end of her work
day, uses language to inform the cab driver of her destination. But the
shopper and the store clerk, by using the same language, are not together
acting to achieve some higher goal. Further, it would be mistaken to
describe language as having among its goals the service of the shopper and
of the store clerk.

Another example of a spontaneous order is the global market. No one
designed today’s division of labor – with some of us working as plumbers,
others of us as web designers, yet others of us as butchers, brewers,
bakers, or baseball players. And no one designed the indescribably complex
pattern of exchange relationships that enables each of us to enjoy the
fabulous prosperity that each of us enjoys. And yet these phenomena are
real. They are the result of human action but not of human design. The
market, like language, provides enormous assistance to each of us as we
each pursue our own individual goals. But the market, also like language,
has no overarching goal toward which it aims.




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Some Covid Links

Posted: 15 Dec 2021 05:31 AM PST
[link removed]

(Don Boudreaux)




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Wall Street Journal columnist Holman Jenkins continues to be dismayed by
how poorly informed many people are about Covid-19. Two slices:

Unfortunately, the picture sold to the public continues to be badly
distorted, with consequences that someday will have to be honestly
assessed. While the U.S. government now quietly estimates that 146 million
Americans had been infected with Covid as of Oct. 2, media outlets are
currently trumpeting America’s 50 millionth “confirmed” case as the latest
milestone. This cockamamie measure can only appeal to editors because it
makes it sound like the virus can still be stopped before it reaches most
people.

Its bastard offspring, the case fatality rate, also continues to pop up in
the media, with Bloomberg News last week bizarrely trying to outdo China’s
Covid chief by forcing on its readers a claim that “the global death rate
stands at over 1.9%.”

This needlessly terrorizing estimate is biased twice over, because it
ignores infected people who aren’t tested, and because those who seek
testing tend to be the sickest and oldest. Oxford University’s Our World in
Data, perhaps because its website is frequently consulted by media types,
takes pains for the especially thick of head: “There is a straightforward
question that most people would like answered. If someone is infected with
COVID-19, how likely is that person to die? The key point is that the case
fatality rate (CFR)—the most commonly discussed measure—is not the answer
to the question.”

..

What also remains discouraging is the public sector’s perhaps unavoidable
but never-ending policy chaos. From the virus’s arrival on our shores,
politicians decided it wouldn’t be good for their careers to be seen
conceding that it would eventually infect most of the population, even
though all understood perfectly well (don’t kid yourself about Dr. Fauci
and company) that it was almost inevitable.

A large and continuing exercise in hand waving has been needed to pretend
that we were striving to suppress case numbers indiscriminately, though no
evidence has suggested that such suppression is achievable except in the
very short term at an unsustainable cost.

Vinay Prasad: I think it is clear: many pandemic experts hurt children. A
slice:

The experts in the USA pushed this issue further. Against the advice of the
World Health Organization and UNICEF, our expert bodies (AAP & CDC)
advocated for cloth masking (an ineffective mask per Bangladesh RCT) in
kids as young as 2. This decision defied all pre-pandemic guidance, all
available evidence, and basic common sense. To date, this recommendation
continues, and this policy has led to mandatory masking of toddlers in many
daycare settings for hours on end.

Reasons Robby Soave pleads with government schools to stop threatening
unvaccinated kids. Two slices:

But the mere fact that punishing thousands of teenagers for not being
vaccinated was even on the table is disconcerting. Indeed, throughout the
pandemic, the enforcers of COVID-19 restrictions have had few qualms about
making children miserable—even though the under-18 crowd has little to fear
from the disease. Young people are the cohort safest from COVID-19, whether
or not they are vaccinated; vaccinated seniors are at significantly greater
risk than unvaccinated teenagers. Despite this reality, children and
teenagers in the U.S. face the most stringent and brutally uncompromising
pandemic prevention policies of all, especially at public schools.

..

Its one thing to encourage teenagers to get vaccinated: Its quite another
to threaten them with further setbacks to their social lives and
educational careers if they do not comply. Healthy young people have very
little to fear from COVID-19, but two years of social isolation, school
closures, and virtual learning are undoubtedly having a profoundly negative
effect. Elementary and middle school test scores—particularly among
minority students—are plummeting; and according to the surgeon general,
more young people are experiencing depressive episodes than ever before.

