Jump to content
Head Coach Openings 2024 ×
  • Current Donation Goals

    • Raised $2,716 of $3,600 target

The Coronavirus - a virus from eating bats, an accident or something sinister gone wrong?


swordfish

Recommended Posts

The disease will leave behind a residue of laws, spending, and precedents for future government actions.: https://reason.com/video/coronavirus-is-the-health-of-the-state/

Quote

The coronavirus pandemic threatens a world-wide wave of sickness, but it's the healthiest thing to happen to government power in a very long time. It'll leave the state with a rosy glow, but our freedom will end up more haggard than ever.

For the sake of their survival, "all animals experience fear—human beings, perhaps, most of all," wrote economic historian Robert Higgs. His 1987 book Crisis and Leviathan examines how bad times cause governments to grow in scope and power. "The people who have the effrontery to rule us, who call themselves our government, understand this basic fact of human nature. They exploit it, and they cultivate it. Whether they compose a warfare state or a welfare state, they depend on it to secure popular submission, compliance with official dictates, and, on some occasions, affirmative cooperation with the state's enterprises and adventures."

Or, as Rahm Emanuel put it in 2008: "You never want a serious crisis to go to waste. And what I mean by that is an opportunity to do things that you think you could not do before."

"The Federal Reserve has become the default doctor for whatever ails the U.S. economy," noted a skeptical Wall Street Journal editorial board. But economic fallout from the virus "relates mainly to the damage to global supply chains and expected limits on travel and commerce as the world tries to mitigate the rates of infection. Nobody is going to take that flight to Tokyo because the Fed is suddenly paying less on excess reserves."

And will stimulus spending repair disrupted supply chains and put production lines back in operation a minute sooner than demand for goods and services dictates? Not a chance.

Public health has long been a playing field for fear and calculation, giving us intrusive laws that sit on the books, waiting to be invoked by the next microorganism to catch the public's attention. Those laws include a nearly unlimited power to quarantine people suspected of exposure to infectious diseases.

Coronavirus will leave behind a residue of laws, spending, and precedents for future government actions. That's because of what Higgs calls the "ratchet effect," by which the aftermath of each crisis sees government shrink a little, but never back to its pre-crisis status. "Thus, crisis typically has produced not just a temporarily bigger government but also permanently bigger government," he wrote.

So even after the public panic retreats, the politicians' calculations subside, and coronavirus becomes more knowable and treatable, we'll be left with the permanent swelling of government caused by this latest crisis.

 

  • Thanks 1
  • Disdain 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Airlines’ $58 Billion Bailout Request Puts Scrutiny on Past: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-03-17/airlines-58-billion-bailout-request-puts-past-under-scrutiny?sref=P6Q0mxvj

Quote

Last week, Scott Kirby, the president of United Airlines Holdings Inc., described a “dire scenario” in which monthly sales would plunge 70% until the start of June, then 60% that month and 40% in July and August.

That outlook, it soon became clear, was too optimistic with the coronavirus pandemic destroying virtually all demand for travel. Airlines and their labor unions stepped up a push Monday for $58 billion in U.S. aid to weather a storm that has surpassed the 2001 terror attacks in terms of impact on the business. President Donald Trump said he would back the industry “100%.”
 
Airlines worldwide are making similar pleas for help as bookings evaporate.
....

Help in the U.S. is needed because “this crisis hit a previously robust, healthy industry at lightning speed,” Airlines for America said in a statement. The trade group outlined a proposal for $50 billion for passenger airlines and $8 billion for cargo carriers.

But the request for taxpayer assistance via loans, grants and tax relief comes after a decade of massive consolidation -- and billions in profits -- that put the industry in a far more robust condition than before.

What’s more, from 2010 to 2019, U.S. airlines spent 96% of their free cash flow, some $45 billion, to purchase shares of their own stock, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. The world’s largest carrier, American Airlines Group Inc., was the biggest buyer, spending $12.5 billion.

