October 25, 2022
Dear Friends and Family,
The critique of government actions during the pandemic can be summarized as: The pandemic cost us dearly ….
From an economic perspective it is estimated that the Federal Government’s expenditures related to Covid recovery will total approximately $6 trillion. That includes a $2.2 trillion for the 2020 CARES Act and $1.9 trillion for the 2021 American Rescue Plan, which critics view as a cause for the current inflation. To put that spending in perspective, the total revenue from income and social security taxes in 2019 was $3.1 trillion. So Covid relief expenditures were the equivalent of two years of tax revenues. Huge!! The excerpts detail the nature of the expenditures plus pertinent non-economic Covid government actions during the pandemic some of which are detailed above.
Happy Learning,
Harley
Dear Friends and Family,
The critique of government actions during the pandemic can be summarized as: The pandemic cost us dearly ….
- In economic terms, primarily because of lockdowns,
- The education of our children,
- A trend to increased totalitarianism with a loss of freedoms, and
- Increased polarization of the citizenry.
From an economic perspective it is estimated that the Federal Government’s expenditures related to Covid recovery will total approximately $6 trillion. That includes a $2.2 trillion for the 2020 CARES Act and $1.9 trillion for the 2021 American Rescue Plan, which critics view as a cause for the current inflation. To put that spending in perspective, the total revenue from income and social security taxes in 2019 was $3.1 trillion. So Covid relief expenditures were the equivalent of two years of tax revenues. Huge!! The excerpts detail the nature of the expenditures plus pertinent non-economic Covid government actions during the pandemic some of which are detailed above.
Happy Learning,
Harley
COVID PANDEMIC CRITIQUE – SEGMENT 11
GOVERNMENT ACTION – EXCERPTS
INTRODUCTION: Prior to the lockdowns going into effect, the U.S. economy had been booming for three years. Unemployment for African Americans, Asians, Hispanics, women, and just about everyone else was at or near an all-time low. In late 2019 and early 2020 the Dow Jones Industrial Average and other key stock market indexes hit record highs. Median home prices in the fourth quarter of 2019 were also nearing their all-time high.
But just a few months after the world learned about COVID-19 and ruling-class elites locked down states, the U.S. economy experienced an unprecedented collapse. The number of Americans usually working full time dropped by more than 16.7 million from January 2020 to April 2020. The unemployment rate for all workers rose from 3.5% in February to 14.7% in April, an increase of 323% in just two months. By the end of May 2020, more than 40 million Americans had filed for unemployment. African Americans were hit especially hard. In the fourth quarter of 2019, Black unemployment averaged is lowest recorded quarterly level in U.S. history, averaging 5.6%. By the end of April, it had skyrocketed to 16.7%, a level that had not been seen since the height of the Obama-era Great Recession, in 2010 and 2011.
James Clyburn, a Democrat from South Carolina who was then serving as the House majority whip and had become a key political ally of Joe Biden, said during a conference call featuring more than 200 members of the House Democratic caucus, that the pandemic was “a tremendous opportunity to restructure things to fit our vision.” That vision included a wide range of proposed government programs and pet projects. Establishment Republicans were not going to allow this “tremendous opportunity” to pass them by either. In July 2020 Senate Republicans hosted a caucus meeting to discuss their strategy for negotiating another round of coronavirus relief.
GOVERNMENT SPENDING: A whole book could be dedicated entirely to talking about the thousands of provisions contained in the coronavirus relief package passed in 2020 and early 2021, but the following three best illustrate the absolutely mind-exploding insanity that government passed into law after choosing to shut down the economy.
“Stimulus” Checks: Perhaps the most notable and far-reaching relief program involved sending most adults in the U.S. $1,200 in “stimulus” money resulting from a provision contained in the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act, commonly called the CARES Act. Under the program, individuals earning $75,000 of less received $1,200, plus $500 for every qualifying child aged 17 or younger, up to a specified limit. Married couples earning $150,000 or less received $2,400. By early June 2020, the federal government had sent 159 million payments, amounting to more than $267 billion, plus another $2.5 billion to people living in U.S. territories.
Of all the stupid government programs that have been imposed on the American people, this one takes the cake. These payments were based on income, not need, so tens of millions of people who had not lost their jobs for even a moment during the pandemic received the payments, even though the purpose of the program was supposedly to offer relief to those who required it most.
