The political and religious musings of a Right-leaning, libertarian, formerly Orthodox Jew who emphasizes rationalism, pragmatism, common sense, and free, open-minded thought.
When I was lighting Chanukah candles last night, my mind focused on a specific detail about the lighting. How do we place the candles on the menorah? The candles are placed on the menorah from right to left. One of the features that drew me to Judaism is that there is symbolism in everything. I am sure that there is some symbolism behind it, or that I could at least find some. I was spending the evening with a friend, and it became more clear that I was perplexed by finding the answer to this "why" question. He then said to me, "You know, Hebrew is read from right to left. Maybe that is why the candles are placed that way." After giving it some more thought, I realized that he may be on to something.
Hebrew is indeed written and read from right to left. In contrast, Greek is written from left to right. Why do I bring up the Greeks specifically? Because in the Chanukah story, the occupying force (King Antiochus III in particular) was Greek. One of the main motifs of the Chanukah story is that the Maccabees fought the Greeks to maintain their Jewish practice and identity. Perhaps putting the candles from right to left is another subtle way of the Jew reminding himself or herself that there are features of Judaism that make Jews different from the rest of the world. There is some truth in that. At the same time, a further look into Chanukah practices paints a more complex view of how the Jew interacts with the greater world.
Let's start with the dreidel, the four-sided spinning top commonly associated with Chanukah. The dreidel brings up a certain paradox on this theme, one that I pointed out over a decade ago. On the one hand, the dreidel has uniquely Jewish characteristics. It has four Hebrew letters on it and it is played on Chanukah. On the other hand, look at the role of the dreidel in the Chanukah story. It was a game played in the streets to not arouse suspicion from the fact that the Jews in the Chanukah story were studying Torah, an act that was considered illegal under Antiochus' regime. Plus, the dreidel game has its origins in the practice of teetotum, a English top game that was popular around Christmas time. As Rabbi David Golinkin points out, the irony of the dreidel is that a way that Jews celebrate a victory over cultural assimilation is through the dreidel game, which is unto itself an act of assimilation.
The potato pancakes, or latkes, are another example. If you care about history, you cannot argue in good faith that latkes have always been a part of Jewish tradition. For one, the Chanukah story is one that took place centuries after the story of receiving the Torah at Mount Sinai. Two, the origin of the potato is the Andes. Potatoes were not brought over to Europe until after Christopher Columbus made his mark on the Western Hemisphere. Even then, the potato pancake is a staple of multiple European nations, including Sweden (raggmunkar, potatisbullar), Germany and Austria (Kartoffelpuffer), Bulgaria (patatnik), and Poland (placki ziemniaczane). Similarly, the recipe for the sufganiyah, the jelly-filled donut eaten on Chanukah, was first published in a non-Jewish, German cookbook in the late fifteenth century (Encyclopedia of Jewish Food by Gil Marks).
Gift-giving on Chanukah provides further insight on the matter. Looking at the history and significance of giving on Chanukah, there was a pre-modern practice of giving money (gelt) to children on Chanukah. However, this practice was quite modest in comparison to what we have today. Gift-giving on Chanukah is a primarily American practice that evolved from interactions with non-Jewish neighbors. Gift-giving as a Jewish-American practice resulted from two phenomena. One is that it was a response to Christmas. The other is that after World War II and the suburban sprawl, Jews could better assimilate into greater U.S. society. Gift-giving on Chanukah became a way to not feel left out.
For a more complicated relationship with the greater world, look at Ma'oz Tzur, a liturgical poem that is commonly sung on Chanukah. The most common melody of Ma'oz Tzur is based on a German folk song. At the same time, the poem was written at a time where Jews were being oppressed by their Christian neighbors. Johns Hopkins Professor Yitzhak Melamed details how Ma'oz Tzur has anti-Christian sentiment in light of the fact that Jews during the Crusades died "in the name of the Cross." It is true that there historically been discord, tension and animosity between Christians and Jews. It is also true that Judeo-Christian relations are, on average, better than they ever have been. We live in an age where we are not trapped in the past and we can coexist in a pluralistic society.
If you take a look through Jewish history, the Talmud, or other aspects of Jewish culture, what you will note is that relations with broader society can be complicated and cannot be overgeneralized. There are moments when relations are good and times when they are bad. Context matters. Regardless of whether relations are good or bad, one thing that is undeniable or inescapable is that the Jewish world is influenced by broader society. As Chanukah practices illustrate, Judaism does not interact within a bubble.
How do we resolve the tension within the paradox? One of the many reasons I converted to Judaism is because I was fascinated by the and resilience and adaptability of the Jewish people over time. The Jewish people have maintained their rituals, customs, and practices. The continuity of the tradition is fascinating. The Jewish people learned how to be comfortable with the uncomfortable feeling of being different. They also learned how to interact with and succeed in broader society. After all, the Jewish text Pirke Avot (Ethics of the Fathers) teaches that one who is wise is one who learns from all people (4:1), and that includes people who are not Jewish.
Cultural exchange is how we evolve and better our lives. Even as the "Chanukah spirit" teaches us to be proudly Jewish, it also reminds us that Chanukah would not exist in its current form had Jews not interacted with and learned from non-Jews. That is integration in a nutshell: maintaining a sense of who you are while being part of broader society. The lesson of Chanukah is neither about assimilating nor trying to isolate ourselves from those who are different from us. It will be different for each Jew, but at the end of the day, one of the main lessons of Chanukah is about maintaining that balance between Jewish identity and being a part of broader society.
Sometimes, it amazes me how events can become politicized so easily. Take a look at the Kenosha unrest shooting that resulted in the trial of Kyle Rittenhouse. On August 23, 2020, Jacob Blake, a 29-year-old black man, was shot in Wisconsin by a white police officer, Rusten Sheskey. In response, Black Lives Matter protests and riots ensued in the city of Kenosha from August 23 to September 1. It was on August 25 when 17-year old Kyle Rittenhouse got into an altercation with Joseph Rosenbaum, who was unarmed. Rosenbaum, along with journalist Richard McGinnis, confronted Rittenhouse later. Rittenhouse ended up fatally shooting two men and severely injuring another man. Rittenhouse was charged with multiple charges, including first-degree intentional homicide and first-degree reckless homicide. Rittenhouse's defense team asserted that Rittenhouse acted in self-defense. To make a long story short, the jury delivered a not guilty verdict based on the self-defense argument.
If we look at the facts of the case instead of pundits' comments, it was an open-and-shut self-defense case. In this case, Rittenhouse was not the aggressor. Even Gaige Grosskreutz, the individual that was shot by Rittenhouse but survived, admitted that he approached Rittenhouse while aiming a gun at him. Rittenhouse received a non guilty verdict not because the justice system is broken, but because the prosecution could not prove their case beyond a reasonable doubt.
That did not stop the politicizing or the race-baiting, which is unsurprising given that it is 2021. Congresswoman Cori Bush (D-MO) called the case "white supremacy in action," even in spite of the fact that the individuals that Rittenhouse shot were all white. MSNBC host Joy Reid referred to Rittenhouse as a modern-day slave catcher. Even the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), which traditionally has defended the rights of criminal defendants, was peeved that Rittenhouse actually received his constitutional right to due process.
