Friday, December 30, 2022

Best Libertarian Jew Blog Posts of 2022

Another year, another round of blog entries. With readily available vaccines, I would have thought that the pandemic and the craziness associated with it would have been put behind us in 2021. Sadly, I was wrong because as I pointed out in October 2021, the pandemic will not end until we as a society can accept risk again. The mask mandate on public transit was finally lifted in April 2022, which prompted me to write a two-part piece on why mask mandates are ridiculous (see here and here). While the pandemic is arguably over, the effects of pandemic regulations are still with us and very much debated.

Some of my favorite pandemic-related blog entries from 2022 include showing how pandemic regulations disproportionately affected children, how the postponed healthcare from lockdowns caused more death, and how "we didn't know" was an invalid excuse for implementing lockdowns in the first. The pandemic was not the only event to make news coverage in 2022. Here were some of my other pieces from this year:

Wishing you all a Happy 2023!

Thursday, December 22, 2022

Can You Light an Electric Menorah on Chanukah? And Why Does It Matter?

Chanukah is the Jewish festival of lights to commemorate the rededication of the Second Temple in Jerusalem. According to Jewish tradition, this rededication took place after defeating the Greek occupying force in the Maccabean revolt. The main way of commemorating the festival of lights is by lighting a menorah, which is a multi-branched candelabrum. With the advent of electricity, it became more common for electric menorahs to be used as a part of Chanukah. Turning on or off electricity on Shabbat is commonly considered a biblical violation of making a fire on Shabbat, although I took issue with the argument over a decade ago. It was this normative practice surrounding electricity on Shabbat that I was surprised to see that the use of electric menorahs on Chanukah was even a debate. 

It makes sense to have an electric menorah in such places as hospitals, hotel rooms, and college dorms where lighting candles is not permitted. These exceptions notwithstanding, there are multiple arguments against an electric menorah (see here, here). One of the arguments against using an electric menorah is that the original miracle was created using fuel, wicks, and olive oil. This would explain why there traditionally has been a preference for using olive oil to light the menorah instead of using wax candles or another type of oil. The normative opinion is that an electric menorah does not fulfill the mitzvah of lighting the menorah because it does not really have fuel, wicks, or oil. Conversely, the menorah we use today has nine branches; the one used in the Temple has seven. So in at least one aspect, Jews have deviated from the original practice in the Temple.

I think there can be some back-and-forth based on the Talmudic discussion about menorahs in Shabbat 23b. On the one hand, the Talmud does not even mention whether we should consider performing the mitzvah with olive oil because it best mimics the original miracle. The discussion in the Talmud is very much based on the quality of light that is produced rather than the type of flame, as R. Sholom Segal from the Union of Traditional Judiasm argues. If it is about having the brightest, most consistent light, an electric menorah would arguably outshine its counterparts. 

On the other hand, the end of Shabbat 23b states that the light is supposed to be a single wick (נר) and not a blaze of fire (מדורה). An argument could be made that neither incandescent, fluorescent, nor LED bulbs qualify as a wick under Jewish law. An incandescent light bulb has an arc-shaped filament that acts more as a blaze of fire than a single wick. Fluorescents do not have the status of fire under Jewish law (Shvut Yitzhak). Similarly, LED lights do not burn anything and emit a minimal amount of heat (R. Dov Linzer). 

With any new technology, there is going to be debate as to if and how a new invention or innovation can fit within the confines of Jewish tradition. Like with so many debates in Jewish law, I ask what is the deeper meaning behind asking whether we should use electric menorahs. 

In this case, I ask myself what are the most important elements of lighting the menorah. As the Talmud brings up, the first point is that the light is adequately bright enough to see. The second reason, which is related to the first, is that Jews publicize the menorah and the miracle of Chanukah.  

I like the act of lighting a match and igniting the wick. I like seeing the candle lights wax and wane as the candles burn. For me, there is an aesthetic and feeling I get when I use wax candles. It takes me to a time in which I was not born, and it gives me a sense of connection that I do not get with an electric menorah or lighting with olive oil. Flicking an electric switch to turn on the candelabrum does not have the same feel.  

I also like what I wrote in 2016 when I illustrated the spiritual difference between olive oil versus wax candles. The olive oil represents spiritual purity and doing our best. As a recovering perfectionist, I appreciate the symbolism of the wax candles representing that we do our best, spiritually or otherwise, with what we have. As much as I believe in trying our best, we should also accept that our best has limits and be satisfied with the effort we put into the endeavor. 

Using the wax candles is what resonates with me for lighting the menorah. Some like the use of olive oil because it is more similar to the ancient practice. Especially since there is a plausible debate within the confines of the legalistic technicalities and minutiae under halacha (Jewish law), I am not going to take personal issue with someone using an electric menorah to fulfill the mitzvah. 

Right now, there is a normative preference for olive oil or wax candles. Who knows what it will look like in the next few generations? Wax candles had opposition when they were first used. The Maharal of Prague forbade the use of wax candles because it did not adequately resemble the miracle. However, R. Moses Isserles allowed them because they gave off a clear flame. Maybe what is more important is bringing light into this world. Maybe the fact we use a single wick instead of a torch helps us grasp with our limits as to how much we can better ourselves and the world around us. On the other hand, maybe the electric menorah can symbolize that we can shine brighter than we previously thought possible. 

I know some will disagree, but Chanukah is not only about remembering about what happened as a result of the Maccabean revolt. I think what is most important with regards to lighting the menorah is bringing light into the world. We all bring light differently into this world. Even if we do not fully understand or agree with it, we should do our best to understand our neighbors that are different from us. We should remind ourselves that even if the path is different, we are trying our utmost to bring in as much light in the world as possible. May your Chanukah be full of light and joy!

Tuesday, December 20, 2022

303 Creative LLC v. Elenis: Graphic Designers Shouldn't Be Compelled to Produce Same-Sex Wedding Websites

Should a public accommodation law be allowed to compel a business owner to produce messages that violate their personal beliefs, thereby violating their First Amendment rights? That is a legal question that was presented to the United States Supreme Court in the case 303 Creative LLC v. Elenis. Lorie Smith runs a graphic designing company in Colorado called 303 Creative. She objects to same-sex marriage on religious grounds and would rather not host sites for same-sex weddings. The issue is that Colorado's anti-discrimination law prohibits discrimination against LGBT customers. What the Supreme Court is going to determine is whether Smith's First Amendment rights are being violated by Colorado's anti-discrimination law. 

In spite of such cases as Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission and Fulton v. Philadelphia, the Supreme Court has avoided the question of whether public accommodation laws can compel business owners to provide services for marriage ceremonies that go against their religious or moral beliefs. Hopefully, the case of 303 Creative LLC v. Elenis will settle the question. 

Yes, it is true that I have supported same-sex marriage for a number of years. It is also true that I hope that the Court rules in favor of Lorie Smith because Colorado made a misstep. My condensed argument today will be similar to the argument I made during the Masterpiece Cakeshop case in 2017. 

First, this case is not about eliminating anti-discrimination laws. In 2020, the Supreme Court already decided in Bostock v. Clayton County that the anti-discrimination protections of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 apply to LGBT individuals. A ruling in Smith's favor would have no bearing on same-sex marriage, same-sex adoption, or anti-discrimination laws in the workplace. Legally, this is about whether commercial entities should be compelled in speech that the owner finds morally objectionable.  

Second, the argument for compelling services for someone or something objectionable cuts both ways. Would it be acceptable to compel an Orthodox Jewish caterer to cater non-kosher food for a neo-Nazi event? What about forcing an African-American woodcutter to create a cross for a KKK rally? Can a Left-leaning freelance speechwriter be obligated to write a campaign speech for a Republican candidate? And what about obliging an atheist web designer to design a website for religious ceremonies that they find problematic?  

