5 Government Policies That Brought on the Baby Formula Shortage

Taking care of a baby can be challenging with the sleepless nights and the demands on free time. In 2022, raising an infant has become more challenging because baby formula has become harder to find. As grocery and retail data firm Datasembly shows, the out-of-stock (OOS) rate for baby formula has skyrocketed in the first half of 2022. Major distributors such as Wal-Mart, Target, and Kroger are rationing baby formula. This is significant since CDC data on breastfeeding show that a majority of infants use formula. While switching over to breastfeeding might be possible for some, other mothers might not be able to breastfeed (e.g., allergies, medical conditions) or are have time constraints. This shortage has the potential to truly impact pediatric health. 

So how did we get here in the first place? The most recent shock to the U.S. baby formula market was in February 2022 with a contamination problem at an Abbott plant that produces baby formula. This caused the FDA to recall formula from Abbott. While the OOS rates are higher in recent months, we can see from the above graph that OOS rates were still high in 2021. Part of this was due to the pandemic-induced hoarding in 2020, followed by lower demand in 2021. There is also the inflationary pressure, a phenomenon that the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco points out has been more prevalent in the United States than in other countries due to its larger-than-average government stimulus during the pandemic (Jordà et al., 2022). Since 2021, we have more generally found ourselves in a supply chain crisis. As I pointed out in October 2021, some of this was going to happen regardless because of the pandemic. At the same time, there was plenty of government policy that negatively attributed to the supply chain crisis. 

The infant formula manufacturer market was struggling with the same things other manufacturers were struggling with, whether that is labor, materials, transport, and logistics. The extent to which the government is responsible for the trends on a macroeconomic level does not change that the government has a heavy-handed approach when it comes to infant formula. As the New York Times reported in March 2021, "Baby formula is one of the most tightly regulated food products in the U.S." How bad is it? Here are five ways in which the government made the infant formula shortage as dire as it is. 

1. WIC Vouchers and Market Concentration. WIC stands for Women, Infants, and Children. It is a supplemental nutrition option program from the U.S. Department of Agriculture that is aimed to safeguard the health of low-income women, infants, and children. What could such a seemingly innocuous government program have to do with the shortage? Formula companies are heavily subsidized by WIC through the voucher program. In exchange for offering lower prices on infant formula in the form of rebates, the formula companies receive "the exclusive right to provide their product to the state's WIC participants." This means that the companies with the greatest number of lobbyists can vie for this exclusive right to a de facto state-level monopoly in this market segment for infant formula. This cannot be overstated since it is through these WIC vouchers that about 50 percent of infant formula is provided nationwide (Choi et al., 2020). Abbott holds 42 percent of the market share for infant formula, according to market research firm Euromonitor. This favoritism makes it hard for new companies to enter the market, which leads to market concentration. If the WIC vouchers did not attribute to this market concentration, one plant closing would not make mothers in the United States so vulnerable to such a supply shock. 

2. FDA's Non-Tariff Trade Barriers. Not only have FDA regulations gotten in the way of such things as making prescription drugs cheaper or e-cigarettes more available, the latter of which being a healthier alternative to traditional smoking. The FDA has specific labeling requirements and ingredient requirements, as well as a mandate stating that retailers wait 90 days before marketing a new infant formula. The excess of labeling regulations in particular make European infant formula illegal in the U.S. (DiMaggio et al., 2019). These onerous regulations provide little incentive to non-U.S. businesses to sell their formula to U.S. retailers. 

3. Infant Formula Tariffs. For the few brands of formula that can past the FDA gatekeeping, they are subjected to tariffs up to 17.5 percent (also see here). Looking at the economics of tariffs, tariffs are an import tax. Who pays that tax? The domestic consumer through higher costs of foreign goods or services. Between the tariffs and FDA regulations, is it any wonder that 98 percent of baby formula consumed in the United States comes from producers in the United States?  

4. Trump's Trade Deal and Export Fees. Part of the Trump Presidency was the enactment of NAFTA 2.0, which is better known as the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA). During the negotiations in USMCA, one of the sticking points was with the dairy industry. The U.S. dairy industry wanted certain provisions to protect themselves. Part of this negotiation had to do with China. Prior to the enactment of USMCA, Chinese baby food producer Feihe invested $225 million into building a manufacturing plant in Kingston, Ontario, Canada. Part of USMCA is limiting how much infant formula Canada can export, not only to the United States but globally. If Canada exceeds exporting 40,000 metric tons of infant formula, they are walloped with an export fee of $4.25CAD for each kilogram. While Trump was trying to screw over China, he ended up screwing over the American people by discouraging Canadians from producing baby formula that we clearly need. 

5. Marketing Orders. A marketing order is a series of price and income supports imposed by the USDA (see Cato Institute brief for more information). Looking at the economics of milk marketing orders, such orders drive up the price of milk (e.g., Chouinard et al., 2005). Since dry milk is an essential ingredient in baby formula, it is reasonable to assume that these marketing orders are attributing to the increased cost in baby formula. As Cato Institute scholar Gabriella Beaumont-Smith points out, there are import barrier provisions in the marketing orders that dampen U.S. producers' demand for foreign milk, which makes infant formula all the more scarce in a time of emergency. 

Postscript

Without a doubt, the pandemic threw the infant formula market in disarray, as the pandemic did with so many markets. The panic buying and hoarding in 2020 garbled market signals on infant formula demand in 2020 and 2021. The pandemic also had its role in contributing to the supply chain crisis and affecting various inputs of infant formula production. The factory of the leading domestic producer of infant formula in the United States does not do any favors. But make no mistake: government policy is a major culprit. USDA subsidies for large infant formula manufacturers increased market concentration. If the market were fragmented, the Abbott manufacturing plant closure would not have made the infant formula market so vulnerable. If trade barriers and FDA regulations were not so onerous and excessive, there would have been a U.S. demand for internationally produced infant formula that could have helped fill the gaps while the Abbott manufacturing plant worked on getting open again. In short, if it were not for government meddling in the infant formula market, mothers would not be scrambling to feed their children. This infant formula shortage serves as another reminder that instead of regulating its people to death, the government is much more likely to do a better job at improving our lives by deregulating and getting out of the way.

What Would Happen If Roe v. Wade Were Reversed?

The abortion debate has made the news cycle once more. Last week, Justice Alito's draft opinion on Dobbs v. Jacksons Women's Health Organization was leaked. This case is dealing with whether all pre-viability prohibitions are on abortions are constitutional or not. This opinion is significant not only because it rules that the prohibitions are constitutional, but because it states that Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey should be reversed. Granted, the draft is not finalized. The majority opinion could end up being narrower than reversing Roe v. Wade. Also, it is not guaranteed that at least four other Justices will sign the opinion. None of this has not stopped political pundits from trying to figure out what would happen if Roe v. Wade were indeed reversed. I am curious as to what would happen, which is why I would like to take a crack at figuring out some possible outcomes here today.   

Impact on Abortion Access

First, let's touch upon how such a ruling would affect abortion access. As frantic as abortion activists have been the past few days, a reversal of Roe v. Wade would not be the end of abortion in the United States. Abortion access would be determined on a state-by-state level. There are 18 states with total or near-total abortion bans. Four states have early-term bans that cover abortions after the sixth week. 

How much will this end up reducing abortion access? Not as much as one would think. In September 2021, Texas had banned abortion with a heartbeat bill. Based on the available data, the ban reduced the abortion rate of Texan women by about 10 percent. What would happen on the national level? One of the amicus briefs filed was by economists in support of the respondents. This amicus brief had calculated that abortion access would be reduced by 14 percent if Roe v. Wade were overturned. Middlebury College economist Caitlin Knowles Myers similarly projected a 14 percent decline. Why are the decreases more modest? 