Even more stunning, a Democrat-led Congress and President Biden passed another gigantic COVID-19 relief law in early 2021, this time with a $1.9 trillion price tag. Among other things, the law sent $1,400 in direct payments to Americans, even though all signs suggested that the coronavirus pandemic was winding down, not getting worse. [NOTE: Many economists contend this stimulus was a major reason for the ensuing inflation]
Unemployment “Bonuses”: In addition to handing out $1,200 payments, government officials in 2020 also sent unemployed workers a $600-per-week unemployment “bonus” that supplemented unemployment payments already received by workers though state programs. The argument behind the $600 payments was that Americans who lost their jobs because of the shutdowns should have their income completely replaced by the government, since it was the government that cause the unemployment in the first place. This destroyed any incentive those people would otherwise have had to find another job. And the government did not merely pay people a little more than their full salaries to stay home either. In many cases, Congress paid recipients significantly more. And in the 2021 legislation signed into law by President Biden, the bonus payments were extended again, although the maximum amount provided was reduced to $300 per week.
Medicaid Madness: In March 2020, Congress passed, and President Trump signed the CARES Act and the Families First Coronavirus Response Act (FFCRA). Anticipating additional Medicaid costs, Congress provided in these laws more Medicaid-related funding for states, which share the cost of Medicaid with the federal government. However, rather than simply offering states additional cash to help them through the pandemic, Congress tied strings to the money that required states accepting additional funds to keep Medicaid beneficiaries enrolled in the program even after they would ordinarily lose their eligibility. This disastrous provision put states in a terrible situation, forcing them to choose between missing out on federal funds or accepting unsustainable terms.
A “War on Small Business:” Making matter even worse, many of the COVID-19 lockdown and relief policies disproportionately benefited groups and businesses favored politically. Corporations were preserved, and small businesses destroyed, because in the grand new “stakeholder” economy dreamed up by the elites in Davos and Biden’s White House, corporations could easily be controlled. Manipulating tens of millions of small business owners would be much more difficult.
No Cash? No Problem: Analysts predict that the increased spending and debt caused by the federal government’s relief legislation could add a total of $6 trillion to the national debt by 2030. To put that in perspective, during the 100 year period from 1900 to 2000, the national debt increased by $5.62 trillion – and that’s after two world wars, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, a decades-long cold war with Russia, countless foreign operations in countries around the world, Franklin Roosevelt’s massive expansion of government under the New Deal, Lydon’s Johnson’s even more expensive “War on Poverty” and “Great Society” reforms, and the seemingly never-ending war in Afghanistan.
And the national debt is only part of the story. The Federal Reserve balance sheet, a way to track the Fed’s assets and liabilities, has been skyrocketing in the wake of the coronavirus response. In 2008, the balance sheet sat at around $900 billion. By the end of 2014, after several rounds of QE, the balance sheet peaked at $4.5 trillion. The idea behind QE was to use money printed to drag the country out of the 2008 Great Recession but then let the balance sheet gradually unwind after the U.S. economy returned to full strength. Prior to the coronavirus pandemic, this had very slowly started to occur. By September 2019, the Fed’s balance sheet dipped below $3.8 trillion. But the Fed balance sheet is spiking again, this time to unprecedented levels. By the time the pandemic is over, the Fed’s balance sheet may end up topping $10 trillion.
The reason the Fed is adding trillions more to its balance sheet with no real long-term strategy for returning things to normal, is because they have adopted some version of a radical economic idea called modern monetary theory (MMT), even though they will not admit it publicly. Supporters of the theory believe that debts and deficits do not really matter. They argue that as long as a government controls its own currency, like we do in the U.S., it can print as much money as it needs to – until inflation occurs. Then the government needs to impose new regulations and make reforms to tax and spending policies to “target” inflation.
Source: The Great Reset by Glenn Beck (2022)
The Economic Lesson: Politicians are in the market for votes. They have little incentive to invest sufficiently in preparation for improbable yet highly damaging risks such as pandemics because this does not tend to be electorally advantageous, unlike providing relief when crises occur. Failures in emergencies can see voters punish incumbents, enforcing better preparation for future crises of a similar nature. But the incentive to set aside resources that could benefit taxpayers and interest groups today, in order to insure against threats tomorrow is weak. In regard to COVID-19, we have seen this clearly, with inadequate institutional preparation going into the crisis and the huge explosion of relief after the crisis hit. Electoral incentives can also explain the initial extreme measures taken to contain the virus.