I do not agree with Lorie Smith's views on same-sex marriage, but I defend her right to express her own ideas and to refuse to express an idea she disagrees with. This case is about rights related to "freedom of association, property, privacy, and religious exercise." If we are to live in a free society, all commercial entities should be allowed to choose who their clients are or how their services should be rendered. 

Third, we live in a time where same-sex marriage is accepted by most Americans. As of June 2022, Gallup found that 71 percent of Americans support same-sex marriage. That is significantly higher than the 27 percent of support back in 1996. I am sure that among that 71 percent is at least one web designer that would have been happy to take the business away from Lorie Smith and make a profit off of the same-sex wedding page. Also, if the issue of same-sex marriage is that important to a gay couple, why would that gay couple want to hire someone who is opposed to their right to get married?  

While this does not get into the purview of the case itself, my fourth issue is that anti-discrimination laws are an example of hazardous policy masquerading as good intentions. Trying to chase such an unobtainable goal comes with the an issue of government taking remedial action. To quote University of Chicago law professor Todd Henderson:

There is no natural limit to the scope of anti-discrimination laws because the concept of anti-discrimination is almost infinitely malleable. To concede the general power of government to redress private discrimination through legislation would be to concede virtually unlimited power to the government. 

With terms to race relations, it was government who enacted such policy as the Jim Crow laws, Plessy v. Ferguson, and redlining. It was the government who defined marriage between a man and a woman instead of allowing for consenting adults to enter into whatever contracts and relationships that they wished. When I explained in 2013 why anti-discrimination laws will not help out the LGBT community, I pointed out that politics does not lead the social change, but rather follows it. 

We cannot legislate our way towards acceptance. Anyone who thinks the government can use anti-discrimination laws to create some utopian world without racism or bigotry is misguided. Nothing can deliver utopia because human beings are imperfect by their very nature. We still do not have 100 percent of people who approve of interracial marriage. Gallup puts that figure at 94 percent. It is a significant improvement from the 4 percent approval rate in 1961, but it still not 100 percent. Approval of same-sex marriage is not at 100 percent, but at least same-sex marriage is legal and most LGBT individuals do not feel the need to hide in the closet.  

While the Supreme Court determines the First Amendment implications as they pertain to freedom of speech, I think there is something even more essential at stake: freedom of association. Freedom of association allows for humans to interact with whom we want and is integral for pursuing our dreams and goals. A free, democratic society cannot eliminate discrimination because freedom of association implies a right to discriminate against others

It is a private business owner's right to choose with whom they should do business, much like it should be our individual choice who our friends are. If you really do not like the fact that a Christian web designer believes that same-sex marriage is a sin, find a web designer who supports same-sex marriage or does not care what two consenting adults do. Anyone who wants to trade in liberty for the appearance of a non-bigoted world is really only going in for a quick, illusory fix that will not produce a free, cooperative society. 

Much like I pointed out over seven years ago when discussing anti-discrimination laws, "your freedom of religion ends where another's freedom of religion begins." Lorie Smith has the freedom of conscience and freedom of religion to believe that same-sex marriage is a sin. She also has the right to refuse business that violates her moral conscience and her First Amendment rights. However, those beliefs do not provide the basis or the right to deny same-sex couples such rights as the right to get married or the right to adopt children. Part of living in a democratic, pluralistic society means that everyone is not going to think, speak, or act the way you do. Whether it is the Religious Right or the woke Left, it is unacceptable to use the government to force everyone everywhere to act the way that they want. By ruling in favor of Lorie Smith, the Supreme Court would preserve freedoms that we should all hold dear.

Friday, December 16, 2022

Who Did the Paycheck Protection Program Protect During the Pandemic?: A Look at PPP Efficacy and Abuse

With the COVID pandemic and the lockdowns in response to the pandemic, economic activity and production took quite the hit in 2020. Many were unemployed and some businesses shut down permanently. To mitigate the economic hardship in the United States, Congress appropriated $787 billion to enact the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP). The PPP provided low-interest loans to small businesses that would be forgiven if they spent about two-thirds of the loan on salaries, wages, and related expenses. While the PPP was trying to accomplish multiple goals, the main purpose was to help recipient firms maintain employment at pre-pandemic levels. How did the PPP end up faring? I took a preliminary look at the effects of the PPP in August 2020, but I want to update what research has unearthed on the efficiency of the PPP.

It makes sense that we should first ask what the effect on employment was since the primary aim was to keep employment levels afloat. A November 2022 statistical analysis from the libertarian Cato Institute found that at the beginning of December 2020, the employment effect was 0 to 3 percent (Autor et al., 2022a). Another estimate from the National Bureau of Economic Research [NBER] puts it at 2 to 3 million job-years of employment over 14 months preserved (Autor et al., 2022b). Another study from the NBER suggested that the medium-term employment effects were small compared to the programs size. This study suggests that the effects were minimal because "many firms used the loans to make non-payroll fixed payments and build up savings buffers" (Granja et al., 2021). A paper from a University of Maryland economics professor shows that 929,000 aggregate jobs were lost four weeks after firms' covered periods expired (Pardue, 2021), thereby suggesting a short-lived effect of the PPP loans. 

How much did it cost to maintain each of these jobs preserved? The Cato Institute estimated that it cost $258,000 per full-year job retained. This was about five times the full-time, full-year median salary for 2020 (Autor et al., 2022a). An NBER report authored by an MIT economist found that preserving 2 to 3 million jobs cost $170,000 to $250,000 per job (Autor et al., 2022b). The Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis similarly found the range to be $169,000 to $258,000 (Emmons and Dahl, 2022).

Who received the PPP loans? The intended purpose of PPP was to help support the workers during a rough time, so it is important to ask this question. One estimation found that only 23 to 34 percent of PPP funds went to the workers (Autor et al., 2022b). Another report from the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis found that about three-quarters of the loans did not go to the workers, but rather such high-income earners as business owners, creditors, and suppliers (Emmons and Dahl, 2022). In other words, only about a quarter of PPP funds went to actual paycheck protection. 

How much fraud was there in the PPP program? In 2022, the Small Business Administration [SBA] flagged it at 70,000 potentially fraudulent loans at $4.6 billion (SBA, p. 1). An independent financial audit of the PPP found that 2 million loans valued at $189 billion were flagged as potentially improper (KPMG, p. 7). A report from watchdog group Project on Government Oversight (POGO) found that 2.3 million PPP loans worth at least $189 billion were flagged for being fraudulent. Given the 896,000 lender reporting errors (KPMG, p. 8), the number is likely higher than the SBA's estimation. The SBA did not require "any verification if the borrower submits documentation supporting its request for loan forgiveness and attests that it has accurately verified the payments for eligible costs." Since rapid deployment of the PPP loans was more important than precision, none of this should be surprising. 

Summary Takeaway: While I am sure that there will be more research on the effects of the PPP in upcoming years, we have some findings to hold us over. The PPP seemed to have a positive effect on employment, although disproportionately small compared to the size of the PPP. While the PPP helped keep some jobs afloat, the jobs that the PPP saved were preserved at a very high cost. There was also considerable fraud and millions of taxpayer dollars put at unnecessary risk. Even if most of the PPP funds were somehow not allocated fraudulently, most of the PPP funds went to protecting wealthy business owners, not workers. The lack of scrutiny and the lack of oversight is as breathtaking as it is unacceptable. Politicians never let a good crisis go to waste. The lockdowns provide a similar lesson that we emerges from the debacle with the PPP loans, mainly that we should not let an emergency scare us into faulty public policy or to expand government overreach.