1. One reason is that there is likely an inelastic demand. In layman's terms, the demand for abortion services is still high enough where people are willing to get on in spite of the restrictions. Even so, there still seems to be at least some effect on abortion services. 
2. Traveling to another state is an option. It is true that those with modest financial means and the furthest to travel will be most impacted (e.g., women in southeastern Texas and Louisiana given the geographical proximity to a location with a clinic). However, that will only deter some women from traveling across state lines to procure an abortion. 
3. Abortion pills can act as a workaround. Mifeprex has been approved by the FDA since 2000, which can be used up to 70 days of gestation. This is noteworthy considering that 79.3 percent of abortions happen nine weeks or earlier, according to 2019 CDC data. Some states might crack down on this medication crossing state lines, but it is possible that the enforcement prove to be too difficult to enact. 
4. Most states will have legal abortion, which is to say that those living in states with greater restrictions plausibly still have access. 
5. States that are likely to have abortion restrictions if Roe v. Wade is reversed already have low abortion rates in comparison to other states. 

Will abortion rates go down as a result? Almost certainly. After all, bans tend to lead to less consumption of goods and services. However, it is not looking to be the dire number that a number of abortion activists were anticipating. 

  

What Will Be the Economic and Health Impacts?

I do not want to reduce abortion down to an economic issue. There are also ethical and philosophical components to the debate that we need to consider (see my 2019 analysis on those components here). At the same time, determining the economic impacts is not so simple, even though some have tried a cost-benefit analysis (e.g., Nelson, 1993). Not only does it cost to carry a child to term, but it also costs money to raise a child. As such, it should not be a surprise that not having access to an abortion would increase a household's costs. For some, that can translate into considerable financial distress (Miller et al., 2020), which can cause other economic and health issues. This potential for financial distress is pronounced by the fact that nearly half of women who procure an abortion are below the federal poverty line (Guttmacher Institute). At the same time, one has to consider what the expected earnings that would have been accrued if the fetus came to term, became an adult working in the labor market, and the extent to which said life would have contributed to society. 

That segues into the value of life, which is an economic value used to determine the benefit of avoiding a fatality. If the fetus is to have some or any ethical consideration or legal protection, there would need to a value of life applied to the fetus. It depends on what value of life you want to use. For a human being that is born, it depends on who is conducting the valuation and how much the value of life is for a fetus. If the fetus is to viewed as more than a clump of cells and should have partial or full legal protection and ethical consideration, then an abortion is decidedly unhealthy for a fetus since abortion means destroying the fetus' life. It would help tilt the argument in favor of the anti-abortion position. 

If a fetus is to have an economic value of zero or a very low value of life, that would change the calculus dramatically in favor of a pro-abortion position. It would also make the arguments for the women's health, labor force participation, and educational attainment even stronger. Given that 59 percent of those who seek abortions are already mothers, one could argue that forcing the mother to carry could put financial or emotional strain on the children and families they already have. 

I also have concerns about what driving abortions to the underground market would do. When a good a service gets relegated to the black, market, it creates more problems than it solves, whether we are talking about marijuana, prostitution, or donating one's own organs. Pro-abortion activists using depiction that we would return to pre-Roe conditions vis-à-vis coat-hanger abortions is inaccurate and unhelpful, much like it is counterproductive when anti-abortion activists use images of aborted fetuses to make their point. The pro-abortion Guttmacher Institute shows that 54 percent of abortions are done in pill form, a number that is expected to grow.  If a woman can cross state lines to procure a surgical abortion or some Mifeprex, the safety concerns are nowhere near what abortion advocates are making them out to be. 

Another cost that concerns me has to do with enforcement. According to Mayo Clinic, 10 to 20 percent of pregnancies end in miscarriage (also known as spontaneous abortion). If a state is going to take the criminalization of abortion that seriously, does that mean the police force is going to investigate miscarriages as if it were a homicide case? There are questions about how implementation would end up. That does not mean there should not be an effort. We do not say that we should not enforce laws pertaining to murder, sexual assault, fraud, or arson simply because there are enforcement costs and challenges. On the other hand, given the nature of miscarriages, it would arguably be more arduous to prove whether or not it was a bona fide miscarriage or if the abortion were induced by medicine. 

Will Reversing Roe v. Wade Upend Democracy and Privacy Rights? 

"It's the end of the world (or at least, democracy) as we know it." That is the argument I have seen on the Left lately in response to the possible reversal of Roe v. Wade. Washington Post calls it "at odds at democracy." The L.A. Times referred to it as "an emphatic and damaging expression of minority rule." Removing Roe v. Wade is not going to be an end to democracy, but I have a few responses:

• It is not as if the United States were this backwards, authoritarian regime until 1973 and Roe v. Wade magically turned this country into a democratic haven. The United States was functioning as a representative republic prior to Roe v. Wade becoming law. 
• 46 states needed to change their abortion laws as a result of Roe v. Wade. This would imply that these 46 states had more restrictive abortion laws pre-Roe given the permissiveness of Roe. If almost every state had abortion restrictions on some level that were less permissive than what Roe allows, that means the expansion of abortion access allowed by Roe circumvented democratic will.
• The pro-abortion crowd reacts as if reversing Supreme Court decisions is unprecedented or radical. It is not. There have been over 200 instances in which the Supreme Court overturned a previous ruling, most notably when Brown v. Board of Education overturned Plessy v. Ferguson. 
• Far from being minority rule, it would be the first time in about a half-century in which popular majorities determine the scope of abortion policy instead of it being determined by unelected federal judges. Even President Biden acknowledged this by saying that he is not "prepared to leave that [the abortion debate] to the whims of the public at the moment in local areas." In other words, Biden's issue is that such a ruling would mean too much democracy, not too little. 
• While a majority of Americans believe that Roe v. Wade should not be overturned (Politico), a recent poll from YouGov/Economist shows that 64 percent of Americans are okay with abortion being banned after 15 weeks. This 15-week mark also happens to be the line that the Mississippi legislature draws in the Dobbs case. The Dobbs case de facto has majority support from Americans, so how is enforcing a law that a sizable majority is fine with an assault on democracy? 
• Yes, the Republicans played procedural hardball to get a majority of Justices on the Supreme Court that were nominated during Republican presidencies. But if you are going to argue "structural bias in favor of the Republicans," would you not want that to be at the state level instead a more centralized decision-making process dictated by the Republicans?  This is what happens when you give political institutions too much power, but I digress. Additionally, state officials are more responsive to constituents' needs. Referenda, elections for judgeships and governors, not to mention Congressmen, would make the process more democratic. 

Then there are those who think removing Roe v. Wade will go beyond abortion and affect other rights, particularly gay rights. In addition to such an argument violating the slippery slope fallacy, there are a few reasons to assume why this would not spill over into gay rights territory. 

1. Support for same-sex marriage is at a high of 70 percent (Gallup). Unlike Roe v. Wade, the fight for gay rights was much more settled and less divisive in society before the Supreme Court caught up and established the right of same-sex marriage vis-à-vis Obergefell v. Hodges. Gay rights have been established as a societal norm and overturning them would contribute to the erosion of the Court's legitimacy. 
2. Justices Gorsuch and Roberts ruled in favor of the Bostock v. Clayton County, which expanded employment discrimination protections to gay and transgender workers. If the "conservative majority" were hellbent on taking away LGBT rights, they would not have expanded LGBT rights. If anything, they would have attempted to take them away, which leads to my next two points.....
3. The Supreme Court's "conservative majority" had two opportunities to strike down Obergefell v. Hodges (i.e., Pavan v. Smith, 2017; Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission, 2018) and it chose not to do so. 
4. Justice Thomas and Alito denied the certiorari in Kim Davis v. David Ermold, which would imply that the two most conservative Justices do not feel like going after gay rights either. 
5. Don't forget about stare decisis, which is the legal doctrine that allows precedent to carry considerable weight in current and future rulings. 
6. Finally, Alito mentions in the leaked draft opinion (p. 5) for Dobbs that abortion is different from intimate sexual relations, contraception, and marriage "because it destroys what those decisions [Roe and Casey] called fetal life," something that was even acknowledged by the plurality in the Casey case (p. 62). Alito emphatically states that "To ensure that our decision is not misunderstood or mischaracterized, we emphasize that our decision concerns the constitutional right to abortion and no other right. Nothing in this opinion should be understood to cast doubt on precedents that do not concern abortion (ibid.)."

