Tuesday, April 28, 2020


Some US manufacturers reopening amid fierce political heat

Boeing and a small number of other manufacturers around the U.S. geared up Monday to resume production this week amid pressure from President Donald Trump to reopen the economy and resistance from governors who warn there is not enough testing yet to keep the coronavirus in check.

Boeing, one of the Pacific Northwest’s biggest employers, said it will put about 27,000 people back to work building passenger jets at its Seattle-area plants, with virus-slowing precautions in place, including face masks and staggered shift times.

Bobcat, a farm equipment manufacturer, announced it will resume production with about 600 employees in Bismarck, North Dakota.

Elsewhere around the world, step-by-step reopenings were underway in Europe, where the crisis has begun to ebb in places like Italy, Spain and Germany. Parts of the continent are perhaps weeks ahead of the U.S. in the trajectory of the disease, which has killed over 160,000 people worldwide.

The reopenings of certain industries is the U.S. are barely a drop in the bucket compared with the more than 22 million Americans thrown out of work by the crisis.

Businesses that start operating again are likely to engender good will with the Trump administration at at time when it is doling out billions to companies for economic relief. The president has been agitating to restart the economy, egging on protesters who feel governors are moving too slowly.

But reopening carries major risks, especially since people can spread the virus without even knowing they are infected. Many governors say they lack the testing supplies they need and warn that if they reopen their economies too soon, they could get hit by a second wave of infections.

The death toll in the U.S., the worst-hit country by far, was more than 40,000 with over 750,000 confirmed infections, according to a tally by Johns Hopkins University of government reports. The true figures are believed to be much higher, in part because of limited testing and difficulties in counting the dead.

Protesters have taken to the streets in places such as Michigan, Ohio and Virginia, complaining that the shutdowns are destroying their livelihoods and trampling their rights. Defying the social-distancing rules and, in some cases, wearing no masks, demonstrators have berated their governors and demanded the firing of Dr. Anthony Fauci, the government’s top infectious-disease expert.

But on Monday, Fauci warned: “Unless we get the virus under control, the real recovery economically is not going to happen.”

“If you jump the gun and go into a situation where you have a big spike, you’re going to set yourself back. So, as painful as it is to go by the careful guidelines of gradually phasing into a reopening, it’s going to backfire,” he said on ABC’s “Good Morning America.”

In the past few days, Florida gave the OK for beaches to reopen, and Texas on Monday began a week of slow reopenings, starting off with state parks. Later, stores will be allowed to offer curbside service.

Washington state was the first in the nation to see a spike in COVID-19 cases and enacted strict shutdown orders that helped tamp the virus down. Europe was likewise well ahead of the U.S. on the curve.

The global game plan is to open up but maintain enough social distancing to prevent new flareups of the virus.

SOURCE 






Why the travel ban did not work

On January 31st, the US imposed a travel ban of flights from China. At the time, I didn’t have strong views either way, but it seemed like a reasonable response given the uncertainty associated with the coronavirus epidemic. Today, we know that the travel ban failed completely. (As did the Italian travel ban on China, imposed on the same day.)  In this post, I’d like to explain why.

By the time the US imposed a Chinese travel ban, China had already imposed a quarantine on the entire province of Hubei, and had tightly locked down the entire country. As a result, there would have been no flights from Wuhan to the US even without the travel ban, and only a tiny number of infected passengers would have arrived here from other parts of China—probably less than ten.

In contrast, we received many infected people from Europe during the month of February, and this is one reason why the pandemic is so much worse on the East Coast than the West Coast (albeit not the only reason—density, climate, and a slightly later lockdown may also play a role.)

It’s possible that the travel ban created a false sense of security in February, which made the problem in the US even worse. But even if the travel ban did not create a false sense of security, and even if it did prevent a few infected people from reaching the US, it did not end up helping at all. Rather, at best, it delayed the epidemic by a few days.

With a few exceptions such as Taiwan, in most countries the government and public did not react until the caseload reached a certain threshold. While a travel ban could be helpful for countries with an effective anti-coronavirus policy, they are of no help at all in places where social distancing does not begin until the epidemic reaches X% of the population, such as the US and Europe. If you think of those famous graphs illustrating “flattening the curve”, it merely shifts the curve slightly to the right, without changing its size at all.