This case goes beyond the usual divide between Democrats and Republicans on gun control and the Second Amendment. What we have witnessed, especially by pundits and activists on the Left, is there is true disdain for the idea that a "good guy with a gun" could exist, especially if that guy is white. Anecdotally, I have come across people on the Left that think that the Second Amendment is some antiquated relic and that guns could not possibly have any real value. My takeaway from the Rittenhouse case is that many on the Left has true disdain for guns, even in a legitimate case of self-defense.
In response, I would like to ask the question of how prevalent defensive gun usage (DGU) is. The U.S. Department of Justice found that from 2007 to 2011, there were 338,700 instances of DGU (Table 11). This annual average of 67,740 is on the more conservative end of the spectrum of estimates, but is still higher than the 39,707 firearm deaths in 2019. That figure is arguably low for a number of reasons, including that people do might not want to divulge their gun ownership, that they have illegally acquired a gun, that crimes are generally underreported, or that they were ashamed of being victimized.
As such, I am more inclined to accept the finding of a 2013 publication from the National Academies Press [NAP], which was commissioned by the CDC. They found that "Defensive use of guns is a common occurrence...with estimates of annual usage ranging from 500,000 to more than 3 million." In 2021, a Georgetown University professor conducted the largest survey of gun owners to date (English, 2021). Not only did Professor English find that 31.1 percent of gun owners have used their firearm in self-defense at some point, but also extrapolated that there are approximately 1.67 million instances of DGU annually.
Yes, the exact number of instances of DGU in a given year is in dispute, as are so many figures used in political discourse. What should not be in dispute is that regardless of which figure you use, there are enough cases of DGU that it ought to be considered prevalent enough to dispel the myth that there is "no such thing as a 'good guy with a gun.'" One of the main uses of a gun is self-defense. As nice as it would be to have a peaceful world without gun violence, the truth of the matter is the continued existence of violent and criminal individuals bolsters the argument for DGU. Much like taking the COVID vaccine, wearing a seatbelt, or buying insurance, the purchase of a gun for self-defense purposes is a preventative measure.
If self-defense does not work, then why do police officers, Secret Service agents, and the Department of Homeland Security agents carry firearms? I ask that question rhetorically because evidence finds that DGU works. To quote the NAP report again, "Studies that directly assessed the effect of actual defensive uses of guns (i.e., instances in which a gun was 'used' by the crime victim in the sense of attacking or threatening an offender) have found consistently lower injury rates among gun-using crime victims compared with victims who used other self-protective strategies."
The importance of defensive gun usage is not some abstraction or a fantasy of some ultra-conservative, gun-wielding nut job. DGU is a common and effective form of self-defense, and I am fairly certain that those who have used a gun for self-defense would agree. These figures on DGU do not provide a case for getting rid of the Second Amendment. If anything, these figures, as well as the Rittenhouse case, reinforce the idea of why DGU is just as important now as when the Constitution was drafted.
Everything is a crisis these days. If you watch the news, there are multiple crises: a health care crisis, a financial crisis, a transportation crisis, a supply chain crisis, a justice crisis, an immigration border crisis. Another crisis has been making its rounds in the news: the climate change crisis. Last week, the United Nations finished its global climate change summit in Glasgow, Scotland (COP26). Representatives from nearly 200 nations signed a new treaty. The signatories promise to keep global warming below 1.5ºC by 2100. Some of the more prominent ideas to maintain this ceiling that were brought up at COP26 are net-zero emissions by mid-century, cutting methane by 30 percent by 2030, reducing deforestation, and a coal phase-down.
Part of where I take issue with such summits as the COP26 is the crisis mentality. I am not saying that crises never exist, that global temperatures are not increasing, or that human activity has not played any notable role in shifts in climate. What I take issue with is perceived magnitude of the problem. The word "crisis" comes from the Latin crisis (judgement, critical stage), which was borrowed from the Greek krísis (one of the meanings being "turning point"). Are we really at such a critical juncture that if we do nothing, the world will end up going to hell in a hand basket? No, not particularly. I am not going to cover every last point in the climate change debates both because I do not have the time and because I have covered the topic of climate change on this blog before. What I will provide today are a few reasons why I am not flipping out about climate change:
1. Going above 1.5ºC by 2100 would not be the end of the world. What happens if we do nothing? The United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change [IPCC] report can provide some insight. If we have a no-policy response and the global temperature rises to 3.66ºC, there is an estimated GDP loss of 2.6 percent (Ch. 3., p. 256). While 2.6 percent lesser growth sounds undesirable, also keep in mind that current projections show that the global economy is supposed to grow anywhere from 600 percent to 1,800 percent compared to 2017 (Leimbach et al., 2017). While it is hard to predict that far out in the future (see Point #3), it is a reasonable assumption that economic and technological progress will get better over time (see Point #4).
2. Weather-related deaths have been on the decline. You would think that with the increase of CO2 over the past century, more people would be dying from weather-related deaths. Yet here is a peer-reviewed paper from European scholars that says otherwise (Formetta and Feyen, 2019): "Results show a clear decreasing trend in both human and economic vulnerability, with global average mortality and economic loss rates that have dropped by 6.5 and nearly 5 times, respectively, from 1980-1989 to 2007-2016." Looking at a more longitudinal view of time, global death risk from extreme weather declined 99 percent between 1920 and 2020 (Lomberg, 2020).
3. Climate change modeling is difficult and fraught with assumptions. Hearing that the world is going to end if we do not change our behavior on environmental policy and climate change is nothing new. At least since the first Earth Day in 1970, we have been bombarded with "gloom-and-doom" predictions about how the world is going to end in the near future if we do not do something about the environment right now. And guess what? They have not come to pass. Sometimes, I feel as if climate change doomsayers are like a cult leader trying to predict the coming of the Apocalypse. When it does not come, they simply say, "Oh, I really meant later." And yet we continue to listen to such apocalyptic predictions.
Again, I am not saying that there are no problems related to the climate or that humans do not contribute to these problems. What I am saying is that climate change modeling is difficult. Look at budgetary and economic modeling five to ten years down the road. We do our best, but looking that far down the road is difficult. It is not because economists are stupid or because modeling is inherently problematic. It is because modeling is only as good as its assumptions. It is hard enough to make certain assumptions with medium-term budgetary or economic predictions. The pandemic should have quelled our assumptions on that front, that we can have such foresight. All the more so with climate change modeling.
You are talking about a longer time span and more variables to consider with climate change modeling fifty or one hundred years down the road. Plus, there is a complexity predicting long-term patterns such as interactions between clouds and oceans, solar activity, physics, and how much human activity contributes to the climate change. If you need a more technical piece on the difficulty of predicting climate change scenarios, here is one from professors at the University of Colorado and University of British Columbia published in Issues in Science and Technology. But for argument's sake, let's forget the history of climate change predictions for a moment and assume that the models are at least somewhat accurate. This does not mitigate my final point below....
4. Technological development will help us mitigate climate change. Even with this pandemic, there is still technological development. Such technological developments have helped us in the past. As we progress, innovation provides both greater wealth and improved technological capabilities. HVAC systems have gotten better over time, which can help fight temperature-related deaths. Better infrastructure development improves resilience in hurricanes, tornadoes, and flooding. Weather-related deaths have dropped in no small part because we as a species have learned how to adapt to our surrounding. I would take an educated guess that both economic growth and innovation in relevant sectors would lead to even greater resilience to climate change over time.
