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John Tamny in RealClearMarkets: Joe Biden, the New York Times, ‘Dark’ Winters, and ‘Terrifying Surges’

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By John Tamny – Editor

November 11, 2020

“We have found that students are responding well to our voluntary, convenient, and free walk-up testing sites.” The latter is from a press release produced at Penn State University, and that was released this week to the New York Times. It seems Penn State, much like U.S. universities in all 50 states, has an aggressive coronavirus testing program as a way of keeping close track of the virus’s spread on campus.

Please think about the fact that testing for the coronavirus in what is the world’s richest country is increasingly very convenient, and free. Please think about it relative to March and April when tests weren’t anywhere close to this accessible. Not too long ago a quick coronavirus test in the United States cost a privileged subject $400 and above, but in November of 2020 it’s more and more the case that the tests can be had for nothing.

From there, let’s travel to Indonesia on the other side of the world. This country can claim 270 million citizens versus roughly 330 million in the United States. Where it gets interesting is that according to a recent report in the Wall Street Journal, Indonesia has reported 11,000 deaths related to the coronavirus versus nearly 240,000 in the U.S.

At this point the Trump deranged will no doubt rant and rave about how “Trump did it,” that he has no empathy, and that his lack of it has resulted in many sadly quiet, unhappy homes around the U.S. Worse is that according to president-elect Joe Biden, what’s bad now is about to be really bad as the winter months force people inside only for the virus to be given new life. As Biden has put it, Americans face “a dark winter.”

Biden’s likely newspaper of choice, the New York Times, similarly engages in hyperbole. While it routinely reports that nearly half of all U.S. coronavirus deaths have been associated with nursing homes, it leads with splashy front-page headlines that give a rather different impression to readers. Or at least headline readers. The Tuesday, November 10 edition actually led with an alarmist header that included Biden. It read like this:

“BIDEN CALLS FOR UNITED FRONT AS VIRUS RAGES.”

So the virus “rages” if the front page is to be believed, but on A6 those who bothered to look beyond the headlines were able to find the nuance that is not allowed on the front page, and that Biden the politician perhaps understandably can’t employ. You see, on page A6 readers who bothered would have seen the above-referenced press release from Penn State. Think about it again.

In the United States, testing is increasingly convenient to get, plus it’s more and more free. Just a few weeks ago the Wall Street Journal’s Holman Jenkins reported that over 150 million coronavirus tests had been administered in the United States. One guesses that number is dated at this point. That it is, and that the New York Times reports daily about a “raging” coronavirus is arguably related. And it doesn’t take a doctor or statistician to understand this.

Stating what should be obvious, the coronavirus “rages” in the U.S. only insofar as Americans have the curiosity and means to be tested for it. If you test hundreds of millions of people you’re going to happen on lots of cases. And even all those U.S.-based tests likely don’t scratch the surface. As Jenkins pointed out after the Kamala Harris/Mike Pence debate, her lament that 7.5 million Americans had contracted the virus was probably off by something like 70 million.

Bringing this all back to Indonesia, it would be fascinating to witness the perpetually alarmed explain the low number of “coronavirus deaths” there. Are Indonesians genetically immune to infection from the virus, do they religiously wear N-95 masks while studiously avoiding touching their faces, do they have their own “genius” Dr. Fauci equivalent whose gameplan has been brilliantly embraced by President Joko Widodo, or is it possible that Indonesia has a low death count precisely because it has a low testing rate?

You see, according to the Journal, testing in Indonesia has been very rare. 8 per 1,000 inhabitants kind of rare. Keep in mind that Mexico can claim 13 tests per 1,000 and even the Philippines can point to roughly 30 per 1,000. Readers with a little bit of common sense probably get where this is going.

The more a country tests, the more infections that country will unearth. Doctors and other experts can decide for themselves whether relentless testing is good, bad, or not terribly relevant, but it presumably explains a lot when it comes to virus spread in the U.S. Rich country that we are, we test a lot which means we have a lot of cases. One guesses tests here will soar even more if the testing procedures ever move beyond the uncomfortable method used now. And as even more Americans get tested, more coronavirus infections will be discovered.

Which is exactly as the CDC predicted early on. As the ever-helpful Jenkins has reminded readers on occasion, the CDC’s website alerted visitors from the outset that eventually everyone would be infected. Routine testing in the U.S. presumably supports this contention.