Share repurchase programs aim to help boost share prices. And that effort -- as opposed to using the cash to build up reserves -- is bound to draw attention as the question of aid is debated.

....

With all this "free money" due to COVID-19 everybody is coming to suck on the public teat,  regardless that it was their own past decisions that helped to put them where they are today.

 

  • Disdain 1
  • Kill me now 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Stop It With the Coronavirus Curfews Already: https://reason.com/2020/03/17/stop-it-with-the-coronavirus-curfews-already/

Quote

Now that sports have been effectively canceled, there is apparently a new competition afoot in this coronavirus-cursed country: Politicians vying to see who can impose the most freedom-infringing clampdown in the name of flattening the curve.

New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy on Monday evening "strongly suggested" a statewide curfew between 8 p.m. and 5 a.m., with exceptions made only for emergencies and "essential travel," whatever that means. For now, this designation falls short of an official order, resting instead in the vaguely threatening legal zone of strong discouragement, though the governor has literally promised "more draconian steps" in the future.

The move came concurrently as a "shelter in place" order for the 7 million residents of six counties in the San Francisco Bay Area, who are now permitted to leave their own homes only "to provide or receive certain essential services or engage in certain essential activities and work for essential business or government services." Violating the order is a misdeameanor that—according to the order!—"constitutes an imminent threat and creates an immediate menace to public health." Don't worry, though; San Francisco Police Chief William Scott said that cops will be taking a "compassionate, commonsense approach" to enforcement.

"We're absolutely considering that," New York City's clownpants mayor Bill de Blasio added this morning.

It is worth thinking this stuff through a bit more than your average politician. I sit squarely on the worst-case-scenario side of the spectrum and have been practicing the kinds of social distancing de Blasio is only belatedly preaching, but there are a least four main commonsense objections to curfews that arise even before you start considering the constitutionality and massive economic impact of it all.

1) Shutting most everything down creates real shortages, not just the no-toilet-paper-at-Whole-Foods kind. The more people and industries you order locked down, the more supply chains get broken, the more stores shutter, the fewer goods are available. We all still need stuff, even if we're sitting indoors all day. And in cramped, big cities like New York, where living space is at a premium, there is frequently neither storage space nor predilection for stocking up on weeks' worth of food at a time.

2) Compressing the commercial day will mean more people shopping together in close quarters. The smart play until now among germaphobes has been hitting up the local Rite Aid in the wee small hours. Mayors, county executives, and governors are increasingly foreclosing that option.

3) Law enforcement has more urgent priorities than policing the free movement of citizens. At a moment when National Guard reservists are being called up to build emergency ICU capacity, do we really want available man/womanpower scaring peaceable residents straight?

4) Human beings do not have a limitless capacity for self-imprisonment. We are about to see a lot of resentment from the healthy Youngs about how they no longer have jobs or the ability to make student loan payments because of draconian governmental measures to combat a disease disproportionately affecting the Olds. But even setting that aside, in the absence of V-1 bombs flying overhead, people are eventually going to bust out of their containment. Setting up legal regimes in contravention of human nature is a recipe for all kinds of trouble.

How do these curfews and mandatory quarantines end? No really, how do they? What does success look like? When is the "emergency" over? We see very little acknowledgment that these questions are even relevant, let alone attempts to answer them amid the cascade of competitive shutdowns.

I, too, urgently hope that people mostly stay the hell away from each other over the coming weeks. But not at gunpoint, and not in such a way that creates new and perhaps even worse pathways for unhealthy behavior. Let's be careful out there both personally and governmentally.

 

  • Disdain 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Here we go:  https://www.cnn.com/2020/03/17/us/kentucky-refused-quarantine-coronavirus-trnd/index.html

Quote

A Kentucky novel coronavirus patient checked himself out of the hospital against medical advice. So to prevent him from spreading the virus, officials are surrounding his house to keep him there.