Source: Economic in One Virus by Ryan A. Bourne (2021)
MORE ON THE CARES ACT: On March 27, 2020, President Trump signed the “CARES” Act. Some of the impactful and noteworthy parts of the bill (not yet covered) are below:
State and local governments were given $150 billion in cash. Other businesses benefited from the “Paycheck Protection Program,” which allowed them to receive ultra-low interest loans that most would never repay. Local, state, and federal employees continued to be paid too, whether they worked of not. I found no reports of any government employees laid off during the spring or summer of 2020 because of Covid budget cuts.
Source: Pandemia by Alex Berenson (2021).
NON-ECONOMIC ASPECTS: Operation Warp Speed: As I write this book, high-risk Americans and people all over the world are benefitting from the vaccines and therapies developed under President Trump’s Operation Warp Speed. In record time, several vaccines were developed, produced, distributed, and administered. History will undoubtedly malign many of the Trump administration’s activities and its legacy, but it will be very difficult to deny the accomplishment of Operation Warp Speed. Regardless of the ongoing controversies about the use of vaccines in populations without serious risk from COVID and the inappropriate vaccine mandates, their development and distribution were a remarkable triumph of public policy, a true partnership between government and the private sector.
Source: A Plague Upon Our House by Scott W. Atlas M.D. (2021)
Operation Warp Speed was a bright spot: one of the greatest public health achievements in modern times. The unprecedented research effort helped to deliver safe and effective vaccines and to secure new efficiencies in manufacturing. The Trump administration deserves credit for helping to facilitate that accomplishment, which will eventually end the pandemic. The success of Operation Warp Speed proved what government can accomplish when it functions well, to improve our preparedness and protect the nation. Other parts of the system were unable to prevent a U.S. epidemic, but with better preparation, better alignment, better leadership, and better engagement of our tools of public health we could have delayed its onset and reduced its scope and severity.
Source: Uncontrolled Spread by Scott Gottlieb, MD (2021)
Government Induced Fear: On a fundamental level, government’s insistence on the use of emergency orders and executive powers – rather than legislative action -- is not only fundamentally at odds with the separation of powers and the democratic process. It is a self-aggrandizement of centralize power that serves to strengthen the position of the individuals who exercise that power. Without a fearful citizenry, politicians and unelected government bureaucrats would face unrelenting pressure to relinquish their power to the legislative process. Fear is the fuel that powers the engine of conflict of interest and fosters corruption.
Source: United States of Fear by Mark McDonald M.D. (2021)
CONCLUSIONS: Politicians have paid insufficient attention to the need for timely, accurate localized data in informing populations about these risks, or to mechanisms that could provide ongoing feedback on the effectiveness of public health measures. The lack of public guidance on how the virus is transmitted and low-cost ways to reduce the risks, such as through better ventilation, has been astounding.
Of course, politicians of both parties were guilty of encouraging behaviors that worsened the virus’s spread at various stages of the pandemic. Trump regularly downplayed the virus and attended high-profile political events where attendees did not comply with social distancing or mask-wearing, while high profile Democrats, including California Governor Gavin Newsom and Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, were seen flouting their own state’s rules on indoor dining and salon closures. Huge congressional relief programs were prioritized over granting more resources to medical innovation or to ensuring rapid, accurate diagnostic testing, even though the economic returns of getting to grips with the public health crisis earlier on would have been huge.
Public health efforts have generally shown little signs of progress from what they were a century ago. Quarantines, shutting things down, hand washing, and facemasks are hardly novel approaches to dealing with a respiratory virus. Maybe, just maybe, governments’ ever-broadening scope has taken focus away from innovation in areas where government activity could, in theory, have important benefits.
Source: Economics in One Virus by Ryan A. Bourne (2021)
The dangers of fearmongering are summed up well by British Supreme Court judge Lord Sumption in a March 20, 2020, interview with The Post. He warned that COVID-19 rules are paving the way for despotism – the exercise of absolute power in a cruel and oppressive manner.