This is a long or short way of asking readers to cast a skeptical eye on dire predictions of “a dark winter” ahead by politicians, along with nail-biting headlines about “terrifying surges.” Probably more than politicians and sub-editors want to admit, their predictions and headers are really just statements of a not so dark or terrifying obvious.

John Tamny is editor of RealClearMarkets, Vice President at FreedomWorks, and a senior economic adviser to Toreador Research and Trading (www.trtadvisors.com). His next book, set for release in March of 2021, is titled When Politicians Panicked: The New Coronavirus, Expert Opinion, and a Tragic Lapse of Reason. Other books by John Tamny include They’re Both Wrong: A Policy Guide for America’s Frustrated Independent Thinkers, 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.com

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

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By John Tamny – Editor

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: The New York Times and Trump’s Critics Can’t Have It Both Ways

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By John Tamny
October 16, 2020

The internet is a long time. More realistically, the internet is forever.

This is a worthwhile jumping off point in consideration of the latest whine from the perpetually outraged about the Trump administration allegedly providing crucial “inside information” to investors about the coronavirus. Supposedly these investors attained unique insights unavailable to the rest of us that they were able to profit from handsomely in late February. Except that such a speculation is utter nonsense.

Proof of the above comes from the similarly perpetual internet. “Based on history, if Larry Kudlow and Wilbur Ross sound the all clear it’s time to head for a bomb shelter.” Guess who said the latter. It was Paul Krugman on April 13th.

“Completely inappropriate for Trump to send Kudlow out to pump markets. But also crazy that anyone still thinks investors trust his investment advice. Markets have fallen more than 10% since Kudlow confidently urged people to “buy the dip” on Monday.” Guess who made the previous assertion on February 28th? It was Catherine Rampell, an economics writer at the Washington Post.

If readers want more, they need only look back to 2016 when Kudlow’s name was floated for CEA Chairman. The arrows and guffaws from his critics were endless. And vicious. And they broadly made the point that Kudlow was a walking, talking contrarian indicator.

That they were unfair would be to miss the point. Politics is a bloody, ugly game. Kudlow knew what he was getting into, so he endured the insults. He’s actually a very fascinating person who is very smart. There’s so much that can be learned from him. Is he always right? Of course not. No one is. The best traders in the world freely admit to being wrong almost as wrong as theyre right. The difference with Kudlow is that when he’s wrong, he’s wrong in public. Most of us get to be incorrect out of the public eye.

Krugman surely knows how to be wrong. Stupendously so. Look it up. Rampell’s surely got a few assertions she’d like to take back, along with some analyses.

All of this is brought up to expose as shallow the newest Trump “scandal.” Matt Egan, CNN’s rather emotional stock-market reporter, put out an opinion piece yesterday claiming that officials in the Trump White House were “privately revealing concerns” about the coronavirus to board members of the Hoover Institution in late February. Egan laments the “unequal” quality of the Administration’s briefings, and claims it’s “everything that’s wrong with the stock market.” Privileged information. All that. Oh grow up. The critics can’t have it both ways.

As the quotes from Krugman and Rampell make plain, as do thousands of other comments and quotes about Trump and his advisers, they’re the men and women who can’t shoot straight. They’re clueless. Per Rampell, no one trusts Kudlow’s investment advice as is. Kudlow told the Hoover board members that containment of the virus was “pretty close to airtight” in February, but according to Krugman it’s “time to head for a bomb shelter” if Kudlow signals all clear.

In that case, why are White House critics claiming now that Kudlow et al somehow knew something in late February? Really, what changed? Wasn’t the point that Kudlow is always wrong? If so, why would investors have listened to him about the coronavirus? Of course, if he’s always wrong as his critics maintain, they would have logically sold with abandon once he publicly gave the all-clear in late February. Right?

Trump said the virus was “very much under control” in late February, but according to the President’s critics, he only tells lies as is; meaning, this know-nothing liar either talked out of turn toward the end of February, or he told the truth by lying to the public. Again, critics can’t have it both ways.

The internet is yet again forever. If Kudlow’s always wrong, and if Trump is lying when his lips are moving, what would it matter what they’re reported to have conveyed to Hoover Institution board members in February?

What lends what’s ridiculous a little bit of credibility is that stock markets were correcting at the time of the meeting between top Trump officials and Hoover board members. Except that the correction was unrelated to the virus. Markets had been pricing its arrival with great calm since January. Anyone with a pulse knew this.