The 53-year-old man in Nelson County refused to quarantine himself after testing positive for Covid-19, Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear said.

Nelson County officials "forced an isolation" on the man, one of the first 20 confirmed Covid-19 cases in the state.

"It's a step I hoped that I'd never have to take," Beshear said in a conference on Saturday. "But I can't allow one person who we know has this virus to refuse to protect their neighbors."

Beshear didn't share then how the government had forced the unnamed man to stay in his home.

But this week, Nelson County Sheriff Ramon Pineiroa told the Kentucky Standard that deputies will park outside of the man's home for 24 hours a day for two weeks. The patient is cooperating now, Pineiroa said.

When reached for comment by CNN, the Nelson County Sheriff's Department deferred all comments to Beshear.

Nelson County Judge Executive Dean Watts told CNN affiliate WDRB the measure was necessary to keep the community safe.

"This is about us, not about 'I,'" Watts said. "So quarantine is a must. If we have to, we'll do it by force."

Most state laws for imposing quarantines are fairly broad. Kentucky law gives the Cabinet for Health and Family Services the power to declare and "strictly maintain" quarantine and isolation as it sees fit, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.

The federal government hasn't authorized national quarantines or isolations yet, but President Donald Trump has that power. Under the Commerce Clause of the Constitution, a president can issue an executive order authorizing isolation or quarantine for several contagious diseases, including severe acute respiratory syndromes like Covid-19.

Welcome to the new America.  And yet another bullshit possible abuse of power of the Commerce Clause.

 

  • Disdain 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 hours ago, TrojanDad said:

was that the case with H1N1 in 2009?

Did H1N1 cause the type of panic that Covid-19 has?  What about the good 'ole run-of-the-mill influenza?  Thousands of died from that this season alone,  yet no hysteria from the MSM.

 

  • Disdain 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

12 minutes ago, TrojanDad said:

not sure if it’s one single source. I think social media and some media own their fair share. 
 

But I do agree playing politics by a variety of govt officials plays a part. 
 

https://time.com/5802802/social-media-coronavirus/

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/08/technology/coronavirus-misinformation-social-media.html

 

The media or Social Media doesn’t have the capability to shut down and restrict businesses from operating. That’s all being done by Government officials.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, gonzoron said:

I disagree. How many of you on this Forum live your lives influenced by what the media tells you? 

I choose not live my life influenced by the media,  but many do.   

Frankly gonzo you are blind and deaf if you don't believe the MSM has help to shape the public's response to COVID-19.

https://theconversation.com/coronavirus-how-media-coverage-of-epidemics-often-stokes-fear-and-panic-131844

Quote

New contagious diseases are scary. They frighten us because they are unknown and unpredictable. The ongoing outbreak of the novel coronavirus has received extensive media attention, coverage that can tell us a lot about how uncertainty in the face of such an epidemic can all too easily breed fear.

For about a decade, I have been studying the role of emotions in journalism, including in the coverage of disasters and crises. Media coverage is vital to our shared conversations and plays a key role in regulating our emotions, including fear.

While fear is an emotion that we frequently experience as individuals, it can also be a shared and social emotion, one which circulates through groups and communities and shapes our reactions to ongoing events. Like other emotions, fear is contagious and can spread swiftly.

Media coverage sets the agenda for public debate. While the news doesn’t necessarily tell us what to think, it tells us what to think about. In doing so, the news signals what issues merit our attention. Research has consistently shown that when issues receive extensive media coverage and are prominent in the news agenda, they also come to be seen as more important by members of the public.

The current outbreak has been much more prominent in media coverage than recent epidemics, including Ebola. For example, a Time Magazine study shows that there were 23 times more articles in English-language print news covering the coronavirus outbreak in its first month compared to the same time period for the Ebola epidemic in 2018.

