Follow the Narrative–I Mean Science

Here’s some science—the Great Barrington Declaration.

James Freeman, in his Tuesday Wall Street Journal column, opened with this:

This week dozens of esteemed medical experts with blue-chip academic credentials published a warning about the destructive policies adopted to address Covid-19. Since the Sunday publication of this Great Barrington Declaration more than a thousand biological scientists and more than 1,500 medical practitioners have added their names to the petition. Yet it’s been almost entirely ignored by the media outlets that spend much of their days presenting themselves as obedient to science.

The declaration says this, in part:

Current lockdown policies are producing devastating effects on short and long-term public health. The results (to name a few) include lower childhood vaccination rates, worsening cardiovascular disease outcomes, fewer cancer screenings, and deteriorating mental health—leading to greater excess mortality in years to come, with the working class and younger members of society carrying the heaviest burden. Keeping students out of school is a grave injustice.

The declaration closes with its recommendation for how we should deal with the virus [emphasis added].

Adopting measures to protect the vulnerable should be the central aim of public health responses to COVID-19. By way of example, nursing homes should use staff with acquired immunity and perform frequent PCR testing of other staff and all visitors. Staff rotation should be minimized. Retired people living at home should have groceries and other essentials delivered to their home.  …
Those who are not vulnerable should immediately be allowed to resume life as normal. Simple hygiene measures, such as hand washing and staying home when sick should be practiced by everyone to reduce the herd immunity threshold. Schools and universities should be open for in-person teaching. Extracurricular activities, such as sports, should be resumed. Young low-risk adults should work normally, rather than from home. Restaurants and other businesses should open. Arts, music, sport and other cultural activities should resume. People who are more at risk may participate if they wish….

Of course the Great Barrington Declaration and its Focused Protection proposal have been ignored by the media outlets. They’re also being ignored by Progressive-Democrats everywhere from Biden, Pelosi, and Schumer on down.

The Great Barrington Declaration is the wrong science to follow; it’s too politically inconvenient to settled narrative.

Cost of Living

Here’s an interesting graph, produced by Oren Cass in American Affairs:

These are current dollars relative to current wages. Thus, the $13k total cost in 1985 was covered by a then-average $440 weekly wage, and the $54k total cost in 2018 was covered by that year’s $1,000 weekly wage.

Here are the underlying cost and wage data:

Notice which two costs ran up the hardest. Here’s a hint: health care exploded by a factor of 8; even college rose only by a factor of roughly 5; the others increased less than 3 times.

 

H/t Conrad Hackett, who has a colorized version of the graph.

Risk Tradeoffs

Economic business risks, that is.

Companies in the US and Europe are buying back bonds to reduce the cash piles they built up earlier this year, signaling expectations for more stable economic times ahead.

“The world still isn’t perfect, but there’s more visibility. A lot of companies who have overfunded, they sat there after a few months and said we don’t actually need all of this money,” said Frazer Ross, a regional head for Deutsche Bank’s investment-grade debt syndicate. “It’s like they took out an insurance policy, but now it’s too costly.”

Shrinking their cash cushion exposes those companies to downturn risk or market—loss of customers—risk in the near term, but debt always is more expensive than no debt. Reducing their debt strengthens companies in the middle- and longer-term, both from reduced cost outlays in the form of interest (and principle) payments and by strengthening those companies’ credit ratings in the event they need to borrow against a later market or business downturn or to acquire capital for increased R&D or capital refurbishment or expansion.

In general, increasing short-term risk—according to deliberate planning—in favor of reducing longer-term risk is a good move.

These guys obviously are seeing the light beyond the end of the tunnel.

Some Jobs Data

…from Stephen Moore via his Fox News op-ed. They compare the job creation performance of ex-President Barack Obama’s (D) and then-Vice President and current Progressive-Democratic Party Presidential candidate Joe Biden’s eight-year administration with the three years of performance of President Donald Trump’s administration prior to the current Wuhan Virus situation.

Manufacturing
Obama: -192,000—that’s jobs lost
Trump: 475,000—that’s jobs gained

Mining
Obama: -112,000
Trump: 63,000

Construction
Obama: 280,000
Trump: 746,000

Biden wants to “help” this growth along by dumping $4 trillion of new taxes and rescinded current tax cuts on our economy, on our jobs engine.

Biden wants to potentiate his tax “help” with vast new regulation.

Biden wants to add further to his “help” program by trashing our economy’s ability to generate reliable and cheap energy and replacing that sector with the Green New Deal that the new center left of his Party insists on emplacing.

Our economy can’t afford Biden’s help.

The Biden Tax Plan

…will be a disaster for our economy.  Here are some examples of the damage Progressive-Democratic Party Presidential candidate Joe Biden’s tax plan will inflict.

Earnings reductions are directly translatable into jobs reductions—higher unemployment.

And this bit of cynicism from “a campaign employee” that’s all too typical of Biden himself:

There is no reason that an economic plan that asks everyone to pay their fair share while doing more to reach full-employment quicker with more jobs and stronger growth should not help everyone from essential workers to investors.

Notice that: the campaign, along with Biden and his—I am the Democratic Party—Party, steadfastly refuse to say what their fair share is, besides more.