More realistically, in late February Bernie Sanders looked like he might take the Democratic presidential nomination. Markets logically corrected at the time to price at least the possibility of a socialist in the White House. Notable is that they stopped correcting after Joe Biden won the South Carolina primary. In fact, the Monday after Biden’s Saturday win the Dow Jones Industrial Average had its biggest one day point gain in history. This happened after Trump officials who are said to never be right and to never be truthful allegedly told the truth to Hoover types. Get it? The big stock movements were politics related, not virus related.

No doubt stocks did eventually correct in March. The virus did factor this time. With good reason. Investors hadn’t priced in the horrid possibility that politicians would respond to the coronavirus by forcing an economic contraction. Rest assured that the eternal optimist in Kudlow didn’t speak about that in February. Neither he, nor anyone imagined politicians would try to defeat a virus with economic desperation. Surprise drives big market lurches, not what’s known. There’s no “there” to the story by Kate Kelly and Mark Mazzetti.

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

Stephen Moore in The Wall Street Journal: The Coronavirus College Scam

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By Stephen Moore

October 1, 2020

My 20-year-old son attends Villanova University. It is a fine school, but this year it costs $70,000 a year for room, board and tuition—for online classes. This fall most colleges are charging full tuition to families like mine to have kids on campus without real classrooms. This is like going to a restaurant and never getting served, but still getting handed the bill.

My son decided to take a pass, and a full-time job instead. He’ll learn some valuable life skills from that experience, and he’ll likely go back when classes are back open. But millions of young people are back on campus this fall. In many college towns, crowded dorms, fraternities, sororities and bars are open.

According to one report, college students represent 19 of the 25 hottest coronavirus outbreaks in the country with some 40,000 positive cases recorded in September, so administrators are suspending or even expelling students for irresponsible behaviors like going to crowded parties. But what did college presidents expect when they invited students back?

The silver lining is that almost none of the Covid-positive students have needed hospitalization, and most don’t even get sick. The risk to patients under 30 is minimal. But that doesn’t absolve the universities for making choices that benefit themselves at the expense of students, parents and taxpayers, who foot the bill. The schools collect full tuition while students spread the virus and learn little they couldn’t by sitting in front of the computer in their parents’ house at a fraction of the cost.

Why? Follow the money. American higher education is a big business, with total annual revenue of about $600 billion. Last spring, when schools sent students home midsemester, few bothered to refund their tuition. They are terrified that kids will save $150,000 by learning everything they need online, so education experts have trumpeted the value of the on-campus experience. Students are paying for classes they can’t attend. Administrators and professors get paid in full even though most refuse to come anywhere near their students.

I’m proud my son knows a scam when he sees one, and I hope many of his peers follow his example.

Mr. Moore is a co-founder of the Committee to Unleash Prosperity and the Head of FreedomWorks’ Task Force on Economic Revival.

View Original Article on WSJ.com

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

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By John 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.  

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

John Tamny in RealClearMarkets: Are the Corona-Lockdowns An Election 2020 Ransom Note?

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By John Tamny | Editor

September 15, 2020

“We don’t realistically anticipate that we would be moving to either tier 2 or reopening K-12 schools at least until after the election, in early November.” Those are the words of a west coast health director. No in-person schooling until after the election? Hmmm.

Please think about what was said. It reads as kind of a ransom note. Vote for science-reverent candidate Joe Biden, or else….

Really, what else could the utterance mean? What does November 3rd have to do with re-opening schools? Why would it be safer to open on the 4th of November versus the present?

Unless the implicit point is that corona-reverence is far more political than the believers have previously felt comfortable admitting. If so, what’s happening borders on child abuse. Kids will be held hostage by an election?

Think about what this means. For one, not every parent can afford a babysitter. More than some want to acknowledge, there’s a “day care” quality to schooling. And when school isn’t in person, parents without the means to hire babysitters either must reduce work hours, leave their kids without supervision, or quit work altogether.  

Day care aside, what about the kids? While there’s an argument that the learning aspect of education is a tad overstated, does anyone think virtual learning will be very effective? With kids? For the adult readers done with school, think back to how attentive you were on substitute teacher days. Does anyone think a lot of learning is happening remotely?

What about kids with disabilities? How can they be instructed effectively via Zoom?