GOVERNMENT ACTION – EXCERPTS
INTRODUCTION: Prior to the lockdowns going into effect, the U.S. economy had been booming for three years. Unemployment for African Americans, Asians, Hispanics, women, and just about everyone else was at or near an all-time low. In late 2019 and early 2020 the Dow Jones Industrial Average and other key stock market indexes hit record highs. Median home prices in the fourth quarter of 2019 were also nearing their all-time high.
But just a few months after the world learned about COVID-19 and ruling-class elites locked down states, the U.S. economy experienced an unprecedented collapse. The number of Americans usually working full time dropped by more than 16.7 million from January 2020 to April 2020. The unemployment rate for all workers rose from 3.5% in February to 14.7% in April, an increase of 323% in just two months. By the end of May 2020, more than 40 million Americans had filed for unemployment. African Americans were hit especially hard. In the fourth quarter of 2019, Black unemployment averaged is lowest recorded quarterly level in U.S. history, averaging 5.6%. By the end of April, it had skyrocketed to 16.7%, a level that had not been seen since the height of the Obama-era Great Recession, in 2010 and 2011.
James Clyburn, a Democrat from South Carolina who was then serving as the House majority whip and had become a key political ally of Joe Biden, said during a conference call featuring more than 200 members of the House Democratic caucus, that the pandemic was “a tremendous opportunity to restructure things to fit our vision.” That vision included a wide range of proposed government programs and pet projects. Establishment Republicans were not going to allow this “tremendous opportunity” to pass them by either. In July 2020 Senate Republicans hosted a caucus meeting to discuss their strategy for negotiating another round of coronavirus relief.
GOVERNMENT SPENDING: A whole book could be dedicated entirely to talking about the thousands of provisions contained in the coronavirus relief package passed in 2020 and early 2021, but the following three best illustrate the absolutely mind-exploding insanity that government passed into law after choosing to shut down the economy.
“Stimulus” Checks: Perhaps the most notable and far-reaching relief program involved sending most adults in the U.S. $1,200 in “stimulus” money resulting from a provision contained in the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act, commonly called the CARES Act. Under the program, individuals earning $75,000 of less received $1,200, plus $500 for every qualifying child aged 17 or younger, up to a specified limit. Married couples earning $150,000 or less received $2,400. By early June 2020, the federal government had sent 159 million payments, amounting to more than $267 billion, plus another $2.5 billion to people living in U.S. territories.
Of all the stupid government programs that have been imposed on the American people, this one takes the cake. These payments were based on income, not need, so tens of millions of people who had not lost their jobs for even a moment during the pandemic received the payments, even though the purpose of the program was supposedly to offer relief to those who required it most.
Even more stunning, a Democrat-led Congress and President Biden passed another gigantic COVID-19 relief law in early 2021, this time with a $1.9 trillion price tag. Among other things, the law sent $1,400 in direct payments to Americans, even though all signs suggested that the coronavirus pandemic was winding down, not getting worse. [NOTE: Many economists contend this stimulus was a major reason for the ensuing inflation]
Unemployment “Bonuses”: In addition to handing out $1,200 payments, government officials in 2020 also sent unemployed workers a $600-per-week unemployment “bonus” that supplemented unemployment payments already received by workers though state programs. The argument behind the $600 payments was that Americans who lost their jobs because of the shutdowns should have their income completely replaced by the government, since it was the government that cause the unemployment in the first place. This destroyed any incentive those people would otherwise have had to find another job. And the government did not merely pay people a little more than their full salaries to stay home either. In many cases, Congress paid recipients significantly more. And in the 2021 legislation signed into law by President Biden, the bonus payments were extended again, although the maximum amount provided was reduced to $300 per week.
Medicaid Madness: In March 2020, Congress passed, and President Trump signed the CARES Act and the Families First Coronavirus Response Act (FFCRA). Anticipating additional Medicaid costs, Congress provided in these laws more Medicaid-related funding for states, which share the cost of Medicaid with the federal government. However, rather than simply offering states additional cash to help them through the pandemic, Congress tied strings to the money that required states accepting additional funds to keep Medicaid beneficiaries enrolled in the program even after they would ordinarily lose their eligibility. This disastrous provision put states in a terrible situation, forcing them to choose between missing out on federal funds or accepting unsustainable terms.