If it is not about upending democracy or other de jure rights already previously acknowledged by the Supreme Court, then what is going on? The Wall Street Journal gives a reply: "The Supreme Court's job is to say what the law is, not to be a body of philosopher kings to impose progressive outcomes." The objection to the draft opinion is not about preserving democratic institutions or making sure the people have their say, as previously illustrated. This is an adverse reaction to the fact that many on the Left think that democracy only happens when the outcomes are ones that they favor. That is not how the democratic process works in the United States. I brought this up with the mask mandates, which is that an independent judiciary is necessary to determine what is legal, not what is ethically and morally palatable per se. This leads to a reason I am happy to see the anticipated reversal of Roe v. Wade. Independent of any moral or policy considerations, the constitutional case for Roe v. Wade is unconvincing: 

• It is hard to imagine that the authors of the 14th Amendment thought that the Amendment referred to abortion when three out of four states banned abortion in 1868. There is no historical basis that "liberty" under the 14th Amendment covers pre-quickening abortion. 
• Justice Blackmun, who authored the Roe v. Wade opinion, did not find words or the history of the Constitution, nor did he quote a provision in the Constitution that allows for abortion legalization. 
• There was not even a pretense to examine the intent of the drafters of the Fourteenth Amendment to see if abortion access were implicitly protected by any constitutional provision. In other words, if people want Roe to become national law, pass it through Congress. If abortion activists cannot do that, they need to fight for it on the state level. 
• Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who was a major advocate of abortion access, thought that Roe's "doctoral limbs were too swiftly shaped, [as] experience teaches, may prove unstable." As Ginsburg illustrates, you can believe that abortion access should be [all but] unfettered and that Roe does not provide constitutional basis for said access. From Ginsburg's point of view, the better approach would have been to argue for abortion access using equal protection principles. 
• John Hart Ely, who taught at Yale University, was one of the most oft-cited constitutional law experts of his time. He was in favor of abortion access, but thought that Roe was a bad decision and was not truly constitutional law (Ely, 1973). Ely said that "this super-protected right is not inferable from the language of the Constitution, the framers' thinking respecting the specific problem in issue, any general value derivable from the provisions they included, or the nation's governmental structure." In other words, the Burger Court pulled the "right to an abortion" out of thin air. 

For more information on the legal arguments that are being presented to the Supreme Court, you can read the amicus briefs that were filed for the Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization case here.

Postscript

What would happen if Roe v. Wade ends up being reversed? Not the end of the world. The question of the legality of abortion will go back to the states, just as it was before 1973. Yes, there will be a decline in abortion access because that is a common occurrence when one bans or greatly restricts access a good or service. That number is not projected to be as high as some abortion advocates might fear. There are tradeoffs regarding the economic and health components of the abortion debate. How you feel about the fetus or how you valuate the life of an unborn child will greatly determine whether or not you think the cost of greater abortion restrictions are worth it. As for some of the secondary effects, democracy is not going to end with the reversal of Roe v. Wade. If anything, both revoking a piece of slipshod constitutional law while making the process more democratic by returning it to the state level ought to improve the Court's legitimacy. Additionally, it does not look as if this reversal would likely affect other rights to privacy, particularly that of gay rights. One for thing is for certain: the abortion debate in the United States is far from over. If anything, this rematch is only getting started.

Unmasking Maskaholism: Why All Mask Mandates, Including the One for Public Transit, Need To Go (Part II)

Since the beginning of this pandemic, the face mask has been a highly contentious public health measure. Last week, I began my analysis on my mask mandates need to be a relic of the past. The first part of this two-part series covered the science of the face masks. After using randomized control trials (RCT) available and meta-analyses of RCTs, I concluded that face masks had very little, if any, effect on the transmission of COVID-19. Even if the face masks were an effective public health tool, it would not matter because we have reached a point where the pandemic is becoming endemic. Based on various epidemiological metrics and trends, we are no longer in a state of public health emergency that would merit such a mandate. Today, I cover two more facets of the face mask mandate debate. The first is whether the CDC had the legal authority to implement a public transit face mask mandate in the first place (Section III). Second, I cover the social and emotional costs, as well as the moral implications of face masks (Section IV).  

Section III: The Legal Argument Against Public Transit Face Masks

The question that Judge Mizelle was ultimately answering was not a public health question, but a legal question. Did the CDC have the legal authority to mandate masks on public transit? From where was the CDC claiming it had such power? It is not the Department of Justice. It is not President Biden. Per Article I of the Constitution, the CDC's statutory authority comes from Congress. What authority is the Biden administration citing? The Public Health Service Act of 1944, or more specifically, 42 USC §264(a). The statute permits the Surgeon General to "make and enforce such regulations as in [its] judgement are necessary to prevent the introduction, transmission, or spread of communicable diseases." These measures include "inspection, fumigation, disinfection, sanitation, pest extermination, destruction of other animals or articles found so to be infected or contaminated as to be sources of dangerous infection to human beings, and other measures." 

The thing is that during the CDC eviction moratorium case (Alabama Association of Relators et al. v. Department of Health and Human Services), the Supreme Court ruled that the CDC did not have the statutory authority to order landlords to house tenants who could not pay rent. The Biden administration tried using the same Public Health Service Act of 1944 in this case because it believed it had the authority to implement whatever measures necessary to stop the spread of COVID-19. Part of the majority ruling pertained to the phrase "other measures" phrase from 42 USC §264(a). The Supreme Court ruled that the CDC's powers were not that broad, stating that such a broad interpretation would "indeed give the CDC a breathtaking amount of authority. It would be hard to see what measures this interpretation would place outside of the CDC's reach." The ruling also points out that this statute has been rarely and narrowly implemented, either historically having used it to quarantine sick individuals or to prohibit the transmission or sale of animals known to carry disease (e.g., turtles carrying salmonella). 

So we already have legal precedence from the U.S. Supreme Court that 42 USC §264(a) does not give the CDC a carte blanche to do whatever it wants. Justice Mizelle made that argument in her ruling last week, yet some people take issue with that. NPR cherry-picked some legal experts to say "not even a graduate student in law school would be that careless," while chiding Mizelle for her interpretation of the word "sanitation" in the statute. Based on statutory context and common usage, Justice Mizelle opted for a narrower interpretation of "sanitation," that being measures aimed at cleaning something, which face masks do not do. NPR focused on Georgia State University professor Erin Fuse Brown. Professor Fuse Brown argued that "sanitation was just the old way in public health parlance of taking traditional public health steps to prevent the spread of disease." If "sanitation" were really a generic, catch-all term referring to any public health measure, why would the statute need another sentence to list other measures such as fumigation or pest extermination? Wouldn't those be part of public health measures to slow the spread? Because as the majority of the Supreme Court ruling on eviction moratoriums already pointed out, the list in 42 USC §264(a) is a list of specific examples. An argument of canon against surplusage, which is a longstanding rule of legal interpretation against redundancy in laws, thereby gives Mizelle's argument of interpreting the term "sanitation" narrowly more credence. 

Ultimately, Mizelle cited five reasons as the basis of interpreting the law narrowly: context of nearby words, contemporaneous usage, sweeping implications of the government's argument, history of the provision's application, and the fact it seems to be "limited to property." Additionally, she ruled that the CDC violated the Administrative Procedure Act [APA] by not allowing for the notice-and-commenting process. This is even less acceptable to bypass this democratic process as we are in our third year of the pandemic. Mizelle also made the argument that the mask mandate was too "arbitrary and capricious." The 11th Circuit Court does not need to accept every single one of Mizelle's arguments as ironclad in order to agree with her. One would suffice. Given that the a) Supreme Court already set a precedence in the previous case over the CDC's eviction moratorium and b) the Biden administration signaled a lack of public health emergency by not seeking a stay on the ruling, it would not be unreasonable to assume that Mizelle's ruling would ultimately be upheld if the appeals process goes all the way to the Supreme Court.  

