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More Covid-19 speculations and a note on the American response

March 13, 2020

If you absorb no other Covid-19 news today, read this summary of a panel of public health officials three days ago. It gives us no pleasure, other than the pointless frisson of self-regard, to point out that many of our speculations of February 29 are looking more likely to become true.

The next two weeks will see a surge of testing in the United States, and then a surge in cases. This site keeps track in damned close to real time, for those of you following along from home. We expect that the media frenzy and inevitable finger pointing will go to at least “11”. So you might not want to jump back in to the stock market until we get through that.

The debate about the poor availability of testing in the United States will rage for a long time, because it feeds our competing national political narratives. Read this actually excellent account in the New York Times for an early first draft of history. Did we blow it — and we definitely have blown it — because of too much big government, or too little? Your reading of the history is a Rorschach test for your political alignment. Did we fail because our federalist system relies too much on state and local governments and we have a president who is poorly suited to driving the federal agencies toward a common goal? Or did we fail because the permanent professional government is inherently confused, indecisive, and excessively lawyered up? One can read that article both ways, which is, by the way, a rare enough