Wednesday, December 14, 2022

Redlining: Another Reminder Why Government Should Not Be Involved in Housing

While scrolling on my Facebook feed last week, a good friend of mine posted an exposé from ABC News in Chicago called Our America: Lowballed. Part of this coverage is showing how homes in Black-majority and Latino-majority neighborhoods are appraised lower amounts on average than in white-majority neighborhoods. My friend bemoaned this disparity as an example of "historic and current structural racism." My friend then pointed out that this racial disparity goes back to a practice called "redlining."

Redlining refers to the practice of refusing to provide a good or service to a given geographical area. In a U.S. context, the practice of redlining was most prominent in the housing industry. The practice took off during the 1930s with the Home Owners' Loan Corporation (HOLC). Under the leadership of former President Franklin D. Roosevelt (FDR), HOLC was created in 1933 to refinance homes that were currently in foreclosure. As the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis mentions in its brief on redlining, many mortgage holders could not pay their debts, which meant losing their homes. HOLC set the standards to appraise the value of residential properties. If mortgage lenders did not comply, they did not receive financial backing from the Federal Home Loan Bank Board (ibid.). While HOLC was created in attempts to stabilize the housing market during the Great Depression, it came with some negative unintended consequences. 

In its assessment of to whom to lend money, HOLC made color-coded maps of major urban areas in 1935. Green was a "desirable" area, yellow was an area in decline, and red was deemed "disastrous." The redlined areas had "a large minority population, poorer households, and older housing stock." By limiting loans to minorities in the early and mid 20th century, minorities were deprived of the ability to use housing to build assets. 

There is some debate as to whether the HOLC maps caused the discrimination or if they were reflective of already existing discrimination. A Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago concluded that the boundaries created with the HOLC maps caused redlining (Aaronson et al., 2020 [see below]), as did a paper from the American Sociological Review (Faber, 2020). A National Bureau of Economic Research paper argues that the Federal Housing Administration (FHA) used block-level information that was independent of the HOLC maps to implement its own redlining (Fishback et al., 2021).



As if there were not enough reasons to despise former President FDR, we can now add redlining to the list. Whether it was HOLC or FHA, it was an entity from the federal government during the New Deal era that brought about the practice of redlining in the U.S. housing industry. Lenders charged higher rates of interest in redlined areas than their higher-graded counterparts. Properties in redlined areas were appraised at minimal values. All of this made it more difficult to keep property in good condition, which made it more difficult for those living in redlined neighborhoods to accumulate wealth, especially through housing. The effects of government housing policy and denying access to capital from the 1930s to when the Community Reinvestment Act of 1977 de jure ended redlining for good still has its impacts to this day, especially when it comes to poverty concentration

Richard Rothstein, who is a housing policy fellow from the Left-leaning Economic Policy Institute, wrote a book entitled The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America. In an interview, Rothstein stated that the United States "was much, much more segregated as a result of these federal policies than it was before, or would be today without them." In addition to the redlining, Rothstein outlines how zoning discrimination, subsidies, and tax regulations contributed to the disparities in housing we still see today. As Rothstein brought up in another paper he wrote, the federal government placed public housing in high-poverty, racially isolated neighborhoods, which exacerbated racial disparities.

We cannot change the fact that redlining took place, but there should be something that we could do. That is not an easy conversation to have given the multifaceted nature of the problem. The main purpose of today's piece was to illustrate how government intervention vis-à-vis redlining was and still is a problem. Even so, I can still throw out some solutions that I can always elaborate on in the future: 

  • One is that we should stop with the zoning laws and land-use regulations. Part of why housing is so expensive in the United States is that these laws constrain housing supply. When supply decreases, prices increase. This ends up pricing out many from owning a home, particularly those who have been affected by redlining.
  • Another piece of the puzzle has to do with education policy. In spite of Brown v. Board of Education, many schools remain redlined. Why? As a study from the Right-leaning Heritage Foundation points out, it is due to attendance zone boundaries and school district lines. Dallas Independent School District is an example of offering a school choice option without attendance boundaries to help with school integration. By having access to better education, socioeconomically disadvantaged children can break the cycle of poverty instead of being trapped by their zip code. 
  • There also needs to be a conversation around how individuals can improve their credit score, as well as improving their overall access to credit. Credit provides a lifeline to afford in the medium-term such things as an automobile, a college education, or housing. Again, this is beyond the scope of today's piece, but there needs to be finance policy reform to provide all Americans access to financial tools that would make home ownership more viable. 
  • While struggling with an answer to this very question, Cato Institute scholar Neal McCluskey suggested a combination of educating the public and using civic society to pool funds for African Americans to purchase homes.
  • This one comes from the Manhattan Institute: create a friendlier tax environment. Higher property tax values depress property values, diminish wealth, and make it difficult to properly invest (ibid.). Especially since the poor face property taxes at twice the rate than homes in the top decile (Berry, 2021), removing some of the property tax burden off of lower-income households could mitigate the effects of redlining.

It does not matter that redlining has been illegal for 50 years. The redlining that existed for decades made it much more difficult for those in redlined neighborhoods, African-Americans in particular, to accumulate wealth. When the government intervenes in such a fashion for more than a generation, it does not surprise me that the impacts of redlining are still felt to this day. Redlining is one of the main reasons why African-Americans have a fraction of the wealth that other Americans have. We should try to find solutions to make sure that all Americans have housing access. In the meantime, we should sincerely ask ourselves how much we want the government to intervene in solving this problem, especially since it was government policy that caused this mess in the first place. 

Wednesday, December 7, 2022

"We Didn't Know" Is an Invalid Argument for COVID Lockdowns: Why Lockdowns Were Unacceptable In Foresight

In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, most of the governments on the planet implemented a policy that was never implemented in previous pandemics. The non-pharmaceutical intervention (NPI) colloquially as lockdowns most commonly included stay-at-home orders (alternatively known as shelter-in-place orders), but also encompassed such regulations that restricted movement as curfews and quarantines. Per the Centers for Disease Control and Protection (CDC), the purpose of these lockdowns was to limit or prevent person-to-person contact in order to reduce transmission of COVID-19. 

Earlier this year, researchers at Johns Hopkins University found that the lockdowns did next to nothing to help with the spread of COVID-19. When I conducted a literature review of lockdowns in mid-2021, I came across multiple studies, the most intriguing of which being from researchers at the University of Southern California and RAND Corporation. These researchers found that each week of implementing a shelter-in-place order translated into a 2.7 percent increase in excess deaths (Agrawal et al., 2021). 

As more data are generated and analyzed, it becomes clearer that the lockdowns did little to no good while causing considerable harm. As recent as last week I wrote about how delaying preventative care as part of the lockdown response has caused an uptick in cancer. In an attempt to distance themselves from the havoc they advocated for in 2020, the Lockdown Lovers who were all in favor of lockdowns are leaning on the argument of "We didn't know at the time." The Atlantic published an article in October declaring a "pandemic amnesty" claiming uncertainty as a justification in implementing pandemic regulations. 

Such an argument is an example of an argumentum ad ignorantium (argument from ignorance or appeal to ignorance), which is a logical fallacy that argues that something must be true [or false] simply because it has not been proven false. This can be used by theists or atheists alike to posit that a higher power does or does not exist. In the case of lockdowns, a pro-argument lockdown used in 2020 was along the lines of "You cannot disprove the effectiveness of lockdowns. We do not know that lockdowns do not work. Try to prove me wrong." This appeal to ignorance was combined with the argument of "we have to do something." As I pointed out earlier this year, this second argument is the logical fallacy of the Politician's Syllogism. 