On a Frontline episode from last week titled “Growing Up Poor In America,” one of the impoverished kids had an ADHD problem. She was expected to learn virtually. Anyone want to guess how this will turn out? Some may respond that ADHD says much more about young people than it does a specific affliction, which is precisely the point. Young people need the structure of a classroom. They need to know they could be called on in class only to face the stares of fellow students if they lack an answer. Pressure concentrates the distracted mind.

The girl with attentiveness problems has an older sister. Understand that the Frontline episode followed three poor families during the spring. Her older sister was supposed to attend the prom. It was going to be her first date. Compassionate politicians and teachers took this exciting first from her.

Is the point that public school teachers don’t feel safe? If so, isn’t the right answer to give those uncomfortable returning to work an out, as opposed to discontinuing in-person schooling altogether?

Of course, if teachers don’t feel safe, a not unreasonable question is why they don’t? It’s not unreasonable to ask simply because retailer Target recently reported its strongest quarterly sales growth in decades. Target was “allowed” to remain open during the lockdowns, and while the political picking of winners and losers brings new meaning to reprehensible, the fact remains that Target has done very well amid the economic contraction forced on us by witless politicians. Translated more clearly, Target stores have at times been very crowded. So have Walmarts, Safeways, Ralph’s, Whole Foods, etc. etc. etc.

That they have raises an obvious question: have workers at those stores been falling ill or dying with any kind of frequency? Half-awake readers know the answer to this question, as should teachers reluctant to return to the workplace. Those employed at the major retailers have largely avoided illness and death. If they hadn’t, media members and politicians desperate to promote a blood-in-the-streets narrative would be letting us know the horrid stories in detail.

Who knows why, but it probably goes back to the statistics reported by the New York Times deep within articles that start with alarmist headlines, but those who pass with the virus tend to be quite a bit older. Or in nursing homes. According to the Times, over 40 percent of U.S. coronavirus deaths have been associated with nursing homes. The latter isn’t meant to minimize the cruelty of a virus as much as at least as of now, virus deaths skew toward the much older who also have pre-existing conditions. In short, just as retail workers have largely been spared illness and death, so logically would teachers who would be exposed to exponentially fewer people each day than retail workers. There’s also the distance thing. Instructors tend to be at the front of a classroom. Get it?  

One more thing about businesses that have remained open: another impoverished child profiled in the aforementioned Frontline episode talked of missing being with his friends. Missing playing sports with them. It’s not allowed. There’s that distance thing. One bright spot in his day is McDonald’s. The one near his family’s home in The Plains, OH offers free lunches for school-age kids. Hopefully readers have this truth internalized the next time some know-nothing decries big business, or “excessive profits,” or calls for increased taxation on the big and successful. They somewhat uniquely have the means to help those who can’t always help themselves.

Back to the quote that begins this piece, some with the ability to keep schools closed are literally tying their re-opening to the presidential elections. This is shameful on too many levels to list; the most obvious being that kids shouldn’t be the victims of political brawls. It’s really very sickening.

And it yet again raises a question about the why behind the continued limits placed on people, schools and businesses. They’ve never made sense in consideration of how thankfully rare death (or even serious illness) has been as a consequence of the virus, epecially in recent weeks. 

Unless it’s always been political; as in, the most actively corona-reverent have been stoking ongoing virus fear as a veiled ransom note. If so, those who would mess with people, schools and businesses for political reasons are truly the sick ones.

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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 on RealClearMarkets.com

John Tamny: How Deep Is Your Coronavirus Religion? | Not Fake News

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How Deep Is Your Coronavirus Religion? | Not Fake News

John Tamny reveals the Not Fake News on the human cost of the COVID-19 lockdowns, both in the US and around the world, and asks if the "cure" is worse than the disease.

Posted by FreedomWorks Foundation on Tuesday, September 8, 2020
John Tamny reveals the Not Fake News on the human cost of the COVID-19 lockdowns, both in the US and around the world, and asks if the “cure” is worse than the disease.

John Tamny in RealClearMarkets: How Deep Is Your Coronavirus Religion?

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By John Tamny

September 1, 2020

“I wanted to stay put in Colombia to build a better future for my daughter, but we have to go back.” Those are the words of Nelson Torrelles to Wall Street Journal reporter John Otis. As Otis reported in the August 31 edition of the Journal, the “haggard and hungry” Torrelles along with his wife and 5-year old daughter are walking back to Venezuela on a Colombian highway.

