big government – FreedomWorks Foundation

John Tamny in RealClearMarkets: Wouldn’t Republicans Be Ill If Masks Were Effective?

October 22, 2020 by Jack Scheader

October 22, 2020

Here’s a revelation that it’s probably redundant to refer to as a revelation: nearly every Republican and libertarian-leaning person I know doesn’t wear a mask. No doubt they wear them where they’re required, most notably inside businesses, but generally the masks come off in places they’re not required; outside in particular.

What about at home? Forget about it. As for indoors with friends, most often not. Sometimes jokes are made about them.

About this, it should be made clear that death and sickness are not jokes to any of the people I know. Particularly during the early days of March, most of the people I know were quite a bit more cautious. This was a known that the New York Times reported: in those red, allegedly science denying states that were the last to impose hideous and needless lockdowns, citizens were taking greater care on their own. Among the Republicans and libertarians whom I know, the notion of laws or forced lockdowns bring and brought new meaning to superfluous. If illness or death threatens, who would need to be told to be careful?

To repeat, no one I know laughs at illness or death. On the other hand, the Republicans and libertarians I know tend to think masks not terribly effective at deterring illness. As for death, the New York Times in particular has been a rather excellent source of information about the virus. Though the Times routinely runs headlines that would give the impression that there’s Covid blood on every American street, a read of the stories with alarmist headlines has routinely revealed a sad, but less tragic truth within: nearly half of all U.S. deaths related to the virus have been associated with nursing homes. From this, many Republicans and libertarian leans in my world have had a tendency to conclude that a high percentage of Covid deaths in the U.S. were associated with already ill people who were also very old. Which is why the same Republicans have a greater tendency to wear masks around the old and ill. Again, people don’t need a law to be more respectful about and around those who are both elderly and sick.

As for those who are just old, my parents fall into the late seventies category. So do their friends in Pasadena, CA. Though they abide business rules, they don’t wear masks while socializing with one another. Nor do they require their offspring to wear masks around them. While their age has them increasingly aware of their mortality, they don’t view the virus as a major threat. They continue to live as they used to, before politicians decided we couldn’t be trusted to look after ourselves free of force.

Realistically, all that’s been written so far is redundant. The mask-reverent already know all-too-many Republicans don’t share their alarmism. Just turn on MSNBC for confirmation of this truth, or sign up for a neighbhorhood list serve. Those who don’t wear masks are pilloried by the expert reverent. It’s purely anecdotal, but I’ve been accosted in an outdoor parking lot by a “Karen” for not wearing a mask. Once, while in an elevator, the door opened to a “Ken.” In the company of others I don’t know, I always wear masks, But I was alone in this case. That I was didn’t keep “Ken” from telling me to “Wear a mask, Dude.” Oh well, add up enough anecdotes and you have statistic. My experiences with the self-righteous are hardly unique. They’re on a mission to get everyone to mask up.

Except that it’s not happening. Call if defiance, call it reverence for research that doesn’t view masks as protectors (really, it’s not “science” without doubt), or call it political, but the Republicans and libertarians in my world increasingly dismiss masks in haughty fashion. And in truth, they’ve dismissed them for months.

The above is important simply because reality has a way of intruding on stridency. Or hubris. About anything. And it changes behavior. If our behavior causes us harm, we tend to change the behavior. I don’t know anyone who is Republican or libertarian who doesn’t aggressively avoid what could make him or her sick. Colds, fevers and flus are awful. We try to avoid all three, but at the same time we once again dismiss masks.

Which raises an obvious question: have Republicans been abnormally sick the last four to five months, or seven? They should be, or should have been assuming masks were a powerful barrier to the virus. Statistics reveal the opposite. Figure that the states with the most cases and deaths have largely been Democratic leaning. But correlation isn’t always causation, not to mention that it could be science and mask-denying Republicans in those blue states taking up the most hospital beds.

The main thing is that if Republicans who despise masks were getting sick in dominant fashion, it’s not unreasonable to suggest that they would be morphing into GOP Karens and Kens due to illness that was a consequence of mask denial. If not Karen or Ken, it’s easy to at least say that a surge in virus infections among Republicans would increase mask usage among them. Except that there’s no evidence supporting a GOP or libertarian coronavirus lean, nor is there evidence that they’re wearing masks with greater frequency.

So what of the Democrats who are more reverent of masks and the experts telling them to don them? Are they notably healthy relative to Republicans, or do the masks not make much of a difference? Do they just enjoy being told what to do?

Or maybe it’s just political. Maybe Democrats are equally cynical about masks; aggressive about wearing them in public, but Nancy Pelosi, Chris Cuomo, and Barbara Feinstein-like in private. If so, shame on them. Hundreds of millions around the world are racing toward starvation based on parts of the U.S. locking down due to the coronavirus. No compassionate person would continue this public, and very hysterical charade if privately doubtful.