A “War on Small Business:” Making matter even worse, many of the COVID-19 lockdown and relief policies disproportionately benefited groups and businesses favored politically. Corporations were preserved, and small businesses destroyed, because in the grand new “stakeholder” economy dreamed up by the elites in Davos and Biden’s White House, corporations could easily be controlled. Manipulating tens of millions of small business owners would be much more difficult.
No Cash? No Problem: Analysts predict that the increased spending and debt caused by the federal government’s relief legislation could add a total of $6 trillion to the national debt by 2030. To put that in perspective, during the 100 year period from 1900 to 2000, the national debt increased by $5.62 trillion – and that’s after two world wars, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, a decades-long cold war with Russia, countless foreign operations in countries around the world, Franklin Roosevelt’s massive expansion of government under the New Deal, Lydon’s Johnson’s even more expensive “War on Poverty” and “Great Society” reforms, and the seemingly never-ending war in Afghanistan.
And the national debt is only part of the story. The Federal Reserve balance sheet, a way to track the Fed’s assets and liabilities, has been skyrocketing in the wake of the coronavirus response. In 2008, the balance sheet sat at around $900 billion. By the end of 2014, after several rounds of QE, the balance sheet peaked at $4.5 trillion. The idea behind QE was to use money printed to drag the country out of the 2008 Great Recession but then let the balance sheet gradually unwind after the U.S. economy returned to full strength. Prior to the coronavirus pandemic, this had very slowly started to occur. By September 2019, the Fed’s balance sheet dipped below $3.8 trillion. But the Fed balance sheet is spiking again, this time to unprecedented levels. By the time the pandemic is over, the Fed’s balance sheet may end up topping $10 trillion.
The reason the Fed is adding trillions more to its balance sheet with no real long-term strategy for returning things to normal, is because they have adopted some version of a radical economic idea called modern monetary theory (MMT), even though they will not admit it publicly. Supporters of the theory believe that debts and deficits do not really matter. They argue that as long as a government controls its own currency, like we do in the U.S., it can print as much money as it needs to – until inflation occurs. Then the government needs to impose new regulations and make reforms to tax and spending policies to “target” inflation.
Source: The Great Reset by Glenn Beck (2022)
The Economic Lesson: Politicians are in the market for votes. They have little incentive to invest sufficiently in preparation for improbable yet highly damaging risks such as pandemics because this does not tend to be electorally advantageous, unlike providing relief when crises occur. Failures in emergencies can see voters punish incumbents, enforcing better preparation for future crises of a similar nature. But the incentive to set aside resources that could benefit taxpayers and interest groups today, in order to insure against threats tomorrow is weak. In regard to COVID-19, we have seen this clearly, with inadequate institutional preparation going into the crisis and the huge explosion of relief after the crisis hit. Electoral incentives can also explain the initial extreme measures taken to contain the virus.
Source: Economic in One Virus by Ryan A. Bourne (2021)
MORE ON THE CARES ACT: On March 27, 2020, President Trump signed the “CARES” Act. Some of the impactful and noteworthy parts of the bill (not yet covered) are below:
- Students: The bill provides a suspension on all federal loans until September 30. In other words, there are no required payments on loans owned by the Department of Education through the end of the third quarter. Question: Why would this be blanketed for all student loans, rather than those associated with student/graduates that suffered an employment setback?
- Hospitals: Hospitals and healthcare providers received approximately $100 billion as a result of the bill. These funds went toward reimbursements for COVID-19 care and lost revenue – buying supplies, training new HC workers, hiring new employees, increasing capacity. Considering the government basically bankrupted the healthcare system during a healthcare crisis, this one is obvious. The hospital and private practice payments of the CARES Act and other bills helped with employee retention, but most of the money was directed toward COVID-19 care and, in the case of lost revenue was not nearly enough to make up the deficit.
- Airline Industry: The CARES Act outlined human services pandemic relief for the airline industry. Passenger Air Carriers -- $25 billion, primarily to 4 carriers: American, Delta, United, and Southwest; Cargo Air Carriers -- $4 billion; Contractors -- $3 billion.
- Education: $30 billion was provisioned for local school systems and higher education. Depending on the size of the state each governor was allotted $3B half of which was to go to directly to students for aid. Half of all funds were to go to colleges and universities. Some news was made when some very well-off colleges like Harvard, were given grants and still laid off support staff when students left campus. Given no students were refunded any tuition for the spring semester and actual costs of operations on campus had to go down, you have to wonder why the schools needed or received so much money.