But what is irritating the Biden administration and the maskaholics is they are not getting their way. The CDC cannot do whatever it wants in the name of public health. The executive branch overstepped its statutory authority, much like it did with the CDC's eviction moratorium and OSHA's vaccine mandate. The CDC had two years to ask the Democratic-majority Congress for statutory authority. If the CDC wanted to implement a federal mask mandate on public transit, it would have approached Congress by now and Congress would have enacted it. Whether the Biden administration and Fauci like it or not, that is how judicial independence and rule of law, which are two vital components of a democratic society, work. 

  

A Quick Word About Probability of Dying From COVID

The media, politicians, and the rest of the maskaholics did a fine job spreading fear throughout the pandemic (e.g., Sacerdote et al., 2020). Instead of discussing best practices, cost-benefit analyses, or "following the science," the default was panic. What are maskaholics panicking about at this stage? Dying? What are the odds of dying from COVID? Back in September, I brought up how a vaccinated person under 65 would be more likely to die from a bee sting (which has odds of 1 in 59,507) than from COVID, which at the time was 1 in 137,698. The odds might be even lower still. A study from researchers at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) tracked 1,228,664 vaccinated adults in America from December 2020 to October 2021 (Yek et al., 2022). How many died out of this sample size? 36 people. This would put the odds of dying from COVID at about 1 in 33,333. However, this comes with a huge caveat. 28 out of those 36 were over 65 years old and had at least four comorbidities. If you filter out that demographic and look at everybody else, including the elderly with one or two chronic conditions, the odds of dying from COVID is 1 in 150,000. Let's put that ratio in perspective. If you are vaccinated and have two or fewer chronic conditions, you are more likely to die from a lightning strike or earthquake, both of which are quintessential examples of statistical improbability. 

The odds of dying from COVID are low. The evidence base for face masks was never strong, a reality that becomes more apparent as we collect more data over time. The main epidemiological metrics show that we are over the emergency stage of the pandemic. Effective and readily available vaccines bolstered the case for returning to normal for most while still providing targeted, limited interventions for vulnerable individuals. So why are a significant percent of people still clinging to their masks? 

Section IV: Maskaholism, Social Costs, and Emotional Costs of Mask Mandates

I want to finally cover the idea of social costs surrounding masks since I think it will better answer the question "Why are we still masking?" Social costs are a consideration that economist Bryan Caplan brings up in his analysis on masks. While Caplan finds masks marginally uncomfortable, he hates wearing them and dislikes being around people who wear masks. He brings up the dehumanization of face masks. Faces are such major form of bodily expression. Masks erase our personhood, which makes sense because the number of instances that masks have been used to hide and obfuscate one's actual self, which can be observed in literature and in history. Masks also eliminate a form of non-verbal communication, which is to say that masks symbolically and functionally muzzle us. The considerations that Caplan brings up, particularly that of dehumanization, lead us to the concept of the known unknown, i.e., it cannot be quantified or monetized but it is very something that is in existence and worth taking into account. 

As you have noticed, I have been using the term "maskaholic" to refer to advocates of face masks and face mask mandates. Some of you hear the term "maskaholic" and think I am being unfair, insensitive, or mean to those who still wear masks when they are not obligated. I am using the term "maskaholic" because ever since I was introduced to the term "maskaholic" a couple of weeks ago, I have been looking at the advocacy of face masks through the lens of addiction. 

I can think of a few things that could cause a sense of addiction. One phenomenon is one that I observed when I was an Orthodox Jew: an addiction to stringency. Part of what led me to Orthodox Judaism is because they took it seriously. There was a zeal and a sincere commitment to Jewish life. What I learned quickly is that like anything else, there is too much of a good thing. It was one thing to have standards, but this went to a whole different level. I noticed people taking on personal stringencies, chumrot (חומרות), that went beyond the dictates of Jewish law. The ones who thought this way equated stringency and stricture with being a better Jew; it was a form of getting off on "stringency for its own sake." 

This stringency mindset carries over into the pandemic. Many countries went with the strict approach by implementing lockdowns because "we had to do something." It did not matter that pre-pandemic advice from experts was to not implement lockdowns. It did not matter the damage it caused to the economy, mental health, or the livelihood of millions. It also did not matter that lockdowns actually increased excess deaths. These stringencies show that you take the pandemic seriously and that you want to save lives. A similar "stringency for its own sake" approach has been taken with the face masks. It did not matter if you did not want to wear masks because simply they were too uncomfortable or if you had legitimate concerns about the efficacy of face masks, especially cloth face masks. From the maskaholic point of view, anyone who did not take the pandemic as seriously as you did were selfish assholes that wanted old people to die just so they could have the convenience of living their lives as usual.  

I do not think the "stringency for its own sake" crowd covers the majority of maskaholics, but it does account for a significant subset. A much larger contingency became maskaholics because of fear. I would like to elucidate upon this concept of fear further. In part, those who still want to wear the face masks want to feel a sense of security and certainty in what they deem "unprecedented and uncertain times." Let's forget that there have been pandemics before and life has always been uncertain. In spite of the low probability of dying from COVID, the pandemic has put the theme of death front and center. Prior to the pandemic, death was a topic that was avoided on a societal level. It was much easier to think about happiness, convenience, consumerism, and the rat-race than it was to be faced with the inevitable end that is death. Masks are either a subconscious expression that you are avoiding death in perpetuity or that you are avoiding thinking about death. 

Don't get me wrong. Fear can be a motivator in the short-run. If you are in the woods and a bear is behind you, fear is that emotion that can keep you alive. On on a more positive note, fear can motivate you to getting a promotion at work, pursuing a relationship, or buying a home. Fear can be helpful at times and has its place. The problem with fear in the context of this pandemic is that we have been on pandemic emergency mode for over two years. When your body is under prolonged stress, your body and mind begin to malfunction. The American Journal of Managed Care has a concise list of the effects of long-term fear, including mood swings, obsessive-compulsive thoughts, immune system dysfunction (e.g., headaches turn into migraines, body aches turn into chronic pain), being afraid to leave home because of paranoia, and distorted perception of sensory information, the latter of which makes it harder to make cogent and rational decisions. Is it any wonder that there was a 25 percent increase in anxiety and depression during this pandemic? Pandemic fatigue is real! 

To quote author and former monk Jay Shetty from Think Like a Monk (p. 67), "The problem with fear is that it's not sustainable. When we operate in fear for a long time, we can't work to the best of our abilities. We are too worried about getting the wrong result. We become frantic or paralyzed and are unable to evaluation our situations objectively or to take risks." With the symbolism behind the face masks, the mask and the mask mandates played their role in promoting a culture of fear. Even anecdotally, I generally noticed that my friends and family who did not internalize the fear were enjoying life during the pandemic more than those who did.

Dealing with this level of fear for two years is no way to live. The Egyptian writer Naguib Mahfouz said that "Fear does not prevent death; it prevents life," which is especially true when looking at the longer-term. Boxer Muhammad Ali opined that "He who is not courageous enough to take risks will accomplish nothing in life." Whether it is an addiction to certainty, a security blanket, the false notion that we can live forever, or a sense of purpose that comes from attaching oneself to stringency, the fear of COVID ended up being more paralyzing to society than anything else. 

Conclusion: Moral and Social Implications of Removing Mask Mandates

This is the social and moral argument against mask mandates. For those who take the masks seriously, interacting with people or even being near them triggers a fight-or-flight response. Instead of viewing others as fellow human beings, this culture of fear reduces other people to being viewed as vectors of disease. As long as mask mandates are part of our culture, they will continue to propagate the idea that we should be scared in perpetuity. 

As I already detailed, there is no legitimate public health rationale for face masks. Much like with the lockdowns, the burden of proof should be on the face mask proponents that face masks work. Arguing "why risk it", "what's the harm", or using worst-case scenarios that are divorced from reality does not do us any favors. Using arbitrary rules such as the mask mandates to perpetuate fear that is not based on epidemiological context so the CDC can maintain its power is downright irresponsible. So is making everyone's lives less pleasant because you have internalized overblown fears or because you cannot handle the risk that is an inevitable part of life. 