Postscript
I am not saying shifts in climate are not going to have any impact. There are going to be some regions hit harder than others. This, to be sure, will be based on such factors as economic development, natural resources, and geography. But I do not see it as an imminent crisis that is going to destroy us all without some drastic action. Climate change is manageable if we approach it at a more level-headed mindset. Look at what happened with the COVID-19 pandemic when we resorted to panic. Before the pandemic, experts told us that lockdowns were ill-advised. But when fear took over, we locked down because of scary modeling, even though the public health experts previously told us it was a bad idea. At least now we have data to show that lockdowns do not work to lower excess deaths. In addition to lockdowns, governments implemented a whole series of regulations and practices "in the name of science" that do little to nothing to curb COVID transmission. This inanity caused billions of dollars in economic damage, considerable unemployment, a lot of mental health problems, disrupted supply chains, and greater world hunger.
I hope the pandemic response is a lesson for those who would like to use heavy-handed government as a response. Whether we are talking about carbon taxes, cap-and-trade, investments in renewable energy so we can gradually transition away from fossil fuels, or any other policy alternative, the question we should ask ourselves is whether the cost of the policy is greater than the damage we are looking to avoid. But a first good step is understanding the extent of the problem. As I brought up before in a previous piece, catastrophic climate change projections rely on such improbable, worst-case assumptions as complete inaction, an unrealistic consumption of coal, and a lack of technological development (also see Pielke and Ritchie, 2021; and Hausfather and Peters, 2020 on how climate change activists cling on improbable, worst-case scenarios). If we put ourselves in a crisis mindset when the problem is in fact a manageable one, I will not be surprised if the attempts of world leaders to mitigate climate change will be more harmful than climate change itself.
I have studied multiple languages over the years, and I have been amazed at how much we rely on idioms in the English language. Idioms make English such a colorful language, but also difficult for non-natives to learn. One of the idioms that has fascinated me is "to cut off one's nose to spite one's face." Having its origin in the late 18th century, the phrase means that one should not do something that harms you simply because it harms someone else. There are some who would be blinded enough by revenge where they would endure anything to get payback. There is another more common reason, one that we see play out in this week's Torah portion, Toldot (Genesis 25:19-28:9). That reason is envy.
There was a famine in the land of Canaan (Genesis 26:1). Isaac goes to settle in the land of Canaan because G-d promised that if Isaac stayed, he would be blessed (26:3-4). He stayed in the land and reaped a harvest 100 times what he was expecting. Isaac became wealthy as a result: flocks, herds, a large household (26:13-14). What happens as a result from Isaac's success? In spite of having stopped a famine, the Philistines envied Isaac (26:14). The townsfolk could not kill Isaac because he was under the king's protection (26:11; Sforno's commentary of Genesis 26:15). However, they did decide to stop up Isaac's wells and prevent him from producing more (26:15). Because of this envy, King Abimelech sent Isaac away (26:16). To recap, the townspeople drove away the guy that pulled them out of famine. They did not care that their actions meant less food production because they could not handle the fact that he produced greater material wealth. I feel like there is a modern-day lesson there about excessive taxation and regulation, but I will say that how the Philistines reacted to Isaac's success is a biblical example of "cutting off your nose in spite of your face" indeed! We see throughout the biblical texts how envy causes harm.
Look at the two matriarchs, Leah and Rachel. On the one hand, Rachel had Jacob's love. On the other hand, Leah was producing children. In any case, there was considerable tension between the two sisters (e.g., Genesis 30:15).
Miriam's envy caused her to speak ill of her brother (Numbers 12:1), thereby making her leprous (Numbers 12:10).
There was Joseph and his technicolor dream coat. Joseph buttered up to his father and became the favorite child. Joseph's siblings became so envious that they initially tried murdering him (Genesis 37:20), but eventually decided to sell Joseph into slavery (Genesis 37:27-28).
King David develops an attraction towards Bathsheba. David forces Bathsheba to sleep with him. To cover up the pregnancy, David sends Bathsheba's husband, Uriah, into battle to be killed (I Samuel 11).
And who could forget the story of Cain and Abel? Both Cain and Abel provided offerings to G-d. Abel gave his most precious animals. Cain tried to get away with offering less than his best. Call it a spiritual form of half-assing it. Cain did not want to put in the effort, and unsurprisingly, G-d noticed and favored Abel. How did Cain react? He was so envious that he murdered his brother (Genesis 4:3-9), an act that effectively killed a quarter of the planet's population.
The perils of envy go beyond biblical texts. It is something we regrettably see throughout history. A good friend of mine sent me a video (see below) about how history played a deleterious role in history. For one, it helped explain anti-Semitism better. In the Middle Ages, there were very few options for someone who was not of noble blood to become wealthy. Being a merchant was one of those ways. While there were non-Jewish merchants in the Middle Ages, it was a profession disproportionately taken on by Jews. And guess what? They were good at it....so good that their neighbors were envious. It led to the Spanish Inquisition and other expulsions in which people cut off their nose to spite their face. The Jewish people were not the only ones to experience the negative effects of envy, but it does make for a good cautionary tale for us.
Unfortunately, envy was not a relic we left in the Middle Ages. Going back to the video above, envy became a hit with the rise of socialism and communism. Not even the fall of the Berlin Wall could bring down envy. If we look at the philosophy of the social justice movement and how it is applied, the politics of envy continue to this very day. I do recognize that there are those on the political Left that are legitimately and primarily concerned with justice, even if it is quite redistributive. However, I would contend that much of what is taking place on the political Left is not primarily out of concern for justice, but motivated by envy. The way the "Eat the Rich" crowd reacts to the likes of Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos, or Elon Musk is reminiscent of the Isaac story discussed earlier. Success, a good education, and a work ethic are derisively dismissed by the social justice movement as privilege. It leads to thinking we could screw over the rich while regulating and taxing our way out of poverty. In spite of the technological progress we have made and in spite of the fact that our lives are materially better by most metrics than they ever have in history, envy still rules the day. Why? Envy is not how much one has in absolute terms, but in relative terms. Some things truly never change.
I begin to understand why the prohibition of coveting is in the Ten Commandments (see my 2014 analysis on the topic). According to twelfth-century rabbi Maimonides, what makes coveting problematic is that it leads to committing more egregious acts (Mishneh Torah, Gezelah v'Avedah 1:9-11). Go back to the list of biblical stories I cited above. In those biblical stories, envy brought about such disastrous results as slander, murder, criminal activity, and cruelty. Envy really is an ugly character trait. Aside from committing unethical acts, why is envy such a problem?
With envy, one is constantly comparing themself to others while deflecting any criticism or need to improve on themselves. Envy does not contribute to anything positive, whether on a personal or societal level, because it is about tearing people down instead of lifting people up. Envy destroys not only others, but ourselves. The Talmud points out that envy rots the bones (Shabbat 152b). Envy also makes it difficult to enjoy life. To quote R. Joseph Telushkin in his book A Code of Jewish Ethics: Book 1 (p. 302), "Envy destroys our ability to enjoy what we already have; instead, our joy is diminished or entirely eliminated by the fact that others have more--perhaps only one thing more--than us." That would explain why Rabbi Elazar HaKappar said that envy is one of the things that removes us from this world (Pirke Avot 4:28)...or to quote President Theodore Roosevelt, "Comparison is the thief of joy."