The Lockdown Lovers sidestepped these logical fallacies by leaning into the precautionary principle like no other. The precautionary principle states one should take preventative measures to mitigate suspected or potential risk. The precautionary principle is not code for "every time something scares you, do the most radical thing humanly possible to placate your fears." Imagine if we applied this excessiveness consistently to other areas of our lives. As I pointed out in October 2021, we would have some strange life choices and policy results. We would ban automobiles to prevent vehicle deaths and accidents. We would either mandate muzzled dogs or put down dogs to prevent dog attacks. We would mandate exercise or ban all sorts of foods to prevent cardiovascular disease, the number one killer in this country. We do not go to such extremes when it comes to risk aversion. We learn to tolerate and assess risk instead of thinking we could live in a risk-free world.

I would contend that the point of the precautionary principle is to take a measured approach to avoid causing considerable harm. The precautionary principle slices both ways because it would mean that we do not implement policy that will surely wreck lives, much like the lockdowns succeeded all too well in doing. Yet none of that mattered to the Lockdown Lover crowd because the fear of COVID-19 was all-consuming and one-sided to the point of ignoring any of the lockdown's costs. If the Lockdown Lovers understood at the time that there was potential catastrophic harm by implementing lockdowns, they would have abandoned the precautionary principle for a wiser approach to risk management (e.g., the proportionality principle).

The bastardization of the precautionary principle does not touch upon the best argument of them all: we were far from ignorant about the effects of lockdowns. The debate about lockdowns is not a matter of "hindsight is 20/20" or lacking foresight. We had previous epidemiological knowledge and pandemic guidance to help us. Johns Hopkins University (JHU) is considered a premier school for medical research. In September 2019, JHU's pandemic preparedness study (p. 57) had the following to say about quarantines:

 In the context of a high-impact respiratory pathogen, quarantine may be the least likely NPI to be effective in controlling the spread due to high transmissibility.

Just weeks before COVID was discovered in Wuhan, the World Health Organization published its pandemic guidance (p. 16) that recommended the following about lockdowns:

Home quarantine of exposed individuals to reduce transmission is not recommended because there is no obvious rationale for this measure, and there would be considerable difficulties in implementing it. 

The 2019 pandemic recommendations from Johns Hopkins and the World Health Organization [WHO] came from sound epidemiological theory and practice. It is not as if the COVID-19 pandemic were the first pandemic in human history. Not only have there have been multiple pandemics, but there have been pandemics with a higher death rate than COVID-19, whether that was the Black Death, the Spanish Flu, or the Plague of Justinian. 

We as a species have dealt with worse pandemics and survived without ever having to isolate the healthy and asymptomatic. We did not have to implement the largest social experiment in human history to find out that the likelihood of mitigating transmission was very low and the policy of lockdown comes with high costs. Sweden very much understood the epidemiology behind the JHU and WHO recommendations. Sweden followed standard epidemiological practice to the best of its ability, which included not implementing lockdowns. Guess what? Instead of being the basket-case that Lockdown Lovers were anticipating, Sweden ended up faring quite well.  

Aside from lockdowns being harmful, this illustrates the ridiculousness of the argument for lockdowns. We do not set aside previously acquired knowledge simply because something is slightly different from what we are accustomed to. Do we not drive a minivan because it is different from a coupe or sedan? No, we learn the differences between the vehicles, get a feel for the minivan, and drive. 

There are hundreds of coronaviruses, but only seven known to affect humans. The two famous coronaviruses were SARS and MERS. Scientists did not reject what was known about coronaviruses at that point and panic because of it was supposedly a "novel virus." They took that knowledge and applied that to vaccine development. As a result of that knowledge, they were able to accelerate and streamline the COVID vaccine development timeline to the point of breaking the previous record for shortest time to produce a vaccine (that was the mumps vaccine at four years). We also had information and research on upper respiratory diseases more generally that could have provided better guidance in lockdowns and other COVID restrictions than the knee-jerk precautionary principle on steroids that many countries selected.

As for this blog, I did not discard readily available data, findings, or rationale. I did have some in my personal life try to argue that my opposition to lockdowns was only a matter of hindsight. That was far from being the case. I took the research and analysis skills I learned in my graduate program in public policy. I then combined those skills with foresight to explain why lockdowns would most likely be a poor life choice for society. I had first expressed my concerns about lockdowns less than a week before the lockdowns were implemented in the United States. The following month, I used polling and mobility data to argue that people did not need government mandates to voluntarily partake in social distancing. Fortunately, subsequent data vindicated me in my argument that voluntary social distancing was adequate. In May 2020, I listed reasons why the lockdowns would end up being problematic and harmful to millions.  

When looking at any form of public policy, we do not discard previously acquired information, data, or findings. If we are in a situation with certain unknowns, we are supposed to take what we know and make the best decision with what we have available. Most governments did not do that with the lockdowns. There was pandemic guidance in place in the event that such an unfortunate event transpired. Did we as a society "follow the science?" We most certainly did not. There was no risk assessment or cost-benefit analysis conducted prior to implementing a policy of such a magnitude. The playbooks with evidence-based epidemiology were tossed aside and replaced by superstition and sheer panic.

After the Fukushima nuclear accident, three economists at the National Bureau of Economic Research warned about taking the precautionary principle too far (Neidell et al., 2019). What these economists showed is that by shutting down nuclear power plants in response to the nuclear accident, heating prices increased. It ended up reducing the amount of heat that the Japanese people could afford, which in turn caused more deaths than the nuclear accident itself. 

The verdict is still out on lockdowns because data are still being collected on the full extent of their impact. Even so, we are already seeing a phenomenon similar the the Fukushima nuclear accident. In an attempt to prevent the spread of COVID, we implemented lockdowns. What is becoming clearer over time is that the cure of lockdowns was worse than the disease. Much like I did last week with the topic of postponed preventative care, I hope to cover various lockdown costs as more data are collected and disseminated. 

In the interim, I will say this. Ignorance was no excuse to implement something as detrimental and brutal as lockdowns. It was even less acceptable when government leaders ignored already-available epidemiological data and recommendations. The lockdowns were a moral, economic, and epidemiological failing, plain and simple. The lockdowns of 2020 should not only be used as a cautionary tale about the folly of lockdown specifically, but also about how fear can get the better of us. I hope that we as a society are more attentive and think twice the next time government officials declare something an emergency. 

Monday, December 5, 2022

Pasadena Voted for the Economically Reckless Policy of Rent Control

Although the midterm elections were a month ago, I still reflect on the results, particularly those of ballot initiatives. This election cycle, I covered Massachusetts' millionaire tax and prison labor reform, as well as a hodgepodge of ballot initiatives covering multiple topics, including marijuana, minimum wage, and sports betting. Another ballot result caught my eye, this time from the City of Pasadena, California. One of the initiatives in Pasadena that was up for a vote was Measure H. Pasadena's Measure H included a mechanism to impose rent control, specifically that rent increases would be limited to 75 percent of inflation every year after tenancy is established. This Measure passed with 53.8 percent of the vote. 

According to proponents of Measure H, the purpose of such rent control is to prevent "massive year after year increases in rent for tenants who already are living in a home, while guaranteeing a fair return to landlords as required by state law." I can understand and emphasize with the fact that the increases in housing prices are real and painful. At the same time, rent control is a terrible way of trying to help out those struggling with housing prices. 

In 2014, I explained the economics of rent control. You can also read what the libertarian Cato Institute wrote about the economic of rent control in 2018 here. In economic terms, rent control is a form of a price ceiling. What happens in the housing market when such a price ceiling is imposed? 