- Other Grants: $1B to recapitalize Amtrack; $10 B in grants for airports, perhaps making up for lost revenues; $400MM in election assistance for states -- Why in a March 2020 bill?
- Small Business: Between money allocated for small business administration loans, salaries, expenses, entrepreneurial programs, and other related entities or initiatives, there is approximately $377 billion in new grants and loans for small businesses.
- A Second Stimulus Package: There was a second stimulus package signed into law on April 24. The relief legislation totaled $484 billion, was directed at small business and hospitals. It included: $310 billion: Paycheck Protection Program (PPP), which mainly helps businesses with under 500 employees, small lenders and banks, and midsized credit unions and banks; $60 billion: Economic Disaster Loan program, “which reaches communities and small businesses in underserved areas;” $75 billion: hospitals; $25 billion: expanded virus testing.
State and local governments were given $150 billion in cash. Other businesses benefited from the “Paycheck Protection Program,” which allowed them to receive ultra-low interest loans that most would never repay. Local, state, and federal employees continued to be paid too, whether they worked of not. I found no reports of any government employees laid off during the spring or summer of 2020 because of Covid budget cuts.
Source: Pandemia by Alex Berenson (2021).
NON-ECONOMIC ASPECTS: Operation Warp Speed: As I write this book, high-risk Americans and people all over the world are benefitting from the vaccines and therapies developed under President Trump’s Operation Warp Speed. In record time, several vaccines were developed, produced, distributed, and administered. History will undoubtedly malign many of the Trump administration’s activities and its legacy, but it will be very difficult to deny the accomplishment of Operation Warp Speed. Regardless of the ongoing controversies about the use of vaccines in populations without serious risk from COVID and the inappropriate vaccine mandates, their development and distribution were a remarkable triumph of public policy, a true partnership between government and the private sector.
Source: A Plague Upon Our House by Scott W. Atlas M.D. (2021)
Operation Warp Speed was a bright spot: one of the greatest public health achievements in modern times. The unprecedented research effort helped to deliver safe and effective vaccines and to secure new efficiencies in manufacturing. The Trump administration deserves credit for helping to facilitate that accomplishment, which will eventually end the pandemic. The success of Operation Warp Speed proved what government can accomplish when it functions well, to improve our preparedness and protect the nation. Other parts of the system were unable to prevent a U.S. epidemic, but with better preparation, better alignment, better leadership, and better engagement of our tools of public health we could have delayed its onset and reduced its scope and severity.
Source: Uncontrolled Spread by Scott Gottlieb, MD (2021)
Government Induced Fear: On a fundamental level, government’s insistence on the use of emergency orders and executive powers – rather than legislative action -- is not only fundamentally at odds with the separation of powers and the democratic process. It is a self-aggrandizement of centralize power that serves to strengthen the position of the individuals who exercise that power. Without a fearful citizenry, politicians and unelected government bureaucrats would face unrelenting pressure to relinquish their power to the legislative process. Fear is the fuel that powers the engine of conflict of interest and fosters corruption.
Source: United States of Fear by Mark McDonald M.D. (2021)
CONCLUSIONS: Politicians have paid insufficient attention to the need for timely, accurate localized data in informing populations about these risks, or to mechanisms that could provide ongoing feedback on the effectiveness of public health measures. The lack of public guidance on how the virus is transmitted and low-cost ways to reduce the risks, such as through better ventilation, has been astounding.
Of course, politicians of both parties were guilty of encouraging behaviors that worsened the virus’s spread at various stages of the pandemic. Trump regularly downplayed the virus and attended high-profile political events where attendees did not comply with social distancing or mask-wearing, while high profile Democrats, including California Governor Gavin Newsom and Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, were seen flouting their own state’s rules on indoor dining and salon closures. Huge congressional relief programs were prioritized over granting more resources to medical innovation or to ensuring rapid, accurate diagnostic testing, even though the economic returns of getting to grips with the public health crisis earlier on would have been huge.
Public health efforts have generally shown little signs of progress from what they were a century ago. Quarantines, shutting things down, hand washing, and facemasks are hardly novel approaches to dealing with a respiratory virus. Maybe, just maybe, governments’ ever-broadening scope has taken focus away from innovation in areas where government activity could, in theory, have important benefits.