John Tamny is editor of RealClearMarkets, Vice President at FreedomWorks, and a senior economic adviser to Toreador Research and Trading (www.trtadvisors.com). His new book is titled They’re Both Wrong: A Policy Guide for America’s Frustrated Independent Thinkers. Other books by Tamny include The End of Work, about the exciting growth of jobs more and more of us love, Who Needs the Fed? and Popular Economics. He can be reached at jtamny@realclearmarkets.com.

View Original Article at RealClearMarkets Website

John Tamny in RealClearMarkets: Do New York Times Headline Writers Believe Their Headlines?

September 24, 2020 by Jack Scheader

By J ohn Tamny
September 24, 2020

Café Phillip is a sandwich shop on the NE side of K Street in Washington, D.C. Call this the historically unfashionable K Street versus K Street NW where the major lobbying shops have historically located. Until March of 2020, Café Phillip was booming. Staffed with energetic and highly professional immigrant employees, it did huge business in a part of D.C. that was increasingly filling up with office workers and residents.

Then came the political panic related to the coronavirus. Even though there were no indications from the virus’s origin, or Asia more broadly, that it was terribly lethal, U.S. politicians panicked. In their panic they quite literally chose to fight the virus with strict lockdowns that resulted in soaring unemployment, bankruptcy, and economic desperation. It would be hard to imagine a more wrongheaded approach to a health threat. Think about it.

Economic growth has historically produced the resources for scientists and doctors that have made victories over viruses possible. Yet in their panic, politicians on the local, state and national levels forced the very contraction that would logically shrink economic resources, only to follow up with the extraction of trillions from the private economy in order to throw money at the horrendous problems they created. You really, really can’t make this up.

If Washington, D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser can sleep at night, it’s a miracle. Café Phillip is instructive in this regard. What was formerly packed, what was formerly defined by frenzied sandwich making in keeping with its enormous popularity, is generally empty during the day. Café Phillip is still open, at least for now. Other businesses in the area are beginning to close. Panicked politicians who will never miss a meal or a paycheck decided we the people couldn’t be trusted to go to work. We might spread the virus. Lockdowns were instituted, supposedly for our own good.

Sorry, but economic growth is what’s for our own good. It doesn’t just produce resources for those eager to find cures for viruses that make us ill or kill us, economic growth also frees us to quarantine or shelter-in-place if we feel some kind of virus threatens us. Please think about this. While many had the choice to work from home amid this panic, their options would have been great deal more limited in 2000. In 1980, forget about it.

Back to Café Phillip, to walk in nowadays is to see formerly energized employees with forlorn looks on their faces, mostly immobile as they wait for customers. It’s a far cry from what it used to be. And these are the employees that the Café still employs. The staff is a fraction of its former self, and it’s not unreasonable to speculate that if D.C.’s strict rules with regard to restaurants and offices continue, the Café will shut down.

It’s all a sickening reminder of how quickly politicians can wreck things. How they can thoughtlessly break things. They’re way too powerful on all levels.

Worse is that they’re breaking things in response to a virus that is once again not very lethal. What was obvious in the early part of 2020 when deaths didn’t soar in China is still obvious now.

To put a number to all this, the New York Times has reported all summer that over 40% of U.S. coronavirus deaths took place in nursing homes. The people dying with the virus tend to be very old, and with some kind of pre-existing malady or maladies. Who knows what the actual numbers are, but it’s no reach to conclude that of the 200,000 reported deaths related to the coronavirus, some (or maybe a lot) were on the verge of death either way.

To the above, some will respond that the musings are those of a heartless person. No, they’re not. In truth, they’re the words of a realist.

As this is being written, the global death count from the virus is a million people, but it should once again be at least suggested that the number is inflated. To die with something isn’t necessarily to die of it.

Still, for the purposes of this piece, let’s assume it’s a million. Better yet, let’s assume two million since the virus was traveling around the world for months before anyone was really testing.

The deaths are of course sad, but the same New York Times reporting that over 40% of U.S. virus deaths have happened in nursing homes has also projected that over 285 million of the world’s inhabitants are rushing toward starvation. Yes, you read that right. The Times won’t say it directly, but the panicked political reaction to the virus that revealed itself in contraction-inducing lockdowns and other limits on activity has parts of the world’s economy collapsing, and as a consequence hundreds of millions rushing back into poverty, starvation and death. Poverty is easily the biggest killer man has ever known. Nothing else comes close.

This would ideally get more attention from the Times. Consider the newspaper’s above-the-fold headline from Monday: “A Nation’s Anguish As Deaths Near 200,000.” Really? One senses the headline writers don’t even believe this. When old people die it’s sad, and sometimes very sad. But it’s rarely – if ever – a tragedy. Figure that death from old age is a very modern concept born of healthcare advances made possible by the very economic growth that politicians mindlessly snuffed out in their panic.

Thinking about anguish, the true anguish is born of hundreds of millions rushing back to poverty, starvation and death thanks to politicians fighting a virus with forced contraction. After that, a successful business is a bit of a miracle too. Most don’t make it, but when they do they lift up owners, employees and customers alike. Tragic is seeing what improves people, gives dignity to workers, and wealth to owners being snuffed out by politicians who will once again never miss a meal.