For one, the demand for rent-controlled units will outstrip the supply. This puts pressure on the non-controlled units by decreasing supply, which not only decreases the number of overall units but also increases prices for non-controlled units. This is not merely economic theory. In San Francisco, rent control ended up decreasing rental housing supply by 15 percent, which caused a city-wide rental increase of 5.1 percent  (Diamond et al., 2019). Here are some other examples of where rent control backfired:
  • Economists found that removing rent control in Cambridge, Massachusetts reduced crime by 16 percent, which brought an annual benefit of $10 million to the City (Autor et al., 2019). Removing rent control also accounted for a quarter of the property value appreciation between 1995 and 2005 (Autor et al., 2014). As the Left-leaning Brookings Institution points out, these findings suggest that one of the outcomes of rent control is that it reduces the neighborhood's desirability. 
  • In Minneapolis, rent control did not fare better (Ahern and Giacoletti, 2022). For one, rent control caused property value to decline 6 to 7 percent. Two, the tenants that gained the most from Minneapolis' rent control was higher-income, economically advantaged households. The goal of this rent control was to help out lower-income households. Imagine that rent control had the opposite effect!
  • Rent control is a cap on the amount of money that a landlord can make, which minimizes profit. This disincentives landlords to do upkeep on the property. Ultimately, this does not help the tenant because improper maintenance and poor repairs do nothing to improve the living conditions of the tenants under rent control. One study measured how deterioration of the rental units was a cost of rent control in Massachusetts (Sims, 2007; Pollakowski, 2003).
  • In the long-term, poor rental quality has the potential to reduce supply further in part because landlords are then incentivized to invest elsewhere. Going back to San Francisco, rent control accelerated the conversion of rental units to condominiums (Diamond et al., 2019). A similar shift away from rental units occurred with the Massachusetts case study (Sims, 2007).
  • When rent control was removed in Cambridge, building permits rose 20 percent and construction spending doubled over the proceeding decade (Autor et al., 2012). This serves an example of how rent control constricts housing supply and discourages new units to be brought to market.
  • In the Los Angeles case, rent increased for noncontrolled units at two to three times the rate that controlled units (Murray et al., 1991). Similarly, New York City's 1968 rental market found that noncontrolled units were 22 to 25 percent higher than they would have been without rent control (Caudill, 1993).

There is substantial economic research to point out the multiple negative effects of rent control. It is no wonder that economists are near unanimous in their opposition to rent control. Even Montgomery County in the state of Maryland, which is quite Left-leaning, provided a scathing, unflattering prognosis in its Economic Assessment. Not only does rent control drive up the cost of housing in the long-term (something that Left-leaning economist Paul Krugman pointed out in 2000), but it erodes the quality of living for rent-controlled tenants and the surrounding neighborhood alike. 

In practice, rent control is self-defeating because it does the opposite of what it intends to do: help out renters struggling with housing. The economics behind rent control are so staggering that it makes me wonder how rent control remains popular. Rather than help out the citizens of Pasadena, all Measure H is going to do is add another example to the evidence base showing the folly of rent control.

Thursday, December 1, 2022

Why the World Health Organization Renaming "Monkeypox" Is Unnecessary

Earlier this week, the World Health Organization (WHO) made an announcement that it going to change the name of the disease "monkeypox" to "mpox." For those who do not know, the monkeypox virus is a viral zoonosis similar to smallpox. Symptoms include fever, muscle pains, lesions, and swollen glands. While the fatality rate for the 2022 outbreak has been less than 1 percent, it is nevertheless an unpleasant two to four weeks for those who contract the disease. 

WHO's renaming decision was made out of concern of racism and stigmatization, particularly towards African nations. In August, the LA Times stated that experts were concerned that keeping the name "monkeypox" could "discourage patients from seeking treatment, cause people to shun those who are infected, and reinforce racist tropes." It might seem well-intentioned to select a name that is not offensive, but the name change was ultimately unnecessary.

It has been common practice to name a new disease or virus based on the details of its discovery or siting of the first outbreak, such as the place of origin or the animal in which the disease was first discovered:

  • The West Nile Virus was first discovered in 1937 in the West Nile district in Uganda. 
  • Lyme disease was discovered in 1975 in the rural area of Lyme, Connecticut. 
  • Ebola was first discovered in 1976 near the Ebola River. 
  • In 1896, Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever was named for the mountain range where it was found.
  • Zika was discovered in 1946 in the Zika Forest in Uganda. 
  • Swine flu was named as such because it originated in pigs. A similar story with mad cow disease. 
What about monkeypox? According to Smithsonian Magazine, monkeypox was first identified in 1958 in a colony of monkeys in a laboratory in Copenhagen, Denmark. One could categorize "monkeypox" as a misnomer because monkeys were not the reservoir; they were the first animal seen afflicted with the disease. Nevertheless, monkeypox was named in a non-racist fashion that has precedent. On the other hand, maybe in a world so interconnected where borders matter less for traveling microbes, perhaps such a practice of naming a virus after the place of origin is antiquated.

Regardless of whether such a practice is indeed passé, what about the racist charges? There is nothing in the name "monkeypox" that explicitly implicates Africans in the disease or its outbreak. Yes, it is true that there is an unfortunate and egregious history of comparing Black people to primates, especially in the 19th and 20th centuries. 

Even such media outlets as the New York Times that are bemoaning the historic racism cannot provide a notable example of the vile comparison being evoked in the context of this latest outbreak. As for the criticism of photos of black people being used early in the outbreak? That was because prior to this latest outbreak, almost all cases of monkeypox occurred in Africa, which means that those were the photos most readily available.  

I would like to bring up the theme of how prominent the disease is. As recently mentioned, the disease has most prominently shown up in various parts of Africa for years now. Only in recent months has it made its way to the developed world. I bring up prevalence of monkeypox because some argued early on in the outbreak that calling it "monkeypox" could "create barriers for those seeking care." 

As of November 28, there have been about 81,188 confirmed cases worldwide (CDC). For an outbreak that has been ongoing since May 2022, that is not a lot of cases on a global level, especially when compared to the millions of COVID cases. As we see from WHO data, the number of cases has been on the decline. It is possible for cases to rise or fall. However, at this time, the number of cases is quite low. That could be due to vaccination, a lower transmission rate, the fact that monkeypox only gets transmitted under specific circumstances, or a combination thereof. Whatever the case, it makes me wonder why WHO bothered to make this renaming decision. You think the WHO would have better things to do than decide the name of a rare disease that is waning in prevalence. 


A bit of a tangent: one argument against the name is that it does not convey useful information because "it suggests that infects monkeys." Do people think that chickenpox only affects chickens? What about the swine flu? Do people think swine flu cannot be transmitted among humans because of the name? 

I want to get at the most salient point to make. How much will calling the disease "mpox" actually help? If you read the press release from the WHO, the word "monkeypox" will still be used for another year alongside of "mpox" until "monkeypox" is phased out. How does that help in the short-term? Another point is that the monkey attribution really does not go away. Most people are going to know what the "m" in "mpox" stands for. 

Furthermore, we have been down this road before. In 1982, the disease now known as AIDS was initially known as gay-related immune deficiency (GRID). Did a name change from GRID to HIV remove stigma against gay men since 1982? I think we know the answer to that question. Certain stigmas will exist in spite of name changes. In 2020, the WHO changed the name of our most recent pandemic to COVID. It was deemed inoffensive in comparison to the "Wuhan Virus" that had anti-Asian implications. Yet it is still possible to call someone a Covidian or a Covidiot.  

There is also a practical issue to consider. "Monkeypox" has been the name used in scientific literature for over half a century. Do you think a name change is appropriate in the middle of an outbreak when scientists need access to the literature to make sure they can research the virus and develop treatments or improve upon monkeypox testing? 