This might sound harsh, but that is because it is a form of tough love. Removing the mask mandate does not mean you cannot partake in some one-way masking if you feel like it. It just means that it does not compel those who do not want to wear a mask to put on a mask. While the decision to mask is up to you, I will say this. If your risk tolerance is extremely low or nonexistent, then you will have such a hard time adjusting back to living life fully like you did before March 2020. It will mean that you will continue to wear masks, socially distance, not take public transit, or not attend sporting events or concerts because fear of COVID, no matter what the actual risk level of contracting COVID is, becomes one of your most prevailing and defining values in life. This is why I said back in October 2021 that accepting risk once more is a prerequisite to going back to normal. 

Washington Post journalist Megan McArdle wrote that "They [the mask mandates] had to end sometime, and if not now, when?" It is a relevant question, and the answer is that "now is a good time." As McArdle points out, the mask mandates were meant to be a short-term solution to help flatten the curve, not a long-term lifestyle change. McArdle was right in saying that the more that politicians and public health officials move the goalposts in such a fashion (and I would add overstate the efficacy of face masks), the more they undermine their own credibility. 

Regardless of how you feel about face mask effectiveness, we have a high level of natural immunity and vaccine immunity. We have treatments that were not available in 2020. COVID has mutated into the milder Omicron variant. COVID hospitalizations have not been this low since this pandemic has started. Plus, so many of us have reached a level of pandemic fatigue that we are reassessing tradeoffs that we make in our lives. That pandemic fatigue is going to have an impact during an election year and how likely politicians are going to reinstate various COVID restrictions. Given all these trends I mention in this paragraph, I am cautiously optimistic that we are heading towards normalcy. 

Symbolically speaking, removing mask mandates will be a vital part of that transition. It means that we are not just tossing aside the face coverings, but the fear that too many internalized and made part of their being. It means that we accept that risk exists with COVID, much like we accept that anything we do in life comes with risk. It means we can physically and metaphorically breathe once more.

Unmasking Maskaholism: Why Mask Mandates, Including the One for Public Transit, Need To Go (Part I)

Last week, United States District Judge Kathryn Kimball Mizelle struck down the federal mask mandate for airplanes and other modes of public transit in her ruling, which you can read here. I use public transit to get from place to place. It was the last COVID regulation affecting my daily life. The timing of the Jewish holiday of Passover could not be more spot-on. While I do not equate mask-wearing with the grinding and grueling slavery that the Israelites underwent, I felt a comparable sense of liberation. Not only did it mean a sense of bodily autonomy, but more importantly, I could put the pandemic behind me. Call it a 21st-century application of the Exodus story to my personal life. I was hardly the only one that felt that feeling of liberation. 

There were airline passengers that took off their masks mid-flight because they were so sick of the mask-wearing, as well as cheering in airports. The Transportation Security Administration announced that very day that they would no longer enforce the mask mandate. The airlines immediately went from a mask mandate to being mask-optional. Even such transit authorities as Amtrak and the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA) removed the mask mandate. Keep in mind that the change did not happen in days or weeks. It only took hours or minutes for these entities to remove the mask mandate. 

Not everyone shares my enthusiasm. White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki called the ruling disappointing. NIAID Director Anthony Fauci said that the ruling should not have been a court issue, but a public health issue. As we will cover later in this piece, either Fauci does not understand the concept of rule of law or does not have respect for rule of law. Economist Paul Krugman is worried that those who still decide to wear masks will face masks will face harassment, if not violence, because "this was never about freedom." I am curious if Krugman is shares the same concern about all the instances that people were harassed throughout the pandemic for not wearing a mask. 

What those like Krugman do not understand is that many people do not want to wear masks. While an AP-NORC poll from last week shows that 56 percent of people want mask mandates on planes, that means the other 44 percent either do not want them or do not care either way. Left-leaning commentator Matthew Yglesias recognizes that airlines immediately switching to mask-optional signals that the airlines do not see a significant preference for masked flying. 

The same AP-NORC poll also shows declining support for mask mandates in other social settings; it also shows a decline in people "very worried" or "extremely worried" about COVID, a figure that is at a pandemic low of 20 percent. An April 2022 poll from market research firm Ipsos found that 9 percent think we should be in crisis mode over COVID, as opposed to 17 percent who could not care less (the remaining 73 percent view COVID as a manageable problem, which should tell you something right there). 

Thankfully, the trend is moving away from the heightened risk aversion that has been so prevalent throughout the pandemic. We are reaching a stage in the pandemic where the perceived relevance of face masks and mask mandates is waning. As the divide over mask mandates illustrates, there is a desire to get back to normal. 27 percent believe we should open everything up, and an additional 44 percent believe that we should open but with precautions (Ipsos). That is 71 percent of Americans ready to get back to normal. 

If you are one of those who either want continued restrictions or are on the fence about going back to living normal, then hopefully this piece could help you out. I am going to provide my take on the federal public mask mandate ruling and masking generally in four sections. First, I will cover why the science behind masks does not merit mask mandates. Second, I will show how we have reached a stage in the pandemic where we no longer need to be in panic mode. Third, I will cover the legal argument against a federal public transit mask mandate. Finally, I will cover the social costs and moral implications behind mask mandates and masking generally. The amount of information I covered regarding the face mask debate was so extensive that for the first time in my blogging, I had to divide a blog entry into two separate entries. The first part will include Sections I and II. I plan on releasing the analyses for Sections III and IV next week. 

Section I: Scientific Evidence Does Not Justify Mask Mandates

It is understandable if you were confused about masks. Public health messaging was mixed and incoherent at the beginning of the pandemic, nothing to say of dealing with mixed evidence (see my May 2020 analysis here). In spite of the mixed evidence, I thought at the beginning of the pandemic that in spite of the decidedly mixed evidence, the relatively low economic cost combined with what the World Health Organization (WHO) phrased it in its 2019 pandemic guidance as "mechanistic plausibility for the potential effectiveness of the measure (WHO, 2019, p. 14)" overrode the inconvenience of masking. As such, I was begrudgingly in support of a temporary, limited face mask mandate. 

As the pandemic progressed, my support for a temporary, limited face mask mandate got weaker and weaker. About one year into the pandemic, the WHO stated that the evidence for healthy people wearing face masks was "limited and inconsistent (WHO, 2020, p. 8)." The highly revered Cochrane, which is a global network of health researchers and professionals, released a meta-analysis of randomized control trials (RTC) and cluster-RTCs, which is as good as it gets in the world of empirical evidence in the medical field (see below). Cochrane concluded that "there is low certainty evidence from nine trials that wearing a mask may make little to no difference to the outcome of influenza-like illness compared to not wearing a mask (Johnson et al., 2020)." If you want more detail on how RTCs show that masks are ineffective, I recommend this piece from the Manhattan Institute. 

After the findings from these venerable institutions came out, vaccines became more readily available. Vaccines should have been the beginning of normalcy, but we know how well that one turned out. In the meantime, the Delta variant came along. At this point of the pandemic, my view on face masks went from "skeptical about the evidence but still in favor" to "skeptical about the evidence but against mandates." By August 2021, I wrote on how the mask mandates, as opposed to voluntarily masking, does not provide additional, statistically significant benefit. In December 2021, I became more frustrated because I came across a Cato Institute literature review showing that a) the available clinical evidence of face masks is of low quality, and b) the best available evidence failed to show efficacy. 

(5-2-2022 Addendum: In case the randomized control trials were not enough, here is a peer-review observational study from the Cureus Journal of Medical Science [Spira, 2022]. This study looked at 35 European countries from October 2020 to March 2021, which was during peak COVID time. As the study found, "These findings indicate that countries with high levels of mask compliance did not perform better than those with low mask usage." Although cause-effect conclusions could not be inferred there was still a lack of correlation. After all, you cannot have causation with correlation.) 