‘Killer virus’

My own research suggests that fear has played a particularly vital role in coverage of the coronavirus outbreak. Since reports first started circulating about the new mystery illness on January 12, and up until February 13 2020, I have tracked reporting in major English-language newspapers around the world, using the LexisNexis UK database. This includes almost 100 high-circulation newspapers from around the world, which have collectively published 9,387 stories about the outbreak. Of these, 1,066 articles mention “fear” or related words, including “afraid”.

Such stories often used other frightening language – for example, 50 articles used the phrase “killer virus”. One article in The Telegraph newspaper was typical of this fear-inducing language, in describing scenes on the ground in Wuhan shared on social media:

Mask-wearing patients fainting in the street. Hundreds of fearful citizens lining cheek by jowl, at risk of infecting each other, in narrow hospital corridors as they wait to be treated by doctors in forbidding white hazmat suits. A fraught medic screaming in anguish.

Tabloid newspapers such as The Sun and The Daily Mail, were more likely to use fear-inducing language. For example, The Sun’s coronavirus liveblog  routinely refers to the virus as a “deadly disease”.

Many stories offered local angles by reporting on fears in local areas affected by the outbreak. In the UK, this led to a particular focus on Brighton, where several cases have been reported. For example, a story in The Times suggested:

Conversations about miniature bottles of antibacterial hand sanitiser are normally far from a mainstay of lunchtime pub chitchat. However, such is the anxiety over the coronavirus that locals in The Grenadier in Hove yesterday readily admitted to changing their hand-washing routines.

Other reports localised the story by discussing the impact on Chinese-owned businesses. The Manchester Evening News, for instance, reported that: “The fear of coronavirus is hitting businesses hard, with some reporting a 50 per cent drop in custom since the outbreak. And Chinese Mancunians report suffering more racial abuse.”

A number of stories, by contrast, sought to temper fears and provide reassurance. For example, Singaporean prime minister Lee Hsein Loong was widely quoted in cautioning against panic:

Fear can make us panic, or do things which make matters worse, like circulating rumours online, hoarding face masks or food, or blaming particular groups for the outbreak.

Fear can be catching

Research on coverage of earlier disease outbreaks show a similar emphasis on fear. In the case of the SARS epidemic in 2003, a study by historian Patrick Wallis and linguist Brigitte Nerlich found that “the main conceptual metaphor used was SARS as a killer”.

file-20200214-11005-18lp05t.jpg?ixlib=rb China demanded an apology after a Danish newspaper used the Chinese flag in a cartoon about the spread of the novel coronavirus. EPA-EFE/Ida Marie Odgaard

Along the same lines, media scholars Peter Vasterman and Nel Ruigrok examined coverage of the H1N1 epidemic in The Netherlands, and found that it was marked by the “alarming” tone of its coverage. Like the coronavirus, these historical outbreaks were characterised by uncertainty, breeding fear and panic.

To put these observations into perspective, it is instructive to look to a comparison to coverage of seasonal influenza, which is estimated by the World Health Organization to kill 290,000 to 650,000 people around the world every year. Since January 12 2020, world newspapers have published just 488 articles on the seasonal influenza without mention of the coronavirus.

In sharp contrast to coverage of this novel coronavirus, fewer than one in ten stories about flu (37 of 488) mentioned fear or similar phrases.

The prominence of fear as a theme in reports of the coronavirus suggests that much of the coverage of the outbreak is more a reflection of public fear than informative of what is actually happening in terms of the spread of the virus.

Former US president Franklin D Roosevelt probably overstated the case when he famously said that “the only thing we have to fear is fear itself”. Yet at a time rife with misinformation, fake news and conspiracy theories, it is worthwhile remaining alert to the dangers of this contagious emotion in the face of uncertainty.