Do you know what would be more helpful than a name change? Let's ask Kelesto Makofane, a gay African public health researcher at Harvard. According to Makofane, the name is not the issue. In August, he said that "The things that are really standing in the way of a successful response are just having access to testing, to vaccines, and to treatments." The AIDS Health Foundation made a similar argument

Multiple studies confirm that this outbreak is almost exclusively men who have sex with men (MSM). Rather than focus on a name change, the AIDS Health Foundation calls on the WHO to focus on what will help MSM the most and mitigate the stigma of gay and bisexual men: education, prevention, testing, treatment, and research. Given the context outlined today, changing the name is nonsensical. Missing the forest for the trees is not a success. Regardless of what the WHO decides to call this virus, evidence-based public health measures are going to make a bigger difference than a feel-good name change.  

Monday, November 28, 2022

Postponed Preventative Healthcare: Another Cost of COVID Lockdowns (November 2022 Edition)

Pandemics have been a natural part of human part of history. While COVID-19 wreaked havoc, there have nevertheless been multiple pandemics that have caused higher death rates and had a higher death toll, whether it was the Spanish Flu (1918-1920), the Black Death (1346-1353), or the Plague of Justinian (541-549). Pandemics are not unprecedented, but the use of lockdowns to isolate the healthy and asymptomatic has been historically unprecedented. 

      Source: Visual Capitalist


The Lockdown Lovers who advocated to shut down large swathes of the economy were so focused on creating a zero-COVID world. Part of their skewed and one-sided approach was slow down or eliminate the spread of COVID while ignoring all other healthcare costs. If you recall, all "non-emergency" healthcare was suspended in multiple countries. In my May 2020 analysis of why we need to end lockdowns as soon as possible, I explicitly stated that implementing lockdowns meant ignoring non-COVID healthcare at our own risk. While I cited a few studies on the topic, the one that is most relevant here is a study from The Lancet showing that the sharply higher unemployment from the Great Recession caused an excess of 260,000 excess cancer deaths in OECD countries (Maruthappu et al., 2016).

This study from The Lancet is doubly important because we created economic decline with the lockdowns and we made sure to delay various forms of "non-emergency" healthcare. Preventative care comes in many forms, whether that would be cancer screenings (e.g., mammograms, colonoscopies); tests for blood pressure, cholesterol, and diabetes; and counseling on such topics as losing weight, alcohol use, or smoking. The purpose of preventative healthcare is in its name. We have preventative care in order to prevent deadly occurrences that could have been avoided if diagnosed and treated beforehand. The extreme repurposing of healthcare in the name of defeating COVID is now coming home to roost. 

A couple of weeks ago, The Lancet released a report entitled European Groundshot - Addressing Europe's Research Challenges: A Lancet Oncology Commission. This report details the impact that the lockdowns have had on cancer-related services in Europe:

"To emphasize the scale of this problem, we estimate that about 1 million cancer diagnoses might have been missed across Europe during the COVID-19 pandemic...There is emerging evidence that a higher proportion of patients are diagnosed with later cancer stages compared with pre-pandemic rates as a result of substantial delays in cancer diagnosis and treatment. This cancer stage shift will continue to stress European cancer systems for years to come. These issues will ultimately compromise survival and contribute to inferior quality of life for many European patients with cancer."

About 1 million cancer diagnoses. Let that number sink in. That is not an insignificant figure by any means. To think that this number only covers Europe. Europe accounts for about 748.7 million out of the 8.001 billion, or about 9.4 percent of the global population. If we assume that the rest of the world has the same rate of missed cancer diagnoses, that would be an estimated global 10.7 million missed cancer diagnoses. 

10.7 million missed cancer diagnoses is astounding. First, let us keep in mind what The Lancet report said when this will continue to stress the European cancer systems for years to come. If it is going to stress Europe's health systems, it is more than plausible that such delays will stress other healthcare systems throughout the world for years to come and further contribute to the non-COVID death count. 

Second, this report from The Lancet only covered cancer. There is more than cancer that can kill people. There are various forms of cardiovascular disease, diabetes, stroke, and other respiratory diseases aside from COVID, to name but a few. And let's not forget that researchers at the University of Southern California and RAND Corporation found that lockdowns actually caused increased excess deaths. 

All of this to say that we will not understand the full cost of the COVID lockdowns for years to come. This report from The Lancet is but the tip of the iceberg in terms of the considerable harm that the lockdowns caused to public health. That is why this is a "November 2022 edition" of figuring out how postponing non-COVID healthcare caused its own healthcare costs. I hope to cover this topic at a future date when we have more data. In the meantime, I will say that as we collect more data on the effects of lockdowns, it becomes more evident that lockdowns were never the appropriate response to dealing with COVID.

Thursday, November 24, 2022

Biden's Student Loan Repayment Pause Is a Short-Sighted and Costly Manipulation of Power

In August 2022, the Biden administration attempted to enact a multi-billion-dollar student loan "forgiveness" program to help families with the financial strain caused by the pandemic. In response to this terrible idea, I came up with a list of 13 reasons as to why we should not have student loan "forgiveness." Thankfully, a federal court in Texas ruled in a 26-page opinion that the student loan "forgiveness" program was a "complete usurpation of congressional power" and "not correctible." Whether or not Biden was using student loan "forgiveness" to garner votes seems to be immaterial because he continues to support shoddy policy when it comes to student loans. 

While the Biden continues to fight the student loan "forgiveness" ruling with the appeals process, Biden decided to extend the student loan repayment pause through June 2023. This pause has been in effect since March 2020 in response to the pandemic vis-à-vis the CARES Act. Essentially, what the policy does is three-fold: 1) set interest rates on government-held federal student loans to 0 percent, 2) suspend all due payments, and 3) suspend collection efforts against borrowers in default. While this sounds fine and dandy on paper, do not mistaken Biden's supposed benevolence for shoddy and problematic policy. 

The initial rationale for the pause is long past. Remember that Biden instituted the pause in response to the pandemic. In September 2022, Biden said on 60 Minutes that the pandemic is over. That does not stop Biden from using the pandemic as a so-called "rationale" to pass whatever he feels like. It is not only the pause that he has done this. Biden pulled the same stunt when trying to justify the student loan "forgiveness." There is still a ban on unvaccinated international travelers entering the United States, a policy that almost every other major country has already lifted. Biden also extended the COVID emergency declaration another 90 days earlier this month, even though he declared the pandemic over two months earlier. If that is not enough to make your blood boil, the federal government recommended this past Monday to bring mask mandates back to purportedly protect people from "long COVID," even though there is or never was a basis for mask mandates (see here and here). Apparently, the pandemic is over except when it is politically convenient to say it is not. As I brought up in April with the mask mandates, the policies are not about public health or about helping the plight of the common man; it's about power and control. 

Then there is the price tag of the student loan repayment pause. The bipartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget (CRFB) estimates that this new extension will cost $40 billion. This $40 billion will be on top of the $155 billion that the pause has cost between March 2020 and August 2022. If Biden keeps extending the pause through his presidency, it will end up costing a pretty penny (see below). 




Much like with the student loan "forgiveness," the student loan repayment pause is regressive in nature. Who benefits the most from interest forgiveness within the student loan repayment pause? According to the CRFB, it is not the lower-income households, but doctors and lawyers that disproportionately benefit.   


The regressivity argument gets more irksome when you see that it is those with the higher amounts of student loan debt (almost always those with graduate degrees) that account for most of the student debt (see below).



As I illustrated earlier this month, fiscal policy has played its role in contributing to the high levels of inflation that the United States is experiencing. The student loan repayment pause also contributes to inflation. The CRFB found that Biden's student loan repayment pause will add 15 to 20 basis points to inflation. It is ironic that Biden wants to help with alleviating financial pressures of households when all he is doing is adding fuel to the economic issues that he is claiming to fight. 



In summation, the student loan repayment pause cannot be justified for a few reasons. Using the pandemic rationale is nothing more than a politically convenient excuse for the Biden administration to spend more money and pander. Regardless of whether you think the pandemic should have ever been a justification for such a pause in the first place, the pause is costly, regressive, and inflationary.  Similar to many overreaching pandemic policies, the student loan repayment pause should not be extended. 

On top of that, this reminds us that the student loan repayment pause is part of the greater federal student lending scheme that has had many negative consequences to higher educationincluding "skyrocketing college prices, to enabling credential inflation, to confusing the heck out of [lenders], borrowers, and the American public." A recent Government Accountability Office (GAO) report shows that federal students have not made $114 billion in profit that was initially projected, but have actually cost $197 billion since 2010. This is a difference of over $300 billion, and the student loan repayment pause was contributed $102 billion to this $300 billion differential. What does all of this show us? Not only should the student loan repayment pause be lifted posthaste, but the government should do the right thing and get out of the student loan business all together. 

Monday, November 21, 2022

2022 Ballots Eliminating Prison Labor in Four States is a Moral and Economic Victory

Prison labor, alternatively known as penal labor, is labor that is performed by incarcerated or detained individuals. While it is true that not all of prison labor is forced labor, much of it is. In June 2022, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) released a report entitled Captive Labor: Exploitation of Incarcerated Workers. There are 1.2 million incarcerated individuals in the United States (ACLU). The World Prison Brief shows that United States as having a higher prison incarceration rate (505 per 100,000) than such authoritarian regimes as Russia (324), Saudi Arabia (207), Venezuela (199), and China (119).

65 percent of the 1.2 million incarcerated individuals (or 791,500 people) are compelled to work (ACLU). A lot of these individuals hold such positions as cooks, dishwashers, plumbers, or barbers. The labor accounts for $2 billion in goods produced and $9 billion worth of services rendered. The difference here is that incarcerated individuals are deprived of the right to refuse to work. You would think that after fighting a Civil War on slavery, we would not force U.S. citizens, even if charged with a crime, into involuntary servitude. Yet it is plainly permitted in the Thirteenth Amendment of the Constitution: 

Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist in the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction. 

As of October 2022, there were 20 state constitutions that allowed for enslavement or indentured servitude as criminal punishment or a form of debt payment. In the recent midterm elections, five states proposed ballot initiatives to remove prison labor: Alabama, Louisiana, Oregon, Tennessee, and Vermont. Four out of five states succeeded. The reason why Louisiana did not pass its initiative was because of poorly worded ballot text. While these ballots will not immediately abolish compulsory prison labor in these states, it provides a pathway for future legal challenges on how to use prison labor. The fact that prison labor is still a practice in 2022 baffles me. 


For one, there is a moral argument that slavery is wrong. To mandate that someone works for little to no money should be unconscionable, especially in a country that is called "The Land of the Free." The ACLU report mentioned earlier points out the many issues with such indentured servitude as is practiced. Individuals are stripped of basic rights. They work in unsafe working conditions. They make anywhere from 13-52¢ an hour, which is lower than the minimum wage in Afghanistan, Bolivia, or India. If incarcerated individuals do not comply, they are threatened with solitary confinement, loss of family visits, or denial of sentence reductions. None of this accounts the fact that because slavery is widely seen as ethically unacceptable, it can undermine the legitimacy of the criminal justice system.

Then there is the economic cost. It might seem like a cash cow to get prison labor at a fraction of the cost to help reduce taxpayer burden or that their contribution is recompense for the crime the individual committed. However, I have to wonder if this view is shortsighted and does not take the whole economy into account. After looking at this detailed report from the Prison Policy Initiative, I ponder about mass incarceration and how many people actually need to be in prison. For example, 81.3 percent of people in jail (as opposed to prison) are not convicted. Not only are 1 in 5 incarcerated locked up for drug charges, but there are also all the misdemeanors. Also, most youth are incarcerated for non-person offenses. 


I could go on, but it brings up a bigger question surrounding cost, especially since the Prison Policy Initiative found that the annual cost of imprisonment is $182 billion in 2017 dollars. When accounting for such indirect costs as foregone wages, adverse health effects, and the effects of incarceration on families, a study led by Washington University of St. Louis found the annual cost of the prison system to be nearly $1.2 trillion in 2016 dollars (McLaughlin et al., 2016). 

Let's make a back-of-the-envelope estimate and use generous assumptions for the pro-prison labor side to see if the labor savings are worth it. Let's assume that the effective average minimum wage is $11.80 per hour when factoring in state and local laws. Let's take the lowest estimate from ACLU of 13¢ per hour for prison labor. That is a savings of $11.67 per hour that each prisoner works. Let's also assume that the 791,500 prisoners are working a grueling 60-hour work week, which is higher than the national average of 40.5 hours a week; and that they are working every week of the year. When you do the math ($11.67 of hourly savings* 60 hours * 52 weeks * 791,500 prisoners), the aggregate savings of paying prisoners pithy wages comes out to $28.82 billion. The savings in paying prisoners pittance does not even balance out the direct costs of incarceration, never mind the indirect costs.

With this huge price tag of mass incarceration, I have to ask if is there a more cost-efficient way to punish or rehabilitate individuals than throwing them in prison or jail. How much money would we save if we imprisoned fewer people and focused on the more serious crimes? 

I also ask this in the context of how imprisonment affects earnings. A study from the Richmond Federal Reserve Bank shows how incarceration reduces lifetime earnings for black men by 33 percent and 43 percent for white men (Gordon and Neelakantan, 2021). The Brennan Center found that being imprisoned reduces annual earnings by 52 percent (Craigie et al., 2020). In 2017, this translated to an aggregate annual earnings loss of $55.2 billion, which does not include the $317.1 billion loss for those convicted but not imprisoned (ibid.).  

The Brookings Institution points out how there is some evidence to show that prison labor has a modest, but significant effect on recidivism (Duwe and Henry-Nickel, 2021). The National Institute of Justice found that the Prison Industry Enhancement Certification Program (PIECP) helped reduce recidivism (Moses and Smith, 2007). The catch with PIECP was that it was a voluntary program, as opposed to the forced labor we see in many U.S. prisons. I can see how the effects would be modest. On the one hand, prison labor gives the incarcerated work experience where there would otherwise be an employment gap. On the other hand, the truly menial wages makes it basically impossible to save up money for the the many immediate costs (e.g., housing, food, healthcare) that these individuals face once released from prison. 

While it does not solve everything, I believe that eliminating forced prison labor is a step in the right direction for criminal justice reform. Not only do we stop dehumanizing people, but we also make our criminal justice system more economically efficient. I agree with the Brookings Institution that there needs to be an emphasis on better training for prisoners. Any prison work should be voluntary, including fair market value wages, and train them with transferable skills so that the incarcerated can make a smooth transition back to society after incarceration. 

Wednesday, November 16, 2022

Paul Krugman's Misinformation on Florida COVID Deaths Deflects Harm of Lockdowns and Ineffective COVID Restrictions

Once upon a time, there was an economist called Paul Krugman. He was a man who pursued a PhD in economics from MIT, wrote 27 books, taught economics at MIT and Princeton, and even won a Nobel Prize in 2008. Similar to Robert Reich, Paul Krugman went from being a well-respected economist who understood nuance to a de facto talking head for the political Left. His political leanings are no secret. In 2009, he wrote a book called Conscience of a Liberal. 