Rabbi Telushkin hits on a major point about envy. It does not matter that those of us in the 21st century have more material wealth that our ancestors could dream of, whether that comes in the form of smartphones, refrigerators, indoor plumbing, computers, the dishwasher, the vacuum, or heating and air conditioning. If we focus on what others have and what we do not, if we continue to compare ourselves to others, we will always be miserable.
So how do we reduce envy? After reading this article from Chabad on the topic, I concluded that of the Jewish sages, Ben Zoma, gave some sound advice in Pirke Avot on how to deal with envy (4:1). He asked and gave answers to the following four questions:
Who is wise? The one who learns from everyone. On the one hand, this does not directly address envy. On the other hand, learning from everyone implies a lot. Because this wisdom means that you are willing to learn, it means you do not know everything. While the Jewish definition of humility (or rather, a definition based on Jewish texts) differs a bit from how we commonly understand humility, it is still necessary to have that open-mindedness and ability to give other people space if we want to reduce envy. Also, learning gives us the ability to grow. As we will see later, focusing on your own personal growth and development reduces envy.
Who is rich? The one who enjoys their lot. Yes, abject poverty is awful. The Midrash (Shemot Rabbah 31:14) says that if all the troubles were placed on one scale on poverty on the other, poverty outweighs them all. At the same time, I like how Ben Zoma turns the definition of richness on its head. Richness is not about the accumulation of material wealth, but about our perspective on what we have in life. This definition sounds a lot like what philosopher Frederich Nietzsche called amor fati, which is Latin for "love of one's fate." I can see a "love life" approach to be pollyannish or looking through the world with rose-colored glasses. The phrase in Hebrew for gratitude is הכרת הטוב, or literally "recognizing the good." We do not ignore the bad or set it aside. We also do not give into complacency because Judaism teaches that we can always better ourselves. But we do acknowledge and put emphasis on what blessings we do have. It's no wonder that a traditional Jewish practice is to say 100 blessings a day. This emphasis on recognizing what we do have and how fortunate we are does help with curtailing envy.
Who is strong? The one who conquers their evil inclination. For one, this quote implies that you should focus less on others' shortcomings and focus on your own. Two, you do not have a strong sense of self or self-control if you are envious. Envy is a weakness. It means that you would rather keep up with the Joneses and be yanked around by others' expectations of you. Having that envy drives you means that you are, in Marcus Aurelius' words (Meditations 12:19), are dancing like a puppet. It also means that you are not addressing what is causing the feeling of envy, nor are you focusing on what you can do to strengthen your own personality or improve your quality of life. Creating a sense of equanimity and emotional resilience means that you have greater control over your life, as opposed to being jerked around by external events over which you have little to no control.
Who is honored? The one who honors others. Another undesirable outcome of envy is that you are self-absorbed. Look, I'm not here to insult self-care. I actually find self-care to be important because if you are of sound body and mind, you are strong enough (see previous point) to be there for others. R. Jonathan Sacks once said that humility is not holding yourself low, but holding others high, which is a positive-sum approach. Bringing it back to the topic at hand, Rabbi Telushkin advises us that "Helping others achieve success, and feeling a sense of personal involvement in it, is one way to diminish feelings of envy." Going back to the first point in this list, the one about learning from others, I think we can both learn from others and honor others when we see other people as human beings instead of an opponent, as "other," an oppressor, or through a zero-sum lens.
I think there are moments in which we can feel at least a bit jealous of what others have. It is part of the human condition to want a better quality of life. However, just because there is some sort of inequality does not mean we have to tear the other person down. If someone has something we do not, we can always ask what we can do to emulate the other person so we can also have it. The commandment of "do not covet" (לא תחמד) is in the active voice. Coveting goes beyond a brief longing for something we lack. It is a brooding, festering, and active perpetuation of the negative emotions that eventually lead to something worse. Not only does envy harm others, but it makes people cut off their noses in spite of their faces, and that is not a good look for anybody.
2021 seems like it would be a better year than 2020. In spite of a Delta variant, we have safe and effective vaccines that have helped COVID become more manageable. One would think that as we get closer to the end of the pandemic, the economy would be getting significantly better. On the one hand, the recession did not last long. According to the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER), the COVID recession lasted less than a quarter. On the other hand, the pandemic has really thrown the economy into disarray. A couple of weeks ago, I analyzed the main causes of the supply chain crisis that we are experiencing.
Today, I would like to talk about a different abnormality occurring in the economy: a shortage in the labor market. As of the end of August, the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) found that there were 10.4 million job openings. During the same time, there were 7.4 million unemployed (BLS). The labor shortage is perplexing because there are about three million more job postings than there are workers in the labor market. With more job postings than ever, you would think people would get back to work. Yet there seems to be a fair amount of reluctance to reenter the labor force. So what gives? I plan on covering the main theories as to why people are not entering the labor market.
The COVID-19 pandemic. I understand that the counterproductive and harmful lockdowns caused businesses to be shut down, thereby creating a labor shortage. I can even understand how in 2020, people were afraid to take a job or go back into the office for fear of COVID. After all, the media was peddling fear throughout this pandemic (Sacerdote et al., 2020). But along came the vaccines in a record time previously thought impossible. In spite of the vaccine effectiveness, many people are still reeling from the aftermath of so much COVID fear. Ironically enough, a AP-NORC September 2020 poll found that the vaccinated are on average more fearful of COVID than the unvaccinated. This fear is so potent that I wrote a piece earlier this month about how this pandemic will come to an end when we as a society reach a point when we surmount fear and learn to manage risk once more. While hard to quantify, I think this residual fear will be in the background of the labor markets in the upcoming months.
Unemployment Insurance (UI) Benefits and Other Welfare Benefits. Unemployment benefits normally have been given to temporarily help those who lost their job. My concern at the beginning of the pandemic was that if the benefits were so large that they were either comparable to or exceeded one's previous salary, it could provide a disincentive for people to return to work. Given that the UI benefits delayed economic recovery during the Great Recession, I was naturally worried. The Mercatus Center found that expanded UI benefits have discouraged unemployment (Farren and Kaiser, 2021). Analysts at Goldman Sachs measured the main causes for the labor shortage. What was at the top of the list? As we see below, the answer to that question is "Unemployment benefits."
There was certainly a fair amount of politicking when the federal UI benefits expired. But let's keep a few things in mind. One is that only the expansion that expired. The expiration did not apply to base UI benefits. Two, there has been the addition of the expanded child tax credit. Three, there are other welfare benefits that are available, including food stamps and TANF. Four, the economic stimulus payments received in 2020 gave householdsextra disposable income to save. This extra cushion in cash, whether it be used for savings, consumption, or to pay off debt, reduces the incentives to return to the workplace.