The New York Times might think about this as it publishes alarmist headlines that obscure actual truths reported within the paper. It’s sad when we lose our grandparents and old people more broadly, but it’s tragic to read of people starving, and heart-wrenching to contemplate formerly productive workers sitting, waiting for customers; increasingly aware that what puts a roof over their heads will no longer. Proportion New York Times, proportion.

View Original Article At RealClearMarkets

Venezuela’s ‘Brain Drain’ Ably Explains the Folly of Government Spending

March 28, 2019 by sswebster Leave a Comment

Originally Published in Real Clear Markets by John Tamny on 3/28/19.

“They weren’t making technical decisions, but political ones. From then on, we all tried to leave the company.” Those are the words of a former employee at Venezuela’s El Guri hydroelectric complex, in an interview with the Wall Street Journal.

In February of 2016, twelve courageous El Guri technicians told Venezuela’s Maduro government that its operation of the electricity plant was set to cause long-term damage. They were ignored. Political considerations would trump profit and loss. The bill for this obnoxious bit of governmental expropriation recently came due as rolling blackouts hit a country already devastated by collectivism.

There’s a useful lesson in all this. And no, this is not an opinion piece making a case that the U.S., if it doesn’t “get its act together,” will soon be Venezuela. Please. That’s just not serious, even though certain Trump partisans said it was possible if Hillary Clinton was elected. In their defense, Clinton partisans made similar arguments about the eventual impact of a Donald Trump victory. Both sides insulted their great country.

If Clinton or Trump were remotely capable of destroying the greatest country on earth, then it wouldn’t have been worth saving to begin with. The good news is that the U.S. didn’t, nor does it need saving. It would thrive even if Bernie Sanders were in the White House, or the Representative from the Bronx, or if Steve King were in charge. Thanks to separation of powers, no one can be too powerful. President Obama signed no serious legislation during his last six years in offfice, and President Trump likely won’t either. Good. Presidents aren’t dictators.

Still, there’s once again a useful lesson that comes from the El Guri plant. It’s a reminder that genius, or expertise, or simple competence can’t be taken. And it’s extraordinarily difficult even to vaguely mimic as fans of Roger Federer, Tiger Woods and LeBron James know all too well. The Maduro regime expropriated El Guri only to hand it over to cronies. As previously mentioned, blackouts ensued. Only a fool could have expected a different outcome. In a very real sense El Guri is no longer El Guri. What was an eletricity plant was run by electricity experts.

That’s what’s so sad, and misguided about regulation. The best and brightest corporations are notoriously hard for even the most skilled and degreed people to get a job with, but the previous truth doesn’t factor with regulators. They get in the proverbial back door. Using the power of government, the very individuals who could never hope to be hired by private corporations wind up influencing them via regulation. Regulation is the sad, business-neutering process whereby the non-experts are empowered to lean on the experts.

Regulation is a substantial cost, and it’s one that can’t just be measured in terms of the $2 trillion per year spent on compliance. Much more troubling with regulation is the unseen; as in how much more productive and profitable would companies be if they didn’t have those who couldn’t work for them in a free economy telling them what to do. In football terms, how imposing would Nick Saban’s Alabama Crimson Tide be if Chuck Schumer and Mitch McConnell suddenly inserted themselves as his co-defensive coordinators?

Readers may laugh, but that’s what happened when the Maduro government took over El Guri. When you replace engineering expertise with the political kind, or those close to the political experts, it’s the equivalent of Schumer calling Saban’s defenses. With similar results.

Ideally what happened at El Guri will force a rethink among some readers about government spending. Ideally it will because what’s government spending other than the political expropriation of precious resources whereby non-experts get to dictate their usage over experts in the private sector?

Lest readers forget, governments don’t tax away dollars to stare at them lovingly. The dollars taken from us signal growing government control over the economic resources (mechanical, and more crucially, human) that, when effectively deployed, power progress.

That’s why readers should scoff when economists talk up about “stimulus” from government spending, or perhaps more dimly, when they pretend that government spending stimulates growth “to a point.” No, it doesn’t. Government spending as a rule restrains economic growth simply because it’s El Guri, only on a larger scale. It’s the politically motivated allocation of precious trucks, tractors, computers, offices and human beings to the politically connected.

Contrast the above with the private sector. As any successful entrepreneur will attest, the early years (and often decades) for a start-up are defined by sleepless night after sleepless night. That’s the case because it’s so intensely difficult for private business owners to be entrusted with the capital without which businesses die. There are quite simply no businesses without investment capital, yet business owners will confirm that it’s beyond hard to attain.

Readers might consider the above truth as they contemplate a federal government that is rushing toward $5 trillion in annual spending. Oh my, the economy-sapping waste. Oh my, the great private businesses that die too early because the political class is so aggressively frittering away what private businesses would give anything to have access to.

So government spending powers economic growth, or powers growth “to a point”? That’s just not serious. That’s the equivalent of saying Maduro’s cronies can run El Guri better than, or nearly as well as the technicians with actual engineering skills. Stated simply, government spending is the process whereby the experts are replaced by the average, with predictable and economy-sapping results.