Also from Robby Soave:

Despite no new public information that would suggest there is anything
novel to fear from the omicron variant of COVID-19—which seems to be
producing mild cases in vaccinated individuals—many municipalities are
regressing into full-blown panic and reimposing mitigation measures. Case
in point: Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom reinstated Californias mask mandate,
beginning December 15 and lasting until January 15.

Jon Sanders decries Covidocratic tyranny. Two slices:

Government leaders have tipped their hands. Covid-19 has given them access
to powers that they are loath to lose. Alarmingly, people in the world’s
freest societies (using the prepandemic 2019 “Freedom in the World” report
by Freedom House) — notably in North America, Europe, Australia, New
Zealand — have allowed totalitarian restrictions so long as they were
euphemized as safety measures. Without the gloss, they include house
arrest, dehumanizing dress codes, movement papers for work, shopping, and
travel, and apartheid.

..

Just the knowledge of the Omicron variant prompted the European Commission
to urge for the European Union to impose mandatory vaccination. Many
European nations have announced new crackdowns on the unvaccinated, from
lockdowns to fines, excused by fears of the Omicron variant.

The free press, a quaint term in the U.S. that now applies to organizations
openly promoting a police state, welcomes these developments. A recent CNN
headline declared “Making Covid-19 vaccines mandatory was once unthinkable.
But European countries are showing it can work.” Which is like saying China
is showing that making human-rights activists “disappear” can work to bring
about near-universal acclamation for communism. It’s amazing what “can
work” when a government can erase your livelihood if you don’t comply.

Alexander Adams will resist Covidocratic tyranny.

Aaron Kheriaty applauds Japans humane policy on Covid vaccination and he
criticizes the inhumane policies of other governments, including many of
those in the United States.

el gato malo is appalled that some people are now urging the continued
wearing of masks and practicing of social distancing as means of ensuring
the effectiveness of vaccines.

Jon Miltimore reports on more studies that find that lockdowns do little or
nothing to save lives.

Heres insight from the Telegraphs Kate Andrews. A slice:

Plan B supporters will be quick to say that the Government didn’t have a
week to wait it out. With the Omicron variant estimated to be doubling
every two to three days, action needed to be taken immediately. These are
clashes that are bound to arise but made more difficult to weigh up when no
formal assessment has been done.

Made more difficult, too, by Johnson’s decision to usher in rules such as
vaccine passports that have no proven track-record of success. Scotland’s
experiment with showing your health status to access parts of public life
didn’t stop the spread of the virus. It did, however, create more burdens
on business and rules for consumers.

The return of restrictions – and Johnson’s refusal to rule out more – does
not bode well for future economic recovery. But treating the economy as an
after-thought is making the situation far worse.

And the Telegraphs Allison Pearson applauds those Tory MPs who voted
against vaccine passports. Two slices:

Please don’t call the MPs who voted against vaccine passports ‘Tory
rebels’. In my book, those upstanding men and women are the true
Conservatives. Rather, it is those who pushed through this repellently
un-British measure, with the help of the Labour Party, who are the traitors
to our philosophy.

That stirring creed of liberty that trusts grown-ups to make the best
decisions for their own families and does not seek to ostracise people for
refusing to provide proof of a medical treatment to go to the theatre or
the footie. All I can say is, thank God there are people in Parliament who
are prepared to take arms against this sea of senselessness, this tsunami
of pseudo-scientific scaremongering.

From head boy of the old school, Sir Graham Brady, to 28-year-old blonde
bombshell of the Red Wall Dehenna Davison, via former Royal Air Force
engineer Steve Baker (more sense than the entire Cabinet combined) through
that lioness Esther McVey, keenly compassionate Sir Charles Walker and
Miriam Cates (both rightly devastated by the collateral damage of lockdown)
to fearless, principled Nus Ghani and the swashbuckling Sir Desmond Swayne…
These are my heroes – and all the rest who dug in their heels on the
slippery slope to authoritarianism.

..