I also come across this piece from the University of Minnesota's Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy, which had the following to say in October 2021:

"It should be well-known by now that wearing cloth face coverings or surgical masks, universal or otherwise, has a very minor role to play in preventing person-to-person transmission. It is time to stop overselling their efficacy and unrealistic expectations about their ability to end the pandemic." 

At best, face masks have minimal impact. At worst, we went around for two years covering our faces for nothing. Keep in mind that the aforementioned studies were released during the Delta variant or earlier. If the low-certainty evidence that pointed to little to no benefit during the Delta variant, one could a fortiori assume they did even less to prevent the more transmissible Omicron variant. 

Section II: Threat Level of COVID Presently Too Low to Justify Mask Mandates

To recap Section I, the evidence base for mandating that healthy people wear face masks is weak. The evidence we do have shows that face masks make minimal to no difference in terms of transmission. But let's assume for argument's sake that the evidence was less ambiguous. If the evidence were stronger or more conclusive, would that help out the argument for mask mandates? No, and I will tell you why. Although some people react to the threat of COVID as if it were still 2020, the problem with that mindset is that this is 2022. We have dealt with this pandemic for over two years now. As of April 22, 88.9 percent of adults have received at least one vaccine dose (CDC). On top of that, the CDC estimated in February that 43 percent of Americans have had COVID (4-26 addendum: The CDC now estimates that the percentage of U.S. citizens with antibodies due to being infected from COVID is now at approximately 60 percent). 

In addition to vaccine immunity and herd immunity, our access to COVID treatments has improved. The Omicron BA.2 subvariant became the dominant strain a month ago, which is significant in that Omicron is a milder variant than previous strains. The argument goes that "hospitalizations come a few weeks after cases," but how have hospitalizations fared? The "we need to flatten the curve" justification that was initially used for such measures is surely unjustifiable now because we are nowhere near the hospitals being overwhelmed. As a matter of fact, COVID hospitalizations in the U.S. in recent weeks have been at an all-time low since this pandemic began. That might have something to do with the fact that vaccines did a good job at decoupling cases from hospitalizations and deaths, not to mention COVID evolving into a less virulent strain.  

Additionally, Philadelphia was the first major U.S. city to reinstate its mask mandate but removed it in a matter of days. I have been primarily focused on the United States because I live here. At the same time, other countries are removing their travel restrictions. As of April 22, 2022, there are 34 countries that have completely removed COVID-related travel restrictions, nothing to say of the countries that are repealing their COVID restrictions more gradually. Local U.S. government agencies and federal government agencies in other countries are realizing that it is time to remove the face masks and other restrictions.

If the public health concern was so overriding, why did the Department of Justice not immediately file to appeal the ruling from Judge Mizelle? Why didn't the DOJ put the ruling on hold and reinstate the mask mandate pending the appeals process?  Why is the CDC still arbitrarily recommending face masks on public transit while it is recommending against mask mandates in almost every other indoor setting, most of which do not have as good of filtration as an airplane or even public trains? Also, if things were that bad, why did the CDC drop all of the countries from its highest-risk category of "Do Not Travel" on its COVID-19 travel advisory system earlier this month? Because there is no clear, overriding public health emergency to justify a mask mandate. The CDC recognizes that reality, even if it does so inconsistently and arbitrarily.

CNN admitted this appeal is not driven by public health when it stated the purpose of the Department of Justice's appeal of Judge Mizelle's ruling is "less about the current COVID-19 conditions and more about trying to preserve the CDC's authority in the future." The CDC statement in response to Judge Mizelle's first and foremost voiced concern about its authority, not public health concerns. It has become abundantly clear that this mask mandate is no longer about promoting public welfare, if it ever was. This is about the CDC maintaining control over the populace and keeping hold of its emergency powers as long as possible. 

To be continued...

Applying the Tension of Scarcity and Abundance Within the Passover Seder to Our Daily Lives

Last week, I was studying some Pirkei Avot, a Jewish ethical text, with a synagogue down in Buenos Aires. I had it on in the background while I was doing cleaning in preparation for Passover. One of the passages that we were discussing was in Pirkei Avot 5:10, which was a depiction of four types of people that exist, particularly in the context of "give and take" and how one views property. You can look at the Hebrew here, but I'll give you the English:

There are four types of character in human beings. One that says "mine is mine" and "yours is yours." This is a commonplace person, although some say that it is characteristic of Sodom. The second is "mine is yours" and "yours is mine." This is [the mindset of] an unlearned person. The third is "mine is yours, and yours is yours." This third person is scrupulously pious. The fourth is "yours is mine, and mine is mine." This person is considered to be wicked. 

A bit on my take on this passage from Pirke Avot. I agree that the second person, who in modern-day terms would be the Communist, is ignorant. As Rashi brings up in his commentary, such a person lacks moral sophistication and cannot appreciate the sanctity of private property. The text Sefer HaMussar goes as far as saying that this is a moral deficiency because it can lead to coveting other's wealth and obsessing over other people's belongings, a phenomenon I pointed out last year. The fourth person is self-centered and is only concerned with what can be taken. I do not take issue with the Rabbi's take on the second and fourth individuals. 

It is the depiction of the first and third individuals that are more problematic. The first is either considered "run-of-the-mill," or בינונית. The first individual is taking a more "live and let live" approach. Tying this mentality to Sodom requires the logical fallacy of the slippery slope. Sodom was a particularly bad place. According to the Book of Ezekiel (16:48-49), Sodom's fall was due to its arrogance. Why were they arrogant? Because they had riches and food, and did not help the poor or the needy. Post-biblical Jewish texts go into detail on how cruel Sodom really was in this regard. In the Talmud (Sanhedrin 109b), it says that Sodom had such a disdain for the poor that the government of Sodom would punish those that aided the poor and the needy. This is not an indictment of free-market economics or property rights; it is an indictment of cruelty towards others (especially the poor and needy) to the point of legislating said cruelty. 

As for the third individual, the one who thinks "what is mine is yours, and yours is yours" can only go so far under Jewish law. After all, Jewish law teaches that one cannot give charitable donations beyond twenty percent of one's assets (Ketubot 67b). A vow of poverty is not a Jewish value. There is a Midrash (Shemot Rabbah 31:14) that teaches that if you had poverty on one side and all other problems on the other side, poverty outweighs them all. It is a literary device to be sure, but the point still is that poverty is awful. 

Looking through the commentary on this passage in Pirke Avot, I believe the main lesson is that we generally should be more inclined to giving. Granted, the text is referring to money and material wealth, but it could just as easily apply to knowledge, time, and effort. During this study session, the seminarian leading the discussion connects this passage to the Four Sons that are in the Passover Seder: the wise son, the wicked son, the simple son, and the son who cannot even ask a question. These are not meant to be literal children, but rather personifications of personality types. We see a similar categorization in the aforementioned Pirke Avot passage. As the seminarian brought up, some of us act like one of the four characterizations, but there are also plenty of people who personify different characterizations in different points in life. 

There are points when we are more selfish, either because all we want to do is take or we find ourselves in a dire enough situation where we need to receive instead of give. There are other moments where all we want to do is give to others. And there are times where we do not feel like giving to others or feel like being left alone. I find this tension about giving and taking greatly encapsulated elsewhere in Pirkei Avot, specifically from Rabbi Hillel at Pirke Avot 1:14 (Hebrew is here):

If I am not for myself, who will be? If I am only for myself, what am I? And if not now, when?

I like this passage for a couple of reasons. One, it differentiates between self-interest/self-care and pure, unadulterated selfishness. Two, it reminds us that we need to be self-reliant and self-sufficient, but at the same time, there is a calling to be there for others. I also bring up Pirke Avot 1:14 because segues into a parallel tension in the Passover Seder. 