 

Edited by Muda69
  • Disdain 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

If 18 Months of Extreme Social Distancing Is What It Takes To Stop Coronavirus, We're Doomed: https://reason.com/2020/03/18/coronavirus-quarantine-imperial-college-london-covid-19/

Quote

Imperial College London's influential analysis of how various coronavirus prevention measures would affect the spread of the disease has estimated that doing nothing would result in 510,000 deaths in Britain and another 2.2 million in America. That report, which convinced the British government to abandon its strategy of largely letting the disease run its course, is now available to the public.

The report also finds that disease-suppression policies—extreme social distancing, self-imposed quarantines, school and university closures, etc.—will need to be maintained until a vaccine is developed, which could take as long as 18 months.

"To avoid a rebound in transmission, these policies will need to be maintained until large stocks of vaccine are available to immunise the population—which could be 18 months or more," write the report's authors. "However, there are very large uncertainties around the transmission of this virus, the likely effectiveness of different policies and the extent to which the population spontaneously adopts risk reducing behaviours."

It is difficult to imagine people continuing to follow self-quarantine policies for weeks. It's impossible to imagine them doing it for a whole year. If that's what it's going to take to fully stop the spread of COVID-19, it's worth wondering whether we should admit defeat before we do any additional damage to the economy. Eighteen months of extreme social distancing isn't feasible.

John Ioannidis, a professor of medicine at Stanford University, raises some of these issues in a terrific post for Stat. Ioannidis wonders whether long-term and "draconian countermeasures" to combat coronavirus can be justified, given how uncertain they are to work and how little data we have about COVID-19's true mortality rate:

"The data collected so far on how many people are infected and how the epidemic is evolving are utterly unreliable. Given the limited testing to date, some deaths and probably the vast majority of infections due to SARS-CoV-2 are being missed. We don't know if we are failing to capture infections by a factor of three or 300. Three months after the outbreak emerged, most countries, including the U.S., lack the ability to test a large number of people and no countries have reliable data on the prevalence of the virus in a representative random sample of the general population.

This evidence fiasco creates tremendous uncertainty about the risk of dying from Covid-19. Reported case fatality rates, like the official 3.4% rate from the World Health Organization, cause horror—and are meaningless. Patients who have been tested for SARS-CoV-2 are disproportionately those with severe symptoms and bad outcomes. As most health systems have limited testing capacity, selection bias may even worsen in the near future.

The one situation where an entire, closed population was tested was the Diamond Princess cruise ship and its quarantine passengers. The case fatality rate there was 1.0%, but this was a largely elderly population, in which the death rate from Covid-19 is much higher.

Projecting the Diamond Princess mortality rate onto the age structure of the U.S. population, the death rate among people infected with Covid-19 would be 0.125%. But since this estimate is based on extremely thin data—there were just seven deaths among the 700 infected passengers and crew—the real death rate could stretch from five times lower (0.025%) to five times higher (0.625%). It is also possible that some of the passengers who were infected might die later, and that tourists may have different frequencies of chronic diseases—a risk factor for worse outcomes with SARS-CoV-2 infection — than the general population. Adding these extra sources of uncertainty, reasonable estimates for the case fatality ratio in the general U.S. population vary from 0.05% to 1%.

That huge range markedly affects how severe the pandemic is and what should be done. A population-wide case fatality rate of 0.05% is lower than seasonal influenza. If that is the true rate, locking down the world with potentially tremendous social and financial consequences may be totally irrational. It's like an elephant being attacked by a house cat. Frustrated and trying to avoid the cat, the elephant accidentally jumps off a cliff and dies."

Ioannidis also notes that "in the absence of data, prepare-for-the-worst reasoning leads to extreme measures of social distancing and lockdowns," but "we do not know if these measures work."

The worst-case scenario may be extremely bad—much worse than his numbers suggest—but again, bringing much of human civilization to a halt for multiple months or years is not really a viable solution.

Yep, just let the state try and keep the population at a "social distance" for 18-months.  There will be a revolution.