Lack of Childcare. With the increase of remote work and childcare closures, parents had to deal with juggling their childcare duties and remote work duties. Intuitively, one would think that this lack of childcare would make it harder for parents (especially mothers) to reenter the workforce. However, economists from the Council of Economic Advisers found that parents generally did not lower their work-hours during the pandemic (Furman et al., 2021). That finding suggests that lack of childcare played a negligible role in the labor market shortage throughout the pandemic. With more schools opening up, the "lack of childcare" explanation becomes even less plausible.
Low Immigration. One of the unfortunate remnants from the Trump administration was the low levels of immigration. In spite of Trump's fears, immigration has not shown to lower employment. If anything, higher immigration levels can increase employment. As the libertarian Cato Institute brings up, we can raise legal immigration by addressing the administrative processing delays and the low immigration caps. The Left-leaning Vox also provides an argument for increasing immigration to help deal with the labor shortage.
Early Retirees. Retirees are becoming a larger portion of the U.S. population. After all, U.S. population is slowing in growth and the Baby Boomers (commonly defined as those who were born between 1946 and 1964) are opting not to work anymore. Some of this retirement was bound to happen, but much like we saw with remote working, the pandemic served to accelerate that trend. The Federal Reserve Bank at St. Louis brings up two main reasons for the acceleration of excess retirements in its research on the topic (Faria e Castro, 2021).
The first has to do with danger to one's health. COVID-19 disproportionately affects those who are older, especially those in the sixty-plus crowd. It is understandable that in the worst pandemic in about a century, those who are close to retirement age (i.e., mid-to-late sixties) would rather avoid getting infected with COVID if they can help it.
The Fed brings up a second reason: rising asset values made retirement more feasible. Although it is wise to diversify one's retirement account, it is also common practice that there is a large percentage invested in the stock market because of its high potential rate of return. This is where the monetary policy of quantitative easing (QE) comes in. QE keeps interest rates low and more money flowing through the economy. This expansionary monetary policy signals to the stock markets that the Fed is not afraid to continue to buy assets to keep interest rates low. Setting aside that QE can cause inflation or asset bubbles for a moment, one of its effects is increasing the value of the stock market. The fact that we are seeing historic highs in the stock market (e.g., NASDAQ, Dow Jones) gives those in their sixties more confidence to retire early. The silver lining is that the vast majority of those who are not of retirement age intend to look for work within the next twelve months (Goldman Sachs).
"The Great Resignation." Coined by psychologist Anthony Klotz, the "Great Resignation" refers to the phenomenon in which a multitude of employees are quitting their jobs. This "Great Resignation" is in part due to the burnout caused by the pandemic. Others are rethinking how work plays a role in their life, reassessing their career choices, and reevaluating their working conditions, whether it is compensation, benefits, work-life balance, promotional potential, or overall working environment. It seems have less tolerance for "sticking it out at my current job" than it did previously. As we see in labor data from the BLS, labor retention is becoming a greater problem that employers need to address if they want to keep their staff for the long-term.
Vaccine Mandates.One of my concerns behind Biden's vaccine mandate was that there would be a significant (or non-negligible) number of unvaccinated employees that would rather quit their jobs than be vaccinated. Preliminary survey data from the Kaiser Family Foundation suggests that 5 percent of the unvaccinated have quit their jobs rather than get vaccinated. While there is already anecdotal evidence of this trend taking place, it is too soon to tell what sort of impact the mandates will have on the labor market.
Postscript
Before writing this piece, I would have guessed that the unemployment benefits were the primary cause. Looking at the Goldman Sachs analysis, it seems to be the number one cause. In that sense, I was correct. At the same time, there are other factors that play into this labor market shortage, such as declining birth rates, a skills mismatch, and the list of multiple factors that I made above. What I will conclude with is that there are some issues with the labor market that will get resolved as this pandemic comes to an end. Hopefully, the Biden administration can lower the backlog of immigrants so we can increase the labor force that way. Conversely, there are other trends that signal that some of the people who left the labor market did so on a permanent basis. In any case, we are looking at a tight labor market for the foreseeable future.
It is no secret that comedian Dave Chappelle has a mix of observational humor, black humor, insult comedy, and satire that he enjoys using to get under people's skin. He gets off on offending people by being blunt and crass. In his latest Netflix special, The Closer, he takes it to a whole different level. He talks about discrimination against the African-American community relative to the LGBT community. He jokes about getting COVID-19. He explores the textbook definition of feminism and realizes that he is a feminist after he refers to women as "bitches." What got him the most flak was his comments about transgender individuals.
There was considerable anger from the trans activist community, ranging from angry Tweets to threats to boycott Netflix and pleas to pull the special from Netflix. How did Netflix respond? They did not cave into pressure. Instead, Netflix co-CEOs Ted Sarandos and Reed Hastings defended Chappelle in internal communications: "In his special, Chappelle makes harsh jokes about many groups, which is his style and a reason his fans love his comedy and commentary. Stand-up comedians often expose issues that are uncomfortable because the art by nature is highly provocative. As a leadership team, we do not believe that 'The Closer' is intended to incite hatred or violence against anyone."
My Criticisms of "The Closer"
There is a lot I would like to cover today, but I want to start off this analysis by saying there were parts of Chappelle's sketch that I found distasteful. I say this as someone who has a high threshold when it comes to humor. I appreciate black humor. When done correctly, it can be great because laughing at some of the darkest aspects of human existence can be therapeutic. If we don't laugh at those dark moments, they will bring us down...or at least that is how I view it. I find raunchy or crude humor funny. South Park's mix of the crude and political satire had me laughing out loud on multiple occasions. I also think a number of controversial comedians are funny, including George Carlin, Richard Pryor, Tracy Morgan, and Lenny Bruce. What I am about to say has nothing to do with a low tolerance for controversial or "inappropriate" material.
But within the first ten minutes of his stand-up, Chappelle does a bit that I thought went too far. Chappelle thought of an idea of a movie: There is a discovery of a group of aliens that are originally from Earth. They come from an ancient group of people that achieved interstellar travel and left Earth thousands of years ago. They go to another planet and things go bad. They decide they come back to Earth and reclaim it as their own." What does Chappelle call this movie idea? Space Jews.
Why should the Space Jews bit be offensive? After all, at the end of The History of the World, Part I, Mel Brooks does a bit called Jews in Space (see below). I agree that no group of people should be exempt from being the butt of a joke. As Mel Brooks shows, you can make Jew jokes while still being tasteful and spot-on. Dave Chappelle crosses that line from a good joke to a bad one. I don't say that simply as a Jew. I say that since part of Chappelle's style is based on observational humor. Content and delivery are the two main ingredients for good comedy. In the case of observational humor, part of that content is making sure that it at least remotely resembles reality.
Chappelle's joke takes on multiple anti-Semitic tropes that are categorically untrue, including that Jews are "other," Jews want to take over the world, and that Jews are oppressors. If Chappelle were to base the joke in historical fact, he would have known that the Romans came into Judea and Samaria, took over the land, oppressed the Jewish populace, and ultimately expelled the majority of the Jews. The Jews were subsequently exiled and oppressed by various governments for nearly the next two millennia. Jokes, especially ones that are based in observational humor, are funnier when they are at least somewhat based on historical accuracy. So to recap this part of the analysis: Jews in Space is funny, Space Jews is anti-Semitic.