Last night, I went to London for dinner. Was I worried about omicron
swarming through the capital? No, I was worried about the freedom to make
my own risk assessment being taken away. I was worried that my children’s
hopeful young adult lives are about to be blighted again after a reader,
friendly with the wife of a boffin who sits on Sage, emailed to warn me
that lockdown is “pencilled in for January 5”, once we get through “this
politically sensitive period”. (How unbearably grim if so.)

I was fretting that yet more children would be murdered or abused in their
homes during the Work From Home order. I have been heart-flutteringly,
not-sleeping anxious that we would see a repeat of this time last year,
with that deadening sadness millions of us experienced when we knew for
sure that we would not be reunited with mothers, fathers, grandparents,
children and siblings. The season of Ho! Ho! Ho! turns into Oh No! NO!,
should hospitals happen to run short of beds. Is this perpetual, sickening
uncertainty really how it’s going to be every winter – the Ghost of
Christmas Lost rattling its lonely chains?

The pandemicists must be stopped. A slice:

No realistic public health goal underpins this diagnostic mania, of course.
People who test positive for Corona are sent home to suffer in untreated
silence by themselves. Endlessly testing, tracing, sequencing, panicking
and closing is, however, a goal in itself for people like Emily Gurley and
all the other pandemicists [Emily] Anthes gleefully quotes, from Eric Topol
to Trevor Bedford to Ezekiel J. Emanuel. All of them want the Corona Circus
to play on, and after it ends they hope for a sequel sometime soon. Never
before have they enjoyed such personal and professional prominence.

Jay Bhattacharya tweets:

Depression has many causes. The lockdowns, by promoting loneliness,
isolation, and fear, have intensified those causes, harming the lives of so
many.




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Quotation of the Day

Posted: 15 Dec 2021 01:30 AM PST
[link removed]

(Don Boudreaux)




Tweet
is from page 365 of my late, great GMU colleague Gordon Tullock’s 1983
book, Economics of Income Redistribution, as this book is reprinted in The
Economics and Politics of Wealth Redistribution (volume 7 of The Selected
Works of Gordon Tullock, Charles K. Rowley, ed. [2005]):

I have already expressed my views that [government aid to] higher education
is a highly regressive scheme for transferring funds from the people who
are less well-off to those who are well-off. The only advantage I can think
of this from a social standpoint is that it pays my salary. I doubt,
however, that anything will be done about it, since the beneficiaries are,
politically, extremely influential and, in fact, control all the
communication channels, so the people who are injured by it will probably
never find out they are injured.




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More Panic Porn Reporting

Posted: 14 Dec 2021 08:25 AM PST
[link removed]

(Don Boudreaux)




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Here’s a letter to the Los Angeles Times:

Editor:

You should be ashamed of this utterly misleading headline: “Young Latinos
are dying of COVID at an alarming rate the effects could be felt for
generations” (Dec. 9). And you should be embarrassed by the accompanying
“report.”

Given this headline, we readers expect to encounter information on just
what this “alarming rate” is. Yet reading your report dashes this
expectation. We do learn that in California “Latinos ages 20 to 54 have
died from COVID-19 at a rate more than eight times higher than white people
in the same age group,” but this fact tells us nothing about the actual
rate at which “young Latinos” – curiously, by the way, defined to include
people in their mid-50s – are dying from Covid.

Had reporter Alejandra Reyes-Velarde read the paper to which she links as
the source of her information, she would have learned that the total number
of all Californians ages 20 to 54 who died of Covid during the time studied
by the paper’s authors – February 1, 2020, through July 31, 2020 – is 1,131
(which is 11.1 percent of all Covid deaths in CA during that time period).
She’d have learned also that Hispanics accounted for 48.2 percent of all
Covid deaths in that state. Assuming that this same death rate holds for
the age group 20-54, the number of Hispanics of this age who died of Covid
in CA is 545.

There are approximately 20 million Californians aged 20-54. With
California’s population being 32.2 percent Hispanic, there are thus
approximately 6,440,000 Hispanics of this age in California. Covid
therefore killed in California, during the time period reported on by Ms.
Reyes-Velarde, 545 out of the 6,440,000 Hispanics aged 20-54 – or 0.0085
percent of this group.