 

  • Disdain 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Starting to hit the U.S. Automobile industry:

Honda, BMW close plants in U.S. and Europe due to the coronavirus outbreak: 

Quote

Honda North America announced it will be closing four U.S.-based plants starting March 23 due to an anticipated decline in market demand related to the coronavirus. 

In a statement, Honda said it would halt production for six days and that it plans to return at the end of the month.

The hiatus will reduce production by approximately 40,000 vehicles, the company said. 

Honda North America and BMW are closing plants throughout the U.S. and Europe this week due to an anticipated decline in demand for cars related to the global coronavirus outbreak. 

Honda North America announced it will be closing four U.S.-based plants starting March 23 due to an anticipated decline in market demand. In a statement, Honda said it would halt production for six days with plans to return by the end of the month. The hiatus will reduce production by approximately 40,000 vehicles, the company said. 

“As the market impact of the fast-changing COVID-19 situation evolves, Honda will continue to evaluate conditions and make additional adjustments as necessary,” the company said in a statement. “In undertaking this production adjustment, Honda is continuing to manage its business carefully through a measured approach to sales that aligns production with market demand.”

Approximately 27,600 Honda associates in North America will be affected by this temporary suspension of production, but the company said it will continue full pay for all its associates.

....

At UAW’s Request, Detroit Three Sign on to Rotating Shutdowns: https://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/2020/03/at-uaws-request-detroit-three-sign-on-to-rotating-shutdowns/

Quote

At the urging of the United Auto Workers to do more to protect U.S. Detroit Three autoworkers, Ford, General Motors, and Fiat Chrysler have agreed to new coronavirus-fighting measures.

While the UAW initially pressed for a two-week production shutdown, the result of Tuesday’s talks was a series of rotating partial shutdowns, the union announced late last night. The move comes after extra disinfecting and social distancing measures announced by the Detroit Three late last week. It also comes as two new coronavirus cases appear at product development centers in Michigan.

Those cases are at Ford’s Dearborn campus and GM’s Warren Technical Center — coming days after a Fiat Chrysler employee tested positive for the virus at an Indiana transmission plant. Employees who came into contact with all three individuals have been ordered into self-quarantine for two weeks.

As for the UAW-Detroit Three pact, more details are expected Wednesday, though the union did state that “all three companies have agreed to review and implement the rotating partial shutdown of facilities, extensive deep cleaning of facility and equipment between shifts, extended periods between shifts, and extensive plans to avoid member contact.”

The three automakers will also focus on shift rotation to further curtail viral transmission.

In addition to the new protective measures, the automakers have “agreed to work with us in Washington, D.C., on behalf of our members as we manage the disruption in the industry,” the UAW said.

 

Wonder how long until the other auto manufacturing plants in Indiana shut down?  And then by extension the smaller part suppliers facilities.

 

  • Disdain 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, Muda69 said:

I choose not live my life influenced by the media,  but many do.   

Frankly gonzo you are blind and deaf if you don't believe the MSM has help to shape the public's response to COVID-19.

https://theconversation.com/coronavirus-how-media-coverage-of-epidemics-often-stokes-fear-and-panic-131844

 

The public hysteria didn’t start until the Government started closing things down. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

3 minutes ago, gonzoron said:

The public hysteria didn’t start until the Government started closing things down. 

If you say so.  I'm sure fear-mongering reporting by the MSM had absolutely nothing to do with it.

Priming the pump so to speak.

https://www.businessinsider.com/coronavirus-panic-buying-toilet-paper-stockpiling-photos-2020-3#in-hong-kong-the-coronavirus-caused-panic-buying-of-toilet-paper-as-early-as-mid-february-it-apparently-got-so-dire-that-an-armed-gang-robbed-a-shop-of-600-rolls-of-toilet-paper-one-day-1

Quote

The spread of the coronavirus has brought with it panic-buying of food and household essentials, despite the attempts of governments to discourage stockpiling. But no item has made more headlines than the humble toilet roll.