There are some countries, such as New Zealand, that require a 14-day quarantine for all new arrivals, and a ban on travel from most countries.  Unlike the US, however, New Zealand has in place a set of policies likely to completely eradicate the virus in the near future.  In that setting, travel restrictions may be helpful.  But they are basically useless in places such as the US and Europe. Today, new arrivals to the US have about as much impact on our caseload as a small stream has on the water level in the Pacific Ocean.  A drop in the bucket.

If the Chinese travel ban was justified in January, it is completely useless today. A random visitor from Canada is probably 1000 times more likely to infect an American as a random visitor from China.  (And if the Chinese data is off by a factor of 10, then 100 times more likely.)  So why do we allow visitors from Canada but not China?  I’m not certain, but I’d guess that an honest account would include the word “spite”.

SOURCE 





Democrats Ignore Lockdown Protests At Their Peril

In addition to killing thousands of Americans and robbing millions more of their livelihoods, the COVID-19 outbreak has evidently deprived the Democrats of their political judgment. At the national and state levels they have disregarded voter lockdown protests with the same disdain with which they ignored the Tea Party movement 10 years ago. The Democrats have clearly forgotten the price they paid for that blunder. Between 2010 and 2016 they lost Congress, 13 governorships, 816 state legislative seats, and finally the presidency. They regained some ground in 2018, but they won’t retain it if they don’t recognize the protests as the foreshock of an electoral earthquake.

The voters have been extraordinarily patient with stay-at-home orders imposed by their governors and willingly incurred enormous financial risk for the greater public good. Likewise, they have shown remarkable self-control as their lives have been upended by wildly inaccurate projections by overcautious Beltway bureaucrats. Now, they have had enough and and are hitting the street. Lockdown protests have expanded to at least 20 states, but Democratic governors have been encouraged to ignore them by cynical partisans like House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.). When asked by Chris Wallace on “Fox News Sunday” if she could sympathize with the protesters, Madam Speaker answered in the negative:

No, not really, because what we have to do is shelter-in-place. That is really the answer.… I do think that it’s unfortunate — but you know people will do what they do. The fact is we’re all impatient. We all want out but what they’re doing is really unfortunate.… And so, does it serve as a distraction? Yes.

It’s absurd if not outright obscene for Pelosi to claim that “we’re all impatient,” as if everyone is suffering equally from the lockdowns. Few laid-off employees of retail clothing chains, coffee shops, and fitness centers can ameliorate their financial anxieties with an $11.60 pint of ice cream retrieved from a freezer that costs more than their cars. Nor can they put up with power-drunk decrees from Democratic governors like Gretchen Whitmer (D-Mich.), who has not only banned travel, boating, and golf but also sales of garden tools and paint that Michigan residents could use to beautify the homes that have suddenly become their private prisons. This kind of craziness is, of course, what sparked the protests.

Last week, the Trump administration provided state governors with a three-phase “road map” for reopening the country and recovering from the economic damage caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. Some GOP states — Arkansas, Iowa, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota, Utah, and Wyoming — never issued stay-at-home orders for their residents. Other GOP states have announced plans for phased reopening. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott issued executive orders last Friday outlining the plan to reopen his state. Ohio, Idaho, and North Dakota are also moving toward reopening. But some Democratic states are resisting by forming compacts, which violates Article I, Section 10, Clause 3 of the Constitution:

No State shall, without the Consent of Congress, lay any Duty of Tonnage, keep Troops, or Ships of War in time of Peace, enter into any Agreement or Compact with another State, or with a foreign Power, or engage in War, unless actually invaded, or in such imminent Danger as will not admit of delay.

The catch is that pesky prohibition against entering into “any Agreement or Compact with another state.” Without the consent of Congress, this is unconstitutional. Yet, in the Northeast — Connecticut, Delaware, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, and Rhode Island have entered into an interstate compact. In the Midwest — Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Michigan, Minnesota, and Wisconsin have also formed such a pact. In the West — California, Oregon, and Washington have entered into yet another compact. In other words, these governors hope to violate the Constitution to avoid reopening their states. This is a forlorn hope, however. All of these states are targets of the lockdown protesters.