There were some other parts of Chappelle's special I took issue with because of a lack of accuracy. One is that Chappelle treats oppression like a zero-sum game. This is especially pronounced when he jokes about discrimination against African-Americans in comparison to discrimination against LGBT individuals. He oversimplifies it by assuming that all gay people are white (i.e., Chappelle said that "gay people are minorities until they need to be white again"), and frames it in a way as if the African-American and LGBT communities were two separate entities without any overlap.
He also implies that the only discrimination that really matters is that against African-Americans. On the one hand, I am not here to say that African-Americans historically have had it easy. On the contrary! As recent as last June, I brought up how African-Americans have dealt with more than their fair share of discrimination in the United States. Plus, I understand that Chappelle is speaking from his personal experience. On the other hand, Chappelle asked the LGBT community to not "punch down" at him, after he spent a decent part of his show minimizing the discrimination of LGBT individuals. It is disingenuous to ask something of someone that you yourself cannot do, much like it is disingenuous for a millionaire with a large fan base trying to play the victim. Plus, there have been multiple minority groups that have been oppressed, including Jews, Hispanics, Asian-Americans, Muslims, gays, Gypsies, and the disabled. As the Left-leaning Slate brings up, Chappelle narrowly has focused on Black pain, but "fails again and again when his attention turns toward other marginalized groups."
The Funnier Parts of "The Closer"
For all that I found faulty with his special there were parts that I agreed with or at least found funny and/or to be good social commentary. Here are a few of those highlights from Chappelle's special:
"Is it possible that a gay person can be racist?" To Chappelle, I respond that it is possible. I think it is possible for anyone, whether they are gay or straight, black or white, religious or not, to be racist. Humans from all backgrounds have the potential and ability to discriminate against others.
"Of course it's possible [that a gay person can be racist]. Look at Mike Pence." Aside from the rumors that the former Vice President is gay, what makes this funny is that Chappelle calls Pence "a sad gay...one of those gays that prays about it." What makes this bit funny is that being gay is not a choice although there are people that still believe it is, conversion therapy is a bunch of bullocks, and it's sad that it's 2021 and people are still in the closet. Again, black humor!
"I'm jealous of gay people." After talking about "how well that movement is going," Chappelle proceeds to say that "I don't hate gay people at all. I respect the shit out of you." If Chappelle were an actual homophobe, he would not revere or laud gay people. I'm not here to say that every one of Chappelle's remarks on the gay community are accurate, but a bona fide homophobe would have a different take on gay people than one of respect.
Describing an altercation he had with a lesbian, Chappelle ended with the punch line of "I whooped the toxic masculinity out of that bitch." That punchline is a jab at the woke Left's take on how all masculinity is toxic, as opposed to distinguishing between toxic and healthy masculinity.
DaBaby is a rapper that made homophobic comments at a concert in Miami, implying that all gay people have HIV or AIDS. While that is wrong, a point that Chappelle brought up is that DaBaby also shot a fellow black man in a Wal-Mart in North Carolina. His self-defense argument was good enough to get him a misdemeanor, but that doesn't change the fact that DaBaby still shot a guy and that got less flak than his homophobic remarks. Chappelle is criticizing an assumption on the Far Left that incendiary words are just as bad as physical assault or murder. We'll talk about this topic more later.
Chappelle was perplexed as to why women think he's misogynisitic, asking "what could I possibly be saying that would make these bitches think that I hate women? I couldn't figure it out." Non-rhetorically, using a derogatory term to describe women might be why, but I digress. Chappelle then said he Googled the dictionary definition of feminist to make sure that he wasn't misogynist. Webster's defines feminism as "the belief that men and women should have equal rights and opportunities." Chappelle then declared that by that definition, he was indeed a feminist.
When trans activists were criticizing him on Twitter, Chappelle's response was "I don't give a fuck because Twitter is not a real place." I found that to be interesting commentary on how we view social media in our society.
Chappelle and Transgenderism
He spent much of the second half of "The Closer" on transgender issues. He started that part of the sketch by asking "What is a woman?" He then said that as much as women, gay men, or lesbians have a problem with him, transgender individuals want him dead because "I went too far, I said too much." He jokingly (or possibly half-jokingly) called himself transphobic multiple times in the sketch. He relays a story in which he allegedly was tricked into calling a transgender woman beautiful. He also compared transgender women to white people wearing blackface. He also said that "I'm not saying that to say that trans women aren't women," followed by comparing the genitalia of transgender individuals to such plant-based "meats" as Impossible Burger. His take on it was "that it's close, but not quite there." Those were some of the cruder parts of his coverage on transgender issues.
Chappelle made a statement that was not crude, but nevertheless controversial when he stood up for J.K. Rowling when she said that biological sex was a thing. He made fun of how certain transgender activists called Rowling a trans-exclusionary radical feminist, or TERF for short. Chappelle said that TERFs feel about transgender women how black people feel about blackface. Chappelle says he is "Team TERF," saying that gender is a fact. If you are looking for analysis on what Rowling said in 2020 and a nuanced take on transgenderism and biological sex, you can read what I wrote in 2020.
Then there were some of the more endearing moments he had when it came to transgender issues. Chappelle also said that "I am not indifferent to the suffering of someone else." He reflects on when was first called transphobic sixteen years ago and how he evolved since then. Chappelle made fun of transgender bathroom bans. At the end, he conveyed a story about a trans woman named Daphne Dorman. He asked Dorman to open up a sketch for him. During this opening, Chappelle and Dorman were having a conversation. Chappelle said, "I have no idea what you're talking about," to which Dorman responded, "I don't need you to understand me. I just need you to believe I'm having a human experience." For Chappelle, he believed it because "it takes one [a human] to know one." Sadly, Dorman committed suicide shortly thereafter. Chappelle set up a trust fund for Dorman's daughter. When Chappelle met the daughter, he said, "I knew your father, and he was a wonderful woman." What is noteworthy is that Dorman's family is standing up for Chappelle and calling him an ally to the LGBT community.
Does Chappelle make off-color jokes? Yes. Are his jokes offensive? That matters on personal taste, to be sure, but I can at least understand why some people would take offense. Do I think he is being transphobic? I do not. I watched the special twice to make sure I got a grasp of the content of the special. Yes, Chappelle made jokes about transgender individuals. However, the thing is that Chappelle is an equal-opportunity offender. In that special, not only did Chappelle make fun of trans individuals, but he made fun of Jews, white people, the Chinese by blaming China for COVID-19, gay men, lesbians, and women, not to mention his constant usage of the n-word. His content oscillates between the irreverent and the humane. That is what Chappelle does. With regards to trans individuals, what I think Chappelle is trying to say in his own way was "I respect you as human beings, but I disagree with this definition of gender."
The Value of Comedy and Free Speech
Going through Chappelle's comments in detail reminds me of the complexities of comedy. There were parts I liked about Chappelle's special and there were parts that I truly did not care for. Does that mean I am going to join the trans activists and ask that Chappelle's special be pulled? Of course not! I brought this up back in March when giving my take on the Dr. Seuss controversy in which some of his books got pulled from publication. Just because something is offensive does not mean we should discontinue it or censor it.
