Isaac Laquedem

Harvard Professor Raj Chetty explains COVID-19's impact in a nonpartisan way based on actual data and economics. We should listen.

Here is a link to actual data on the effect of the pandemic on the American economy.  It's a website, "Track The Recovery," maintained by a group of economists led by Harvard professor Raj Chetty.  Bloomberg News has a good description of Professor Chetty's work, and the data on which it's based, here.

Among the most pointed findings is that "the recession has nearly ended for high-wage workers, but job losses persist for low-wage workers."  The money quote from the Bloomberg article:

On video calls with dozens of Democrats and Republicans in Congress, as well as Treasury officials and state and local policymakers, his message has been consistent: Get the virus under control at all costs—a task the U.S. has so far failed at pitifully. No matter how many businesses are allowed to reopen, normal economic life will not resume until their customers feel they’re no longer at risk of contagion. In the meantime, he tells them, target assistance to the people, businesses, and places that need it. There’s no use sending stimulus checks to people making $150,000 a year or cutting their payroll taxes. They have plenty of money; what they lack is places to safely spend it.

 

Why does the Republican Party support the death penalty and oppose abortion? The reason is economics, not ethics

The recent experience with the novel coronavirus and the economic effects of the shutdown gives us all an opportunity to calculate how much the pro-life party values life. Approximately 30 million Americans lost their jobs because of the coronavirus pandemic. The shutdown if continued through the phased reopening without being rushed will save perhaps 1 million American lives. It follows that to the (mostly Republican) politicians who wished to end the shutdown in the early summer, one life to them is worth not more than about 30 jobs. It also explains the Republican fascination with the death penalty. If the average death penalty case costs about $100,000 to try, which we can evaluate as equal to roughly 2 jobs for a year, but if only one out of every 40 people convicted of a death penalty crime is actually executed, then each execution produces roughly 80 jobs, a very decent return on investment from this coldly capitalist point of view.

The same analysis explains also the Republican position on abortion and right to life. If a healthcare team of four people can perform two abortions a day for 250 business days a year, equaling 500 per year altogether, then each abortion produces only 1/125 of a job for a year, far below the job production from capital punishment. What we have taken for years as Republican hypocrisy about human life may merely be economics. Further research is needed to determine the normative Republican value for job-life equivalence. I think it will turn out to be about 20 jobs per life.

Are you better off than you were four years ago (IV)?

https://www.vox.com/2018/10/3/17928698/brett-kavanaugh-blackout-drinking-alcohol 

Are you better off than you were four years ago (III)?

https://www.statista.com/chart/21269/daily-deaths-covid-19-selected-countries/ 

Are you better off than you were four years ago (II)?

We got A Pluses for our recent hurricane work in Texas and Florida (and did an unappreciated great job in Puerto Rico, even though an inaccessible island with very poor electricity and a totally incompetent Mayor of San Juan). We are ready for the big one that is coming!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 12, 2018

Are you better off than you were four years ago? (first in a series)

 

The nations in green were still willing to welcome American tourists this summer.  

 

https://matadornetwork.com/read/map-shows-weak-us-passports-right-now/

 

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention orders a stop to evictions. Why doesn't it order everyone to wear a mask in public?

This week the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, acting under authority given to the Surgeon General and the Department of Health and Human Services, issued an order entitled "Temporary Halt in Residential Evictions to Prevent the  Further Spread of COVID-19," which you can read in the Federal Register here.  The order prohibits landlords from evicting residential tenants for nonpayment of rent if:

• The tenant has tried to obtain all available government housing assistance;
• The tenant expects to earn $99,000 or less in 2020 ($198,000 or less for a couple), or was not required to report any income in 2019, or received a CARES Act Economic Impact Payment;
• The tenant can't pay the full rent due to substantial loss of household income, work, or wages, or a layoff, or extraordinary medical expenses;
• The tenant is trying to make timely partial payments of as much of the rent as possible; and
• Eviction would likely make the tenant homeless or force the tenant into group living.

How does CDC get the authority to freeze evictions of residential tenants?  It comes from 42 USC §264, a provision of federal law that authorizes the Surgeon General to "make and enforce such regulations as in his judgment are necessary to prevent the introduction, transmission, or spread of communicable diseases from foreign countries into the States or possessions, or from one State or possession into any other State or possession.”

The  Knower of All Things observes that an order prohibiting residential evictions in the United States won't do anything to prevent communicable diseases from entering the United States, and it won't do anything to prevent communicable diseases such as COVID-19 from spreading from state to state unless the assumption is that evicted tenants will change states.  He adds that if CDC has the power to issue an order to prohibit residential evictions, then CDC also has the power to order everyone to wear a mask in public, which CDC recommends but is strangely reluctant to direct.

It's time for CDC to face up to facts and act on its own advice.

 

"Vote often and early for James Michael Curley" - and in North Carolina, for the president too

President Trump is a man of great versatility and flexibility of mind.  How else can we reconcile his strident opposition to voting by mail with his encouraging his North Carolina supporters to go to the polls and vote a second time in case their first vote didn't arrive at the county in time?  The White House has told us that his comments were misinterpreted - that he was not in fact telling people to vote twice, which would be a felony - but was merely asking his supporters to be sure that their votes were received and counted.  

The President doesn't always speak through the White House press office.  He also tweets.  Sometimes his tweets confuse the public (what exactly is "covfefe"?).  On other occasions, he makes his meaning quite clear.  In a tweet this week, he explained his position on double voting: "On Election Day, or Early Voting go to your Polling Place to see whether or not your Mail In Vote has been Tabulated (Counted). If it has you will not be able to Vote & the Mail In System worked properly. If it has not been Counted, VOTE." 

 One odd consequence is that if he wins the North Carolina election in November we may never know whether he was actually the favorite, or whether thousands of his North Carolina votes were the result of his supporters committing election fraud.  In effect he's setting the stage for not just a tainted defeat, but a tainted victory.