From buying enough toilet rolls to make a throne, to printing out blank newspaper pages to serve as extra toilet paper, people have had a seemingly insatiable desire to stockpile — even though manufacturers say there is no shortage.

Panic buying spread across Hong Kong in February and spread to countries including the UK, the US, Singapore, and Australia, according to multiple reports. 

....

Authorities said the panic buying was not the result of any shortage, and blamed false online rumors for the rush for toilet paper, the BBC reported.

...

Social media posts led people to believe, inaccurately, that the raw materials for masks and toilet paper are the same, and have the same Chinese source, reported the paper. 

This led to some shops selling out almost as soon as paper arrives, according to the paper.

....

 

Edited by Muda69
  • Disdain 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Coronavirus and Panic Buying: There Is No Such Thing as Price Gouging: https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/03/coronavirus-there-is-no-such-thing-as-price-gouging/?utm_source=recirc-desktop&utm_medium=homepage&utm_campaign=river&utm_content=featured-content-trending&utm_term=first

Quote

You, sir! You whose shopping cart squeals beneath the weight of half a dozen 48-packs of toilet tissue! Come now, be reasonable. How many rolls do you really need to get you through the next week or so? A four-pack, you say? Wonderful. Bless you for your civic-mindedness. You may now put 284 rolls of TP back on the shelves so that a dozen fellow citizens who really need it can get it.

Wouldn’t it be wonderful if someone trustworthy and courteous and concerned with the common good could stand in front of the registers at Costco calming people’s fears and successfully urging them to buy only what they actually need? Someone as folksy and good-hearted as, say, Jimmy Stewart during the scene in which there’s a run on the Building and Loan (i.e. bank) in It’s a Wonderful Life?

Good news, friends! We already have Jimmy Stewart. He’s right here among us. Only his name is “market pricing.”

My colleague John Hirschauer has looked at worrisome remarks made by politicians about interfering with pricing signals and explained the academic research on the wisdom of setting price controls during a crisis. Now let’s consider the matter from the point of view of community and common sense. Free enterprise — sometimes called capitalism — is a wonderful thing in normal times because during every non-coercive transaction, the buyer would rather have the thing he’s buying than the money, and the seller would rather have the money. Each freely entered-upon transaction increases global well-being.

But capitalism is especially useful in a crisis, when there is market disruption. When times turn dark, capitalism is, more than ever, your friend. Let’s say stores run out of toilet paper or hand sanitizer or diesel fuel because of panic buying during the age of COVID-19, and no one can find these items in stores. Why people are punching each other over the Charmin while leaving the Robitussin and Tylenol alone is a mystery, but that is of no moment. What matters is that toilet paper is suddenly more valuable simply because demand has surged. That means people are bidding up the price. Or they would be, if the stores allowed this. If Costco quadrupled the price of whatever item is selling out, there wouldn’t be any shortages of anything. Market pricing would restore normal functioning.

Costco doesn’t do this because of what economists call “good will,” which essentially means “fear of bad publicity propagated by economic illiterates.” So what does Costco do instead? It sells products for their everyday prices, creating the potential for a secondary market if shelves are empty. In other words, things that people are desperate to get are on sale for the same old price, except . . . you can’t find them anywhere. Thinking through this matter calls for the wisdom of Bruce Springsteen.

Springsteen used to sell tickets to his concerts for very low prices because he wanted ordinary working men and women to be able to afford them. What actually happened: Ticket resellers bought up all the tickets. So a ticket with a face value of $30 went for $100, except $70 of that went to a third party. At some point it occurred to Springsteen that if tickets to his shows were selling for $100, it didn’t make a lot of sense for $70 of that to go to a middleman who not only didn’t write “Born to Run,” he didn’t even write “Workin’ on a Dream.” Years ago, Springsteen dropped his “friend of the working man” pricing policy, which is why the last time I went to one of his concerts the face value of the ticket was $350. Is Springsteen guilty of “price gouging” for denying ticket resellers the opportunity to make gigantic profits from his work and artistry? Were those resellers guilty of “price gouging” for selling those tickets for what people were willing to pay?