The last thing we need if we are to have a free society is to have a small minority of prudes decide what content is acceptable for the rest of us. Frederick Douglass, the famous abolitionist who was once a slave, said that "Liberty is meaningless when the right to utter one's thoughts and opinions has ceased to exist. That, of all rights, is the dread of tyrants. It is the right which they first of all strike down." Or to quote comedian John Cleese, "Laughter is a force for democracy."
We do not have the right to not be offended. If anything, freedom of speech implicitly involves the right to offend. People are bound to hold different beliefs on a multitude of topics, whether that be religion, politics, or philosophy. This is especially true when talking about comedy. Comedy is an art form that is meant to be edgy and push boundaries. The good comedy often holds up a mirror to us and to society and asks us to look at who we are. Comedy is meant to provoke. There are times it will insult your sensibilities, especially if you have a thin skin.
The Art of Agreeing to Disagree Versus Woke Fragility
I have learned to get less offended as time passes. I have realized that not everyone is like me. Not everyone thinks like me, observes religion like me, or has the same tastes or preferences as me. I don't expect people to conform to my way of life. For the vast majority of people, I can agree to disagree, sometimes vehemently. I have found that those on the Far Left or those who identify as woke are incapable of doing that. Why am I pointing out the woke crowd specifically? Because it is most relevant to this discussion. I agree that there are closed-minded and authoritarian individuals on the Right. In U.S. history, much of the prudishness and censorship came from the Religious Right. However, the ones that are most gung-ho in our society to cancel comedic work because it offends their nature is coming from woke individuals on the Left. This is not a criticism of everyone on the Left because not everyone on the Left is woke. This criticism, much like previous criticisms I have made on this blog, are of a woke subset on the Left.
As I detailed in July 2020, the woke mindset is a fundamentalist mindset reminiscent of those on the Religious Right. For the woke or the social justice crowd (whatever you prefer to call them), the Dave Chappelle controversy (or any controversy) is more than mere disagreement; it is a moral deficiency to disagree and not see things exactly the way they do. It does not matter that Chappelle criticized transgender bathroom bans or recognized the human experience of being trans. If Chappelle (or anyone, for that matter) doesn't agree with the woke on everything, the proper punishment is labelling said individual a transphobe and attempting to strip them of a livelihood. This woke mindset, especially when it comes to comedy, manifests itself in a few problematic ways.
The first is that those who are different, those who are not part of the "in-group," are viewed on an adversarial level. At the very least, it leads to more divisiveness, much like we see with Critical Race Theory. How are we supposed to have comedy, never mind a pluralistic democracy built on tolerance and diversity, when differences are not acceptable by this vocal minority? Also, is it realistic to expect to change their minds if you treat them as an adversary? When was the last time you were convinced of something because someone yelled at you and berated you?
The woke like to argue that "words are violence." Forget that Webster's Dictionary defines violence as "the use of physical force so as to injure, abuse, damage, or destroy." While certain words can inflict emotional or psychological damage, harsh words are not bullets, knives, fists, or fires set to property. If the woke Left were concerned about the impact of words, they would be concerned about how it impacts everyone, and not just certain individuals that are part of the woke in-group. If it is not about legitimate harm caused by words, why use the argument? As I brought up in 2017 when discussing political correctness, political correctness is not a synonym for "politeness." It is thought and speech control under the guise of brotherhood and unity. When someone says "words are violence," what they are really doing is deflecting criticism while attempting to control language.
If you shield yourself from criticism, how do you grow intellectually or spiritually? When I talk with people I disagree with, not only do I learn about their arguments and perspective, but I learn about myself. By shutting down conversations, those on the woke Left are missing on a true growth opportunity not only for themselves, but for people that they might have otherwise persuaded.
I'm not saying nothing should offend us ever because that would make us a society of sociopaths. But I will say that U.S. society has taken the concepts of fragility and victimhood to a whole different level, and not in a good way. If Stoic philosopher Epictetus was right in saying "It's not what happens to you, but how you react," then that would mean people can exert greater control over their response to how something such as The Closer makes them feel. If that is the case, then people choose the story and narrative that they hear when listening to comedy, which means that in many instances, they choose to be offended by such comedians as Dave Chappelle. When talking with woke people over the years, I get the sense that they are on the lookout for things that are offensive. In this mindset, everything is a slight, regardless of intentions.
Those who complain about "white fragility" basically have no threshold for a comedian telling jokes that are outside their worldview. If they don't like something, they try to tear it down or censor it. There is no attempt to converse with, empathize with, or even understand someone who is different. If the tolerance for those who are different is so low in the woke crowd, how can you ever expect woke people to understand comedy? To channel comedian John Cleese: "A good sense of humor is a sign of a healthy perspective, which is why people who are uncomfortable around humor are either pompous (inflated) or neurotic (oversensitive)." Hear, hear!
Concluding Thoughts
Even with my gripes about some of Chappelle's content, I think that his special represents the importance of freedom of speech generally, but also about the value of comedy specifically. Chappelle's special reminds us that good comedy means that no topic or no group of people is off limits. We recall the fact that life is the opposite of a safe space, not to mention much more complex than a series of talking points. Chappelle has the right to offend, much like we can respond with our freedom of speech by calling him out on inaccuracies or problematic statements. I believe that Chappelle can improve both on his content and delivery while still keeping within the overall comedic style he has developed over time.
But trying to prohibit comedians from having a platform or censoring content because it does not agree with your sense of right and wrong? How un-American, how undemocratic, how authoritarian! If you don't like Chappelle's comedic style, don't watch Chappelle's specials. Netflix provides plenty of LGBT movies and TV series for you to watch. I'm glad that Chappelle was able to withstand the naysayers. To see a comedian with notoriety with content on a famous platform as Netflix is encouraging because it means the Thought Police are less likely to win the cultural battle, that "we, the people" will have enough of the politically correct overreach in our lives. We shouldn't be reenforcing values of fragility or victimhood. Rather than making people emotionally "safe," we should make people emotionally strong. I hope that this victory is the first step towards reinforcing the values of anti-fragility, emotional resilience, freedom of speech, and the art of agreeing to disagree.
I was shopping at the grocery store this week, and I noticed something peculiar: empty shelves. It felt like the beginning of the pandemic when there were food shortages and people were scurrying around trying to find toilet paper. Those empty shelves acted as a reminder that there are not just supply chain disruptions in food production. We have found ourselves in a bona fide supply chain crisis. The reason why our current predicament should be called a crisis is because it exists across borders and across industries. It affects consumers, including you and me, in various aspects of life. Goods and services, including electronics, clothing, food production, toys, and appliances will become harder to come by. Even those goods and services that we do acquire will become more expensive as a result, as we will see shortly. With a holiday shopping season quickly approaching, the effects of this supply chain crisis will be all the more evident.
International trade is a complex web of markets, companies, market players, inputs, and outputs. Given the interconnectedness of the global economy, it should come as no surprise that there are multiple factors contributing to the supply chain crisis. My goal here is to analyze the primary contributors to this supply chain crisis.