And so while in reality this death rate isn’t remotely “alarming,” the poor
quality of your reporting certainly is.

Sincerely,

Donald J. Boudreaux

Professor of Economics

and

Martha and Nelson Getchell Chair for the Study of Free Market Capitalism at
the Mercatus Center

George Mason University

Fairfax, VA 22030

(For alerting me to the LA Times report I thank Tim Townsend.)




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Some Covid Links

Posted: 14 Dec 2021 06:57 AM PST
[link removed]

(Don Boudreaux)




Tweet
David Henderson shares good sense expressed by Colorados governor about
Covid restrictions.

Also reporting on Gov. Jared Poliss sensible remarks is Reasons Eric Boehm.
A slice:

In a lengthy interview with Colorado Public Radio, the Democratic governor
says the medical emergency phase of the COVID-19 pandemic has passed. With
vaccines readily available to anyone who wants one, Polis says it is time
for public health officials to step aside and let individuals make their
own decisions about masks. Even with the emergence of the new omicron
variant, Polis is refusing to reimplement a statewide mask mandate.

The emergency is over. You know, public health [officials] dont get to tell
people what to wear; thats just not their job, Polis said. You dont tell
people what to wear. You dont tell people to wear a jacket when they go out
in winter and force them to [wear it]. If they get frostbite, its their own
darn fault.

When vaccines were not readily available to anyone who wanted one, Polis
argued, mask mandates made sense as an alternative. But following the
science means adjusting to changing circumstances, and vaccines are far
more effective at mitigating COVID hospitalizations and deaths.

At this point, if you havent been vaccinated, its really your own darn
fault, Polis said.

(DBx: Ive gotten several hostile responses to my letter to operators of
venues that require that their patrons show proof of vaccination and wear
masks a letter motivated by much the same reasoning as appears to motivate
Gov. Polis.)

As Other Big Cities Tighten Mask and Vaccine Mandates, D.C. Becomes a
Surprising Island of Relative Sanity so reads the headline of this report
by Christian Britschgi.

Writing in The Atlantic, Matthew Walther describes the happy condition the
condition of largely ignoring Covid and being free of Covidocratic tyranny
enjoyed by at least some Americans living outside of major metropolitan
areas. (HT Ian Fillmore) A slice:

I am old enough to remember the good old days when holiday-advice pieces
were all variations on “How to Talk to Your Tea Party Uncle About
Obamacare.” As Christmas approaches, we can look forward to more of this
sort of thing, with the meta-ethical speculation advanced to an impossibly
baroque stage of development. Is it okay for our 2-year-old son to hug
Grandma at a Christmas party if she received her booster only a few days
ago? Should the toddler wear a mask except when he is slopping mashed
potatoes all over his booster seat? Our oldest finally attended her first
(masked) sleepover with other fully vaccinated 10-year-olds, but one of
them had a sibling test positive at day care. Should she stay home or wear
a face shield? What about Omicron?

I don’t know how to put this in a way that will not make me sound flippant:
No one cares. Literally speaking, I know that isn’t true, because if it
were, the articles wouldn’t be commissioned. But outside the world
inhabited by the professional and managerial classes in a handful of major
metropolitan areas, many, if not most, Americans are leading their lives as
if COVID is over, and they have been for a long while.

In my part of rural southwest Michigan, and in similar communities
throughout the country, this is true not despite but without any noticeable
regard for cases; hospitalization statistics, which are always high this
time of year without attracting much notice; or death reports. I don’t mean
to deny COVID’s continuing presence. (For the purposes of this piece, I
looked up the COVID data for my county and found that the seven-day average
for positive tests is as high as it has ever been, and that 136 deaths have
been attributed to the virus since June 2020.) What I wish to convey is
that the virus simply does not factor into my calculations or those of my
neighbors, who have been forgoing masks, tests (unless work imposes them,
in which case they are shrugged off as the usual BS from human resources),
and other tangible markers of COVID-19’s existence for months—perhaps even
longer.

(DBx: Reading Walthers essay buoys my spirits. I live in the DC metro area.
Yesterday I saw at a northern Virginia Whole Foods market such a frightful
sight of Covid overreaction that I will not describe because to do so would
cast doubt on my honesty. Clearly, the experience of living in a major
metropolitan area especially one swarming with the officious is very
different from the experience of living outside of such areas.)