We sanctify the beginning of the Seder with a glass of wine (קדש) and wash our hands (ורחץ). Afterwards, we start with the uglier side of the experience of slavery. We then eat the green vegetables dipped in saltwater (כרפס). The most common explanation for כרפס is that it symbolizes the tears that the slaves shed while in slavery. It does teach about hard times, but as I brought up, it also can teach about growth throw adversity. We have the difficult time of slavery. With the slavery is the implicit poverty. This brings us to the next step in the Seder (יחץ), which is breaking the middle matzah. I discussed the ritual of יחץ a few years ago. Matzah, the unleavened bread eaten on Passover, is referred to as "poor man's bread" (Talmud, Pesachim 115b). In premodern times, breaking food and stashing it for later was a common practice to make sure people had enough food to eat. We break the middle matzah to try to put us in their shoes and understand at least a wee bit as to what slavery and poverty are like (Rashi). After stashing the matzah, we do something counterintuitive in the Seder. We say the following:

כל דכפין ייתי ויכל. כל דצריך, ייתי ויפסח

To translate the Aramaic above, we say "all who are hungry, let them come and eat. All who are needy, let them come and celebrate Passover with us." In a matter of seconds, we see a major paradigm shift. Yes, we stashed food, which symbolizes a scarcity mentality in which one thinks there will never be enough. In spite of the lack in the Seder narrative, the Seder allows us to invite others to join us in the festivities, which brings us to a mindset of abundance. 

What are we to learn from this transition? We are supposed to take care of ourselves. Self-preservation and self-care are important. If we are not healthy enough, emotionally sound enough, or financially stable enough, we either end up being someone else's burden or are unable to help out others. There lies at least one paradox here: taking care of ourselves helps ensure we can be there for others. This paradox hearkens back to Rabbi Hillel's "If I'm not for myself, who will be?" 

But we are meant to do more than merely survive, which is why Rabbi Hillel's dictum in Pirke Avot continues with "If I am only for myself, what am I?" This is why we invite guests into our home after stashing food. We are not meant to only think about ourselves. If there is someone nearby or within our sphere of influence, that is hungry or has spiritual needs, we are to help to the best of our capability. At the time the Seder was created, abject poverty was the default. It teaches that when we have little, we are meant to share what we have. All the more if we are in a state of material abundance, which is much more commonplace in the 21st century than it has been in any other point in history. 

This brings me to another point. Passover celebrates the transition from slavery to freedom, from a low point to a high point. What we see in today's piece here is another transition: from a scarcity mindset to an abundance mindset. I would argue that a scarcity mindset is a form of slavery. The most literal definition of slavery is one human being owning another. It is certainly a morally egregious act, one that sadly still occurs to this very day. However, it is not the only type of slavery. 

A scarcity mindset is one of the most prevalent forms of slavery that one can experience in the mind. Scarcity mindset and fear come hand in hand. You think you will not have enough money or time that you cannot do things. Yes, there is a limit of goods and services in this world. This is why the study of economics exists. Plus, there is a moment we need to be aware of these limits so we can make sound and cogent tradeoffs when making life choices. We are not meant to ignore reality or view the world through rose-colored glasses. At the same time, when you are on the scarcity mindset, the tunnel vision of fear limits you from going ahead in life and taking risks. You think of life as a limited pie. It impedes you from viewing things in the long-term or makes sure you lose sight of priorities. When you think you do not have enough or that you are not enough, it creates anxiety, which can over time create physical and mental health problems.

If our minds are stuck on a scarcity mindset, we limit our potential as human beings. Scarcity mindset means ignoring what we have, whereas an abundance mindset means gratitude. If there is a certain lack in our lives, an abundance mindset gives us the ability to see and pursue a solution to a certain lack in life. If we are to take the Seder seriously, we need to think less in terms of scarcity and more in terms of abundance. How do we do that? There are a few ways that one can do that:

• We focus on what we do have instead of what we do not have. As Rabbi Ben Zoma brings up in Pirke Avot (4:1), "Who is rich? The one who is satisfied with their lot." 
• Surround ourselves with those who have an abundance mindset. 
• Incorporate gratitude in your day-to-day. Gratitude is an essential component of the abundance mindset. This would explain why Judaism teaches that we should say 100 blessings a day. It would also explain the Hebrew term for gratitude (הכרת הטוה), which literally means "recognizing the good." We do not ignore the suffering, injustice, or problems in the world. It means we remember that there is plenty of good in this world. 
• When things do not go our way, we focus on the lesson from that experience and ask ourselves how we learn for the next time. 
• Use cognitive-based therapy (CBT) to reframe scarcity-based thoughts. 
• Invest in yourself, whether that is professional development or getting a professional fitness trainer, so you can earn more and do more in life. 
• Don't focus on strictly material wealth. There are other forms of abundance, whether that comes in the form of health, friends, family, a romantic relationship, spirituality, personal development, or sense of purpose. 

An abundance mindset comes with multiple advantages. You can find happiness or contentment, even in difficult times. You are more resilient and more able to solve problems as they arise. It allows for you to better take advantage of new opportunities and seize the day. It creates confidence that you can pursue endeavors in life. You end up with greater physical and emotional energy. Life is more exciting. You feel more empowered and engaged in life. In summation, an abundance mindset is an essential component to having a free and healthy mind. By going from scarcity to abundance, we are able to feel and undergo the Passover experience.

Biur Chametz: What Burning Leavened Bread Before Passover Teaches About Personal Development

Pesach (פסח), also known as Passover, is one of my favorite Jewish holidays is because it celebrates the universal theme of transitioning from slavery to freedom. This redemption story has been the source of inspiration for many. I am not talking about Charlton Heston on the Big Screen. For example, Harriet Tubman was referred to as the "Moses of her people." As powerful as the Passover motif of freedom is, I also enjoy Pesach because there are a number of rituals involved that have a lot of symbolism. Even before the holiday begins, we see the symbolism emerge. 

One of the main prohibitions on Passover is the consumption of chametz (חמץ). You are probably wondering what chametz is. It is the leavened product made out of one of five grains: wheat, oats, barley, rye, and spelt. Matzah (מצה), which is unleavened flat bread, is allowed. As a matter of fact, Jews are obligated to eat matzah on the first day. As an extension of this prohibition of chametz, Jews are not even allowed to legally own chametz. That is why Jews traditionally clean their houses to make sure there is not even a single crumb of chametz within their possession. There is also the practice of selling the chametz before Passover begins. On the evening before Passover, there is a formal search for chametz that is called bedikat chametz (בדיקת חמץ), a process that includes a statement of nullification. You can tell that Jewish tradition is serious and stringent about not owning a single crumb because all of these practices are not enough. On the morning before Passover, there is one last ritual: biur chametz (ביעור חמץ). Through the practice of biur chametz, a Jew is to destroy the last bit of chametz that they own, most traditionally by burning it. The ritual includes reciting the following a statement of nullification in Aramaic:

כל חמירא וחמיעא דאכא ברשותי, דחזתה ודלא חזתה, דחמתה ודלא חמתה, דהערתה ודלא בערתה, לבטל ולהוי הפקר כעפרא דארעא.

All chametz, whether I have seen it or not, whether I have destroyed (removed) it or not, is hereby nullified and ownerless as the dust of the Earth. 

My first question is that if you recite this at the end, why do we need to do everything else? If the above is a statement of nullification, why spend hours of cleaning and searching for chametz? If we view the cleaning and searching of chametz in strictly literal terms, it makes more sense to simply nullify the chametz at the end. However, the pre-Passover rituals are as much about the spiritual lessons as the physical act of removing chametz, if not more so. 

As I explained a decade ago, the difference between chametz and matzah is subtle, yet important. Chemically speaking, the chametz has undergone the fermentation process. The chametz is to represent the ego, the fluff in our lives, our inflated view of the self and other distorted views. The matzah has no fluff or fanfare. It is to represent ourselves exactly as we are: nothing better or nothing worse. This state of being is meant to be a balance between arrogance and self-debasement, an equilibrium that I have argued is the most Jewish definition of humility. Rather than be aggrandizing or demeaning, a Jewish sense of humility is meant to be one of self-awareness. 

Bring that back to why we clean on Passover. Coming back to the figurative view on these rituals, Passover cleaning is not simply about removing crumbs and prohibited food from the home. It is about decluttering our minds, hearts, and souls. We clean before reaching biur chametz because we are meant to put in the work on our own personal development and to become the best version of ourselves. 