Source: Economics in One Virus by Ryan A. Bourne (2021)
The dangers of fearmongering are summed up well by British Supreme Court judge Lord Sumption in a March 20, 2020, interview with The Post. He warned that COVID-19 rules are paving the way for despotism – the exercise of absolute power in a cruel and oppressive manner.
The real problem is that when human societies lose their freedom, it’s not usually because tyrants have taken it away. It’s usually because people willingly surrender their freedom in return for protection against some external threat. And the threat is usually a real threat but usually exaggerated. That’s what I fear we are seeing now. The pressure on politicians has come from the public. They want action. They don’t pause to ask whether the action will work. They don’t ask themselves whether the cost will be worth paying. They want actions anyway. And anyone who has studied history will recognize here the classic symptoms of collective hysteria. Hysteria is infectious. We are working ourselves up into a lather in which we exaggerate the threat and stop asking ourselves whether the cure may be worse than the disease.
It is time to ask ourselves some very pressing questions. Is it reasonable to expect government to eliminate all infection and all deaths? They’ve proven they cannot, yet we keep relinquishing more and more freedoms and liberties because they claim doing so will keep everyone safer. It’s an enticing lie, but a lie, nonetheless. Part of that alternation is the removal of civil liberties and human rights, which is now happening at breakneck speed.
Source: The Truth About COVID-19 by Dr. Joseph Mercola and Ronnie Cummins (2021)
WORLDWIDE IMPACT: A hundred years from now, historians will not be talking about Covid as an example of a deadly pandemic. They will be talking about it as an example of how easy it is to induce a state of collective mass hysteria. Given that this is the case, how long will the present hysteria continue? I think most governments have dug themselves into a hole in relation to Covid. They’ve portrayed it as far more deadly and dangerous than it is. They know this. But to admit the error now is inconceivable. Partly, this is because lockdown has resulted in so much suffering, that it would be suicidal to say that it was all for nothing. Partly it is because the mass media and general public are now so convinced of the seriousness of the disease, that any government that argued the contrary would be labeled as being irresponsible and deranged.
So, the only way out of the hole is with a magic bullet. And that magic bullet is the vaccine. It doesn’t matter whether the vaccine has any effect whatsoever on overall mortality, or whether it protects the old and infirm, who are most risk of severe disease, or prevents spread of infection. The only thing that matters is getting out of the hole as quickly as possible, without admitting ever having done anything wrong. That is why governments have already started mass vaccination campaigns, based on very limited data. Once enough people have been vaccinated, governments can state that the crisis had been ended. Heads of state can be lauded as heroes. And we can all go on with our lives.
Source: COVID: Why Most of What You Know is Wrong by Sebastian Rushworth M.D. in Sweden (2021)
Source: The Truth About COVID-19 by Dr. Joseph Mercola and Ronnie Cummins (2021)
WORLDWIDE IMPACT: A hundred years from now, historians will not be talking about Covid as an example of a deadly pandemic. They will be talking about it as an example of how easy it is to induce a state of collective mass hysteria. Given that this is the case, how long will the present hysteria continue? I think most governments have dug themselves into a hole in relation to Covid. They’ve portrayed it as far more deadly and dangerous than it is. They know this. But to admit the error now is inconceivable. Partly, this is because lockdown has resulted in so much suffering, that it would be suicidal to say that it was all for nothing. Partly it is because the mass media and general public are now so convinced of the seriousness of the disease, that any government that argued the contrary would be labeled as being irresponsible and deranged.
So, the only way out of the hole is with a magic bullet. And that magic bullet is the vaccine. It doesn’t matter whether the vaccine has any effect whatsoever on overall mortality, or whether it protects the old and infirm, who are most risk of severe disease, or prevents spread of infection. The only thing that matters is getting out of the hole as quickly as possible, without admitting ever having done anything wrong. That is why governments have already started mass vaccination campaigns, based on very limited data. Once enough people have been vaccinated, governments can state that the crisis had been ended. Heads of state can be lauded as heroes. And we can all go on with our lives.
Source: COVID: Why Most of What You Know is Wrong by Sebastian Rushworth M.D. in Sweden (2021)
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