Some guy who bought $70,000 worth of hand sanitizer and wipes with an eye toward “price gouging,” i.e. reselling these items for whatever the market determines their worth to be at this moment, should be drawn and quartered after he is tarred and feathered but before he is hanged from the nearest lamppost, say social-media users. Wrong. These items were selling for less than their market value at Dollar Tree and Walgreens, where the guy snapped them up. When retailers don’t charge market rates, middlemen naturally step in to ensure proper pricing. Would we rather he store the stuff in his basement and not share it with the community, which is what ordinary Costco hoarders are selfishly and mindlessly doing as a group? Why shrug at hoarding but be cross with the anti-hoarder, the reseller? Value is, as always, highly contingent on time and place, as you would know if you’ve ever bought a happy-hour drink, a Tuesday night ticket to the movies, or an off-peak train ticket.

What Sanitizer Man was trying to do was ordinary retail arbitrage, which is a widely practiced multibillion-dollar business even in non-panicky times. (Don’t believe me because I’m a heartless capitalist? Then take it from those fluffy empaths at NPR. There is an excellent Planet Money podcast on retail arbitrage.) In times of panic, such as when a storm hits, the value of certain items can increase dramatically. Snow shovels are worth a lot more after a blizzard. Batteries and flashlights are worth a lot more during a power outage. A wise merchant will adjust prices accordingly, i.e., offer a snow shovel that used to be $20 for $80. Denying that a thing is worth what another person is willing to pay for it is like denying any other scientific law, like gravity.

What happens if the merchant doesn’t “price gouge” is that his critical items may simply disappear instantly and the person who really needs that snow shovel, needs it so badly that he must have it right now, can’t have it. This is a needless, possibly lethal, cruelty that free movement of prices smoothly corrects (the economists Russ Roberts and Mike Munger explain in detail on the EconTalk podcast). Say that after a blizzard there’s a doctor whose old shovel just broke and who treats lots of elderly patients who might slip and fall and break bones on the sidewalk outside his office. He can’t have a shovel for any price because an ordinary homeowner who already has a serviceable shovel and whose house is not going to be approached by anyone anyway in the next few days happened to get to the store before the doctor and bought a backup he didn’t really need just in case.

Market pricing is how we allocate goods according to greatest need. It’s how we maintain civilization. When we allow market pricing to work its wonders, it forces people to be civic-minded, forces us to be that guy in It’s a Wonderful Life who decides he can get by on $20 for now, instead of taking out the $300 in his bank account. When we interfere with market pricing, it’s like turning away the public-spirited Jimmy Stewart and declaring that it’s every man for himself.

 

  • Disdain 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

9 minutes ago, gonzoron said:

The public hysteria didn’t start until the Government started closing things down. 

And a part of it was also due to uneven treatment from the government ... especially from the top.  First it's no big thing and we're tremendously prepared, then it's a big enough thing to shut down travel from some countries, then we've got plenty of testing going on, then it turns out that wasn't exactly true, then it would pass when it got warm, then it would maybe be around for a few months ... Folks have no stake in the ground to work from, no steady tiller, etc. and, when that happens it flows with the currents regardless of whether it's a steady stream or a rip-tide. 

https://www.cnn.com/2020/02/28/media/fox-news-donald-trump-coronavirus-reliable-sources/index.html

https://www.kpbs.org/news/2020/mar/17/poll-americans-dont-trust-what-theyre-hearing/

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

45 minutes ago, swordfish said:

Image may contain: possible text that says 'If COVID-19 forces Planned Parenthood to be closed for two weeks, the virus will have SAVED more lives than it has taken.'

Same could probably be said for gun stores/shows and some really sketchy hole-in-the-wall restaurants too.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

×
×
  • Create New...