Let us start off with the catalyst of this supply chain: the COVID-19 pandemic. You would have to be living under a rock to not know that we are still undergoing the worst pandemic in a century. At the beginning of the pandemic, millions of people were under lockdown. Those who could not work remotely or did not have an "essential job" had to stay home in order to "flatten the curve." Many past recessions have been due to demand shocks. The Niskanen Center correctly pointed out in March 2020 that the pandemic recession was worse because this recession dealt both a supply shock and a demand shock (see below). You can also read this paper from the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis to understand the difference between a demand shock and supply shock in the context of this pandemic.
Consumer demand for many services and goods plummeted due to greater unemployment, lower disposable income, and the closure of numerous businesses. The worker absenteeism caused by the lockdowns also caused issues on the supply side, as well, mainly in the form of major supply chain disruptions. Since pandemic lockdowns greatly limit economic activity in attempts to minimize the spread of a virus, it would make sense that lockdowns adversely affect supply chains, at least in the short-run (Guan et al., 2020). While the lockdowns played their role in reducing aggregate supply, past pandemics show us that a reduction in aggregate supply would have been inevitable due to fear of infection and actual illnesses (Inoue et al., 2021; Turner and Akinremi, 2020).
Unemployment racked up in a way that we have not seen since the Great Depression. The U.S. government was proactive in fiscal and monetary policy with the intent of making sure a bad situation did not become worse. While there were multiple policy interventions, two are worth mentioning at this time. The first is that of quantitative easing (QE). QE is when "a central bank purchases longer-term securities from the open market in order to increase the money supply and encourage lending and investment." The second policy iseconomic stimulus payments. These payments in this context refer to tax rebates or tax credits issued by the U.S. government to spur consumer demand. Let's forget for a moment that we did not see the intended result of boosting the economy. Why do I bring up quantitative easing and economic stimulus payments? Because they both contributed to a greater money supply. Initially, this increase in money supply did not have a great impact on the economy because money velocity (i.e., the rate at which money is exchanged in an economy) was slower due to the pandemic and the COVID restrictions. Once COVID restrictions became less strict and businesses were opening up again, people had money burning a hole in their pockets, or in economic-speak, the pent-up nature of consumer demand caused demand to spike. What we are seeing in multiple markets is that demand has considerably outpaced supply. As a result, there are shortages and a rate of inflation that the United States has not seen in years.
Part of what makes demand greater than supply is the shortage of workers. Companies that run ports, warehouses, railways, and trucking are operating with fewer workers although demand has never been higher. This gets into the unemployment debate that has been raging. In spite of businesses opening and the vaccines, there is still a struggle with unemployment rates and labor force participation. Some would like to attribute that issue to the pandemic itself. The argument for not working because of fear of catching COVID was stronger at the beginning of the pandemic. However, as we accumulated more data on the severity of COVID (especially in comparison to past pandemics) and with the rollout of the vaccines, the argument of people staying unemployed due to COVID diminishes. Anyone using COVID as an excuse to keep people home are participating in fear-mongering that only serves to prolong the pandemic. There is another argument that is commonly used to try to explain the return to a normal unemployment: lack of childcare. However, recent research from former Council of Economic Advisors shows that parents generally did not reduce their work hours during the pandemic, thereby undermining the argument that lack of childcare was a major contributor to unemployment (Furman et al., 2021).
As such, I would contend that the unemployment benefits during this pandemic have been exacerbating the unemployment issues, as research from the Mercatus Center suggests (Farren and Kaiser, 2021). When unemployment benefits are comparable to or exceed one's previous salary, which was the case for a majority of those receiving the benefits throughout the pandemic, it should come as no surprise that many are disincentivized to find work. After all, why have a job when you are paid the same amount or even more to not work? Normally, supply and demand would have more workers enter the shipping and trucking industries. However, as we saw in the Great Recession, lavish unemployment benefits slow down economic recovery. As long as these unemployment benefits continue, it will become harder to close the gap on that worker shortage. You can go here and here to read more of my analysis on the economic effects of unemployment benefits.
There is not only a shortage of workers in the transportation industry, but there is also a shortage of shipping containers. As the American Institute for Economic Research illustrates, the increase in COVID-related demand resulted in fewer shipping containers, which also resulted in a skyrocketing of shipping container prices. The Howe Robinson Container Charter Index shows that the cost chartering a giant container ship has increased ten-fold since the beginning of the pandemic! In its analysis, the Cato Institute brings up how tariffs on the chassis, which are the trailers and undercarriage used to transport shipping containers via truck, are increasing global shipping prices and increasing transportation bottleneck. The chassis tariffs are one example of how Trump's trade war has not helped this shipping crisis since these tariffs were the result of an investigation towards the end of the Trump administration. Trump's trade war caused a shortage in semiconductors that has been made worse by the pandemic. The reason I bring up semiconductors specifically is because those are the chips that are in multiple devices, including computers, smartphones, and automobiles. As nice as it would be to only blame Trump, it's even worse because President Biden is continuing a blander version of the harmful protectionism of "America First" and the trade war with China, a war that has reduced consumer well-being (a.k.a. welfare) by 7.8 percent (Amiti et al., 2021).
In terms of trade policy, we can go back further than even the Trump administration. I was also thinking about the Merchant Marine Act of 1920, which is also known as the Jones Act. As I describe in my 2017 analysis of the Act, this 101-year-old piece of legislation increases the cost of shipping. How so? By mandating that any goods carried between U.S. ports must be done by ships constructed by U.S. companies, that are owned by U.S. citizens, and manned by U.S. citizens. This law limits supply of the ships and shipping containers available in the United States, thereby driving up shipping costs.
I would like to address another issue with this supply chain crisis: unions. In Europe and Asia, major ports are open 24 hours, seven days a week. In the United States, ports are only operating at 60 to 70 percent capacity because they are closed on weeknights and on Sunday. Why is that? Union contracts prohibit operating at such a capacity, according to AIER. AIER also points out that the unions oppose automation. Normally, my gripe has been with public-sector unions. However, it turns out that the International Longshore and Warehouse Union is a private-sector union. Conversely, the Los Angeles Port, which is the largest port in the United States, is run by the government. Take it either as a reminder of the rigidities of unionism or that the government is not the only entity to screw up because to err is to be human. In any case, the Los Angeles Port is going to be open 24/7 after some pressure exerted from President Biden, which will hopefully help with the large amounts of port congestion in the future.
Another market failure worth pointing out is that over time, businesses have relied onjust-in-time inventory (JIT) systems. While JIT is great for keeping costs down, it has also resulted in lower inventories. Having multiple industries start off with lower inventories to begin with does not do any favors in terms of making sure that consumer demand can be met because the run-down inventories means the global economy has less slack. This shortage is going to have consumers panicking, especially during the upcoming holiday season. In anticipation of delays, we are going to seemore hoardingreminiscent of the beginning of the pandemic, which will worsen already-existing shortages.
To conclude, the fact that I have covered multiple topics, whether it is monetary policy, unemployment benefits, tariffs, unions, or the pandemic, shows how just interwoven supply chains really are. Labor shortages, increasing shipping costs, and a congested transport system show how complex this issue is...so complex that I am certain that I have not covered every cause of the supply chain crisis here. The domino effect we are seeing play out in real life shows that there is not going to be one simple answer. Much like with the inflation, this is a problem that unfortunately is not going away anytime soon.