MP Miriam Cates explains why shes voting against renewed Covid restrictions
in Britain. A slice:

Though it may be futile in the face of Opposition support (I use the term
‘opposition’ loosely), I will vote against the regulations tomorrow for
three reasons.

Firstly, the collateral damage to wider society will be high. Many people
have written at length about the appalling costs of lockdowns and
restrictions and evidence of permanent damage continues to emerge.

Secondly, there will be a further undermining of confidence in the rule of
law. Good laws are clear and based on consensus; they should not be
difficult to interpret or adhere to or make criminals out of ordinary
people. Far from uniting us, these regulations will invite conflict,
judgement and segregation.

But perhaps most significantly, the new measures threaten to cement a
permanent shift in the balance of power between the Government and the
British people that has been brought about by two years of ‘hokey cokey’
restrictions on our freedom. This is a shift that is no doubt being
celebrated by those on the Left, but it should chill Conservatives to the
core.

Do we want to live in a society where Ministers can — at no notice — impose
serious, damaging restrictions on individuals instead of trusting us to
behave responsibly? Do we want a society where people are judged and
discriminated against by their health status? Or where the state, far from
being a stabilising force, becomes an unpredictable and overbearing menace,
perpetuating a climate of fear?

I don’t believe that the Government has deliberately set out on a road to
authoritarianism, but we must acknowledge that this is the path we now
tread.

Telegraph columnist Sherelle Jacobs decries the looming renewed visit to
Britain of the straw man. Three slices:

Amid this fresh uncertainty, one thing is clear: we cannot go on living
like this. As a majority-vaccinated country, we cannot go on suffering the
permanent threat of lockdown restrictions, for fear the health service
could be overwhelmed. We cannot go on being plunged into panic by
pessimistic modelling that has consistently been proved wrong in the past.
We cannot go on pursuing Covid Plan Bs, Cs and Ds without a sensible
cost-benefit analysis that weighs the harms and uncertainties of the virus
against those of the restrictions. We cannot go on with a superficially
populist Tory Government that will entertain the drastic action of
lockdowns but not radical NHS reform.

..

True, it is a game of chance: the virus is statistically just as likely to
mutate against vaccines in a way that makes it more lethal, and it is
simply too early to say anything conclusive about the new strain. But the
threat posed by omicron is not the only unknown risk in play. The other is
the effect of further restrictions. Like the variant, the fallout of
another lockdown could be milder than some of us fear, or it could be
catastrophic beyond comprehension.

Unlike omicron, though, this risk gets no air time. In particular, there is
little sign that No 10 has done a proper cost-benefit analysis, weighing
the risks of omicron against the potential damage of new measures.

..

Worse are the gratuitous vaccine passports, which are unlikely to stem
omicron, given its spread among the double-jabbed. That No 10 would cross
the Rubicon with such an authoritarian measure in a cheap attempt to divert
political heat in the direction of the unvaccinated is terrifying. So too
its contempt for the entertainment venues that could see their profits
slashed.

Norway bans serving of alcohol in bid to halt Omicron outbreak. (HT Phil
Magness)

Bill Rice writes wisely about Covid and the overreaction to it. Heres his
conclusion:

The leaders of our country are going to continue to take away civil
liberties in the name of “protecting” the public. But these people and
organizations are actually harming the public.

If they had done nothing to “flatten the curve” or “slow” or “stop” the
spread of the virus, the virus would have still spread, and people would
have still died from COVID. (Really, “the road less travelled” by the
nation of Sweden was the safest road to travel).

If America’s leaders had not overreacted, many people gone today would
still be here today… and more people would be alive a year from now. The
future of every inhabitant in the world would not be as bleak as it is
today.

Jay Bhattacharya tweets:

Nature article:

By 2022, an additional

✴️9.3 million wasted kids

✴️2.6 million stunted kids

✴️168k child deaths

✴️2.1 million maternal anemia cases

✴️$29.7 billion in future productivity losses

Lockdown ➡️ worst public health catastrophe in history




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