As they resist the inevitable, they will be compared to more sensible Democratic governors like Montana Gov. Steve Bullock, who said last Friday that he plans to begin a phased reopening of the state’s economy after April 24. And there will also be those shots of happy people enjoying the sun-drenched beaches of Florida and South Carolina, which Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis and South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster have already reopened in their states. In some ways, this will be the most powerful public statement of all — the sight of “clueless conservatives” frolicking in the sand with our friends and families while the hapless residents of Democratic states watch us while they sit home and shelter in place.

Saturday, after Gov. Ron DeSantis opened up the beaches near Jacksonville, the hashtag #FloridaMoron trended for hours on Twitter. It’s unlikely that anyone on the beach bothered to look at Twitter while they inhaled the fresh air of freedom. Some things are more important than safety. Most Americans get that. This reality is the source of the lockdown protests, and it’s why the Democrats are committing yet another blunder by ignoring them and attempting to prolong the stay-at-home orders. The protests are the foreshocks of an electoral earthquake comparable to 2016 and perhaps even the Reagan landslide of 1984.

SOURCE 






Australia: UBI still an unbelievably bad idea

Opportunists across the political spectrum have been emboldened by the current crisis to propose all manner of terrible ideas.

And among the worst is the universal basic income (UBI) —  a payment to all citizens, unconditional on income or wealth, without any obligation to be in work or study.

Supporters have seized on the government’s pandemic JobKeeper scheme as evidence we’re finally ready to embrace a UBI.

Of course, fans see it as panacea in good and bad times alike.

In good times, it’s the supposed solution to virtually all economic, ecological, and social ills. And in the current crisis, they argue a UBI is uniquely suited to deal with the surge of unemployed, the strain on the welfare system, and the apparent fiscal willingness to spend.

But not only are they wrong to equate JobKeeper with a UBI, they’re also mistaken that the coronanomics support their case anyway.

The JobKeeper payment imposes an effective wage floor for those employed in businesses facing an immediate, massive fall in revenue. These extraordinary circumstances are expected to be temporary, and when the crisis eventually ends, so does the payment. The worker is expected to go back to work, or to seek work on Newstart.

That’s a far cry from the UBI, which is not only permanent, but also is designed to remove the obligation to seek work.

Moreover, UBI proponents fundamentally misunderstand the nature of the economic conditions and today’s world of work.

Rather than a permanent reduction in the demand for labour, the present shutdown is a temporary contraction in labour demand due to forced closures and social distancing (with related reductions in short run supply).

Moreover, if economic life under social distancing has taught us anything, it’s that work has been supported, not threatened, by technology (exactly the opposite of what UBI supporters have been claiming). Indeed, technological integration into work — and study for that matter — has been a lifeline, saving jobs and livelihoods for many.

The other claim is that the government’s unprecedented spending allegedly reflects a willingness for meeting a UBI’s exorbitant price tag. But the government’s big-spending economic rescue package has been forced by a temporary crisis; there is no evidence of a commitment to permanently bigger government.

Moreover, when the costs are being counted, there’ll surely be little left in the piggy bank to fund a UBI.

Good policy options in this crisis are hard to come by and there’s no shortage of terrible ones being prosecuted. Despite what the economic illiterates say, a UBI remains an unbelievably bad idea.

SOURCE  

******************************

Political correctness is most pervasive in universities and colleges but I rarely report the  incidents concerned here as I have a separate blog for educational matters.

American "liberals" often deny being Leftists and say that they are very different from the Communist rulers of  other countries.  The only real difference, however, is how much power they have.  In America, their power is limited by democracy.  To see what they WOULD be like with more power, look at where they ARE already  very powerful: in America's educational system -- particularly in the universities and colleges.  They show there the same respect for free-speech and political diversity that Stalin did:  None.  So look to the colleges to see  what the whole country would be like if "liberals" had their way.  It would be a dictatorship.

For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, GREENIE WATCH,   EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS and  DISSECTING LEFTISM.   My Home Pages are here or   here or   here.  Email me (John Ray) here.  Email me (John Ray) here

************************************

No comments: