"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. 

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.

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.  

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.

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 education, including "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. 

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. 

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:

Can Ron DeSantis effectively challenge Trump? I have no idea. But one thing I hope doesn't get forgotten in the horse-race coverage is DeSantis's major achievement as governor: the unnecessary death of around 20,000 Floridians 1/

— Paul Krugman (@paulkrugman) November 13, 2022

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. 

Adjusted for population, the Florida-equivalent death toll was

FL 59,170
CA 39,217
NY 39,551

So states that didn't have governors promoting Covid disinformation and anti-tax propaganda lost far fewer people — the equivalent of ~20K excess in FL 4/

— Paul Krugman (@paulkrugman) November 13, 2022

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.