What is equally interesting is that in spite of all the preparation, all the cleaning, searching, and selling, Jews still burn chametz and make a declaration of nullification. The declaration during biur chametz states that regardless of whether I found it or not, whether I destroyed it or removed it or not, it is no longer mine. If we go further with the metaphor, it means that we can prepare until we can prepare no more. In spite of our best efforts, something can go awry. Taking this extra step is to remind us that not everything is in our control. 

When one completes biur chametz as a last step of Passover preparation, what is being said is "I have put my best foot forward. I have done all I could. What happens next is what happens. G-d does not expect us to be perfect. If He did, we would have been angels. The reality is that we are not angels. To be human is to err." What the practice of biur chametz reminds us that we can only do our best. If we could clean our houses perfectly (either physically for Passover or metaphorically in life), we would not need such a practice as biur chametz. Yes, we can work on improving ourselves (as the Passover cleaning symbolizes), but doing anything beyond our darnedest is not possible. We are not meant to be angels, but the best versions of our human selves. There is a point where we have to say that we are good enough and that what we have done up to now is good enough. Could G-d ask for anything more?

Will the Economic Sanctions on Russia Work and Will They Be Worth It?

Russia invading Ukraine back in February certainly has had multiple implications for foreign policy and international affairs. Multiple countries, especially those in the West, take issue with Russia's unprovoked attack on Ukraine. At the same time, they do not want to anger the nuclear power or do something that will also harm them in the process. It is because Russia is a regional power with a sizable economy and nuclear weapons that makes the response all the more limited. I have already covered why military intervention is ill-advised, why a no-fly zone should not be implemented, and the limits of the United States banning oil and natural gas. One policy idea seems to have received a fair bit of traction: economic sanctions. 

What are economic sanctions exactly? Per the definition from the Council on Foreign Relations, economic sanctions are "the withdrawal of customary trade and financial relations for foreign- and security-policy purposes. Sanctions may be comprehensive, prohibiting commercial activity with regard to an entire country, like the long-standing U.S. embargo of Cuba, or they may be targeted, blocking transaction by and with particular businesses, groups, or individuals." We can be looking at anything from travel bans and export restrictions to trade embargoes and asset seizures.

In the context of the Russo-Ukrainian War, we are seeing multiple types of economic sanctions. Aside from the United States' import ban on oil (see my analysis here), there have been banking sanctions. The United Kingdom announced that they were freezing assets of Russian banks. The United States announced restrictions on Russian banks. Two Chinese state banks were limiting financing to purchasing Russian raw materials. The European Union implemented sanctions targeting technological transfers, Russian assets, and Russian banks. The United States, European Union, and Canada have banned air travel from Russia. It can be argued that we are seeing an unusually high amount of economic sanctions in response to Russia's decision to invade Ukraine. This is to name but a few of the economic sanctions imposed upon Russia. If you want a full list of the sanctions imposed on Russia, please view the timeline from the Peterson Institute for International Economics here.

There is some appeal to economic sanctions. It is a way to stick it to Russia without partaking in something as problematic as conventional war with a nuclear power. Also, given the current nature of globalization, much of the global economy is conducted in U.S. dollars, which gives the Western powers an upper hand. It would not be much of an exaggeration to say that the rules of the U.S. financial system are the rules of the global financial system. Whether or not economic sanctions are a good idea really depends on what your goal is. Are you trying to encourage Russia to exit Ukraine? Are these sanctions to cripple Russia's ability to fund its military actions in Ukraine? Are you trying to encourage regime change in Russia? Or are these sanctions simply punitive in nature? 

Historically, economic sanctions have mixed results for bringing about policy change, regime change, or cause military impairment (Hufbauer et al., 2009). One study put the likelihood of success at about 40 percent (Morgan et al., 2014). 

It is more than citing examples of how Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Venezuela, and Syria went about their foreign policy in spite of economic sanctions. We already see a lack of efficacy, at least in the immediate term, in the context of the Russo-Ukrainian War. Previous economic sanctions did not deter Russia from attacking Ukraine in February, although they could potentially deter Russia from invading other nations in the future (or could even deter China from invading Taiwan). 

The latest round of economic sanctions being implemented will need time to take into effect, which is worth mentioning since we are talking about the immediacy of war. This is shown by the fact that Russian military forces remain in Ukraine. Plus, Russia has one of the lowest debt-to-GDP ratios (at 17 percent) and is sitting on $600 billion in currency reserves, which is the fourth-largest reserves in the world. There is also the possibility that neutral countries (e.g., China, India, Pakistan, much of Latin America) could help provide sanctions-busting transactions as a workaround. 

Conversely, this latest round of economic sanctions has been massive, multilateral, and swift. In terms of determining success, one should ask what the ultimate goals are. Getting Putin to retreat in the short-run is not going to happen. We are past the point of deterrence since Russia has already attacked Ukraine. Punishment in the medium-term is more feasible, even in spite of the Russian ruble making a comeback from a previous crash in recent weeks. Standard & Poor's is estimating an 11 percent contraction of GDP in 2022 primarily due to the war. Russia is also looking at double-digit inflation. There is a case to be made that the economic sanctions will have medium-to-long-term implications for weakening the Russian economy. As for changing Putin's behavior (i.e., rehabilitation), it will be difficult to get Putin to remove Russian troops from Ukrainian territory since he is staking his political future on Ukrainian annexation (or at least having a Russian rule Ukraine on Putin's behalf).

One of the arguments against such broad-based economic sanctions is that they disproportionately impact individuals or groups of people who are not responsible for the government's decisions. Economic sanctions would make sense if ordinary Russian citizens were responsible for its government's foreign policy decisions, but they are not. Even if the goal is to inflict pain on the Russian oligarchs and their interests in the West, the results will be less predictable than it will be for the general populace. 

Perhaps regime change is a desirable outcome of these sanctions. But let me re-iterate how these sanctions take time to take hold. It could be a few months or a few years before the effects are fully felt by the Russian people, particularly the oligarchs and others in power. The Director of Harvard University's Growth Lab, Ricardo Haussmann brings up why economic sanctions rarely result in regime change. Haussmann's explanation is that although the sanctions weaken the regime, they tend to weaken society even more so. Harold James, who is a history professor at Princeton University, also mentions that domestic discontent could increase in Russia, but so could nationalistic fervor and support for Putin. Looking both at nationalism in Russian history and the mechanisms that Putin has in place to silence dissidents, these sanctions have the potential to strengthen Putin's popularity within his own country. The sanctions could also backfire by putting Putin in a corner and taking greater risks by escalating either to war or more belligerent actions (e.g., cyber warfare).   

There will be spillover effects beyond Russia. We are talking about trying to shut down or severely limit large swathes of one of the world's largest economies in an increasingly globalized world. While there have been other economic sanctions in human history, the sheer magnitude of what is being attempted leaves us in a situation without parallel. We are already seeing increasing prices in oil and natural gas, stock market volatility, and other negative demand shocks, not to mention an impending food shortage throughout Africa. Much like with other restrictions on trade openness, economic sanctions will in all likelihood make the poorer and less free. 

A 2019 report from the Government Accountability Office (GAO) echoed concerns about unintended consequences of economic sanctions: "Some studies [on economic sanctions] suggest that sanctions had a negative impact on human rights, the status of women, public health, or democratic freedom in target countries. In addition, more frequent and comprehensive use of sanctions could encourage sanctions targets, potential targets, and their commercial partners to develop trade and financial ties that are less dependent not he United States (GAO, p. 25-26)."

Will these economic sanctions result in the outcomes desired by Western governments? That remains to be seen, although historic precedence gives us mixed results. I can say with fair certainty that they will dole out a fair bit of pain for the people of Russia and the Russian economy, as well as make goods and services more expensive for people throughout the world. Whether these sanctions will deter future Russian military action or if it will engender political change from Moscow is much less certain. At best, these sanctions would need to be one tool in the toolkit to bring about peace in eastern Europe. At worst, it will be all pain for little to no gain. Only time will tell to let us know whether or not these sanctions were worth it.