They’d initially moved to Colombia to escape Venezuela’s socialist hellhole, only for Torrelles to get a job as a waiter at a barbecue restaurant in Bogota. But when Colombia joined much of the rest of the alarmed world in shutting down its economy in March in response to the coronavirus, Torrelles lost his job and soon enough the family apartment that he couldn’t make rent on. Hard as it may be to imagine for those of us lucky enough to live in the United States, the hungry Torrelles and his family are moving back to Venezuela.

Please stop and think about this for a minute. Please stop and imagine the pain Torrelles is in. It surely extends well beyond hunger. Imagine not being able to adequately provide for your family, including a daughter too young to understand that your failures are largely beyond your control. Words don’t begin to describe what Torrelles must be going through, nor can someone lucky enough to be in the United States understand just how awful things must be for Torrelles and his family.

About the coronavirus shutdowns, this column will stress yet again what it always has: the greater the presumed lethality of any virus, the less of any kind of need for shutdowns or government intervention. Practicality is behind this simple assertion.

For one, economic growth has long been the biggest enemy of virus and disease precisely because economic growth produces the surplus resources that can be mobilized in pursuit of cures for what ails us. If something threatens us with sickness or even death, no reasonable person would respond with forced economic contraction.

Second, the greater the presumed lethality of any virus, the more that any laws or rules meant to limit its spread are superfluous. Really, what about the high possibility of sickness or even death requires a law? People don’t need to be told to not hurt or kill themselves. No reasonable person would seek to expand government power over human action during the spread of a virus precisely because wise people would govern themselves.

To which some who absolutely revel in being told what to do will respond that not everyone is rational when it comes to protecting themselves. So true.

All of which speaks to the third reason any kind of governmental response to a virus is impractical. It is because accepted wisdom rarely ages well. Think back to AIDS in the 1980s, and the popular view that it could be spread by people merely existing in the same room.

Some people will most certainly throw caution to the wind about any virus, and it cannot be stressed enough that these people are crucial. Their indifference or their disagreement with accepted wisdom means essential information will be produced. Specifically, those who don’t share the alarmism of doctors like Anthony Fauci and Scott Gottlieb, two individuals who in no way face the risk of going without food, shelter or life’s comforts if it turns out they’re wrong, can tell us if those who aim to protect us are wrong or right. In particular, if some wholly ignore the Faucis and Gottliebs of the world only to experience no ill health effects for doing just that, the medical profession and society more broadly will be much smarter as a consequence.

Lest we forget, Fauci was the doctor who told us a husband could pass on AIDS to his wife just by being in the same room. This was 1983. He knew so little. So did everyone. The past raises an obvious question about the present: why would doctors and scientists eager to know the truth be so adamant as Fauci and Gottlieb are about ongoing governmental limits on human action? Those wholly interested in the truth would presumably cheer those not eager to follow official, or unofficial rules and accepted societal norms. They produce information as important, and arguably more important than the rule followers. Again, there’s so much we don’t know.

At the same time, what we know is that per the CDC, the hospitalization rate for those infected with the virus is .1 percent? As for deaths, the New York Times reported once again on August 18th that “More than 40 percent of all coronavirus deaths in the United States have been tied to nursing homes.” “Once again” is operative mainly because the Times has long reported this fact, and it’s one that has long led the half-awake to a very simple conclusion: some, or maybe a lot of the U.S. coronavirus deaths have been a consequence of the elderly dying with the virus as opposed to having died directly because of it.

It turns out the CDC agrees with this blinding glimpse of the obvious. It recently released a report indicating that over 94 percent of the U.S. coronavirus deaths occurred among individuals with “underlying medical conditions” like diabetes, heart failure, respiratory failure, and other maladies. So while there’s so much so many don’t know, including doctors, what’s long been apparent is now being accepted even by the CDC; U.S. death counts related to the virus are overstated. Perhaps wildly so.

It’s a reminder that the answer to any illness or any other presumed problem must always begin with freedom. Not only does it produce crucial information that truth-focused doctors and scientists would plainly want to know, not only does it produce the growth that provides cures, it also helps those with the least avoid what Nelson Torrelles is enduring right now.

Again, please stop and imagine the many layers of his agony. Having done that, please ask yourself in your relative comfort just how deep your corona-religion is? Is it so deep that you’ll continue to turn a blind eye to the global suffering that’s taking place so that you can feel safe from a virus that thankfully kills so few? Please think deeply about this. The lives of hundreds of millions of innocent people with exponentially less than you hang on your level of alarmism, and the strange joy you derive from being told what to do.  

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