I am not faulting Krugman for having a certain set of political beliefs. I know my Weltanschauung and where I stand when it comes to political philosophy. I consider myself a pragmatic, consequentialist libertarian. At least I do my utmost to follow solid research methodology, read analyses from all sides of the political spectrum, and let logic and the data guide and inform my political opinions, not the other way around. Krugman makes no such attempt at objectivity. As I have pointed out before on this blog, he has manipulated statistics or conveniently left out facts to paint a one-sided, partisan picture

In 2000, Krugman wrote an opinion piece in the New York Times about how to identify a political hack. He said that one way that you can identify a political hack is by someone who uses "surprisingly raw, transparent misrepresentation of facts." Who knew 2000 Krugman would be writing about 2022 Krugman? Here is what he had to say on Twitter about Governor Ron DeSantis (R-FL) this past Sunday:


Krguman blames DeSantis for the death of 20,000 Floridians due to "COVID disinformation and anti-tax propaganda." On his tweet (see tweet below), he said that a population-adjusted death toll (aka a mortality rate) puts Florida way higher than California and New York. 


He concluded by saying "it's not about freedom. We're not talking about lockdowns and restrictions at this point, just about lifesaving shots that DeSantis deterred people from getting." I want to delve into the aforementioned comment in a moment. But first, I want to take a look at vaccination rates to see if Krugman's main gripe is legitimate. These are data that I am pulling from the CDC's Vaccination Distribution and Coverage database. I encourage you to look at the data for yourself and adjust the timelines as you would like, but first are the trends for the United States as of November 9.


  

Below are the data for the state of Florida. Yes, the numbers for 18-24 yrs and 25-49 yrs are slightly lower than the national average. Here is the catch: Not all age strata are created equal when it comes to COVID. There is wide variation of COVID mortality rates when it comes to age demographics. I pointed this out in June when I showed that children are way less likely to die from COVID than the rest of the population. Those who are over the age of 65 are at the highest risk of dying from COVID.   



If you look at COVID death data from the CDC [as of 11/9/22], you will see that 75 percent (or 800,351 out of 1,067,539) of those who died from COVID in the U.S. were age 65+. This is important considering that people 65 and over only account for 16.3 percent of the overall U.S. population (Census). An additional 18.3 percent (or 195,374) were from the ages of 50 to 64. This means that the remaining 6.7 percent of COVID deaths were for those under the age of 50. 

What you see in the above infographic is that Florida's vaccination rates for the 65+ crowd is currently at around the national average. More to the point, the graphs above show that the state of Florida vaccinated its 65+ population slightly more quickly than the national average. Rather than be derelict in his duties, DeSantis moved fast to protect the most vulnerable populations with the vaccines. 

My second issue with Krugman's so-called assessment has to do with the age factor. He is technically correct to say that the unadjusted death rate in Florida is higher than California or New York (CDC). However, it is particularly careless of Krugman to not provide age-adjusted death rates, especially with all of his economic training. Why? The purpose of using age-adjusted rates is to provide an apples-to-apples comparison when analyzing health statistics between population groups and geographic areas. This is because almost all diseases and health outcomes occur at different rates in different ages, and as already illustrated, COVID is no exception. 

Age is the single largest factor in COVID mortality. This demographic finding is nothing new. We have known since the beginning of the pandemic that the elderly and immunocompromised are going to be the hardest-hit by COVID. Data from the Kaiser Foundation show that 21 percent of Florida's population comprises of those who are 65+, which is higher than California (15.3%) or New York (17.5%). What happens when you use age-adjusted deaths rates for COVID? How does Florida rank? 

In September 2022, biology research company The Bioinformatics CRO made those very calculations by using CDC provisional death data (also see quarterly death rates here). When adjusting for age, Florida ranked #31 on the list at 292 deaths per 100,000 which is below the U.S. median of 316 deaths. This puts Florida in better shape than such blue states as New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania. This does not ignore the fact that the top ten states of this list are red states, but it does help at least vindicate the Sunshine State.

I have a bigger issue with Krugman's manipulation of the story, which is that he says that "We're not talking about lockdowns and restrictions at this point." He had no problem tweeting about lockdowns during July 2020 when he tweeted that "many states, especially in the South, rushed to resume business as usual." In that same tweet, he referred to lockdowns as "annoying, but sustainable." I wonder why Krugman suddenly does not want to talk about lockdowns or restrictions. 

A comprehensive study from the National Bureau of Economic Research released in April 2022 ranked all 50 states based on COVID mortality, economic performance, and educational outcomes (Mulligan et al., 2022). One of the major findings of this paper is that there was no clear pattern in which states had high or low mortality. Another was when looking at excess deaths, Florida ranked below California. Even better was when the authors looked at the death rates when adjusted for age and metabolic health (i.e., diabetes and obesity). Once factored in, it turns out there is no correlation that showed that lockdown stringency resulted in better health outcomes. 


When using the Stringency Index from Oxford to factor in multiple restrictions (e.g., school closures, workplace closures, closing large events), the good people at the Bioinformatics CRO concluded that an age- and obesity-adjusted death rate does not correlate with the Stringency Index. In other words, we see that the more stringent states did not have better COVID-related health outcomes than the more lax states.


While this might seem shocking or revelatory for some, this is hardly news for those of you who have been following this blog throughout the pandemic. Here are some of my favorite pieces on the topic of the failure of multiple COVID restrictions:
  • June 2022: Lockdowns, School Closures, and Mask Mandates Negatively Impacted Children
  • April-May 2022: Unmasking Maskaholism - Why All Mask Mandates, Including the One for Public Transit, Need to Go (Part I and Part II)
  • February 2022: Johns Hopkins Meta-Analysis Is the Latest in Showing Why Lockdowns Are Ineffective and Horrid
  • December 2021: Fauci Is Dead Wrong About Indefinitely Needing Face Masks on Airplanes
  • December 2021: Travel Bans Are Nothing More Than Harmful Public Health Theater
  • June 2021: The Evidence Base Against Lockdowns Grows - Why Lockdowns Are Ineffective and Very Likely Cause Deaths
  • April 2021: When "Follow the Science" During the Pandemic Meant Not Following the Science (includes scrutinizing of lockdowns, travel restrictions, cleaning surfaces, social distancing, face masks, and school closures)
  • May 2020: Why We Need to Start Lifting Coronavirus Lockdowns Sooner Rather Than Later
There were some restrictions that did very little to nothing to slow down COVID, such as the mask mandates. There were other restrictions that remind us that the cure can be worse than the sickness. For example, a study from economists at Rand Corporation and the University of South California show that an increase of shelter-in-place by one week translated into excess death of 2.7 persons per 100,000 (Agrawal et al., 2021). 

With all the damning evidence against lockdowns and other COVID restrictions that were illiberally enacted, I have to hypothesize that Krugman's current reluctance to talk about lockdowns and other COVID restrictions is because in spite of his cognitive dissonance, he knows that deep down that the COVID restrictions he advocated for at the beginning of the pandemic did not work

Krugman would rather not be known for contributing to the most devastating public policy choices inflicted upon humankind during peacetime. Who wants to be known for being on the side that took a sledgehammer to our institutions and our way of life only to do next to nothing to stop an airborne pandemic from happening? I know I would not, and I could see why Krugman and his ilk would distance themselves from the lockdowns and other COVID restrictions.  

If history has taught me anything, it is that we should not forget our past. If we forget our past, we are doomed to repeat history. To quote Cicero, "to be ignorant of what occurred before you were born is to always remain a child." We cannot undo the damage done by lockdowns and other COVID restrictions. Nevertheless, we can be sure that we remind future generations of this generation's mistakes for when the pandemic arrives because there will almost certainly be another pandemic. What lessons will we help future generations learn from this travesty? Will we let lockdown lovers like Krugman get away with writing a revisionist version of history or will we use data and facts in proper context to inform future generations of what happened between 2020 and 2022? That decision will be up to us and I hope that we impart the right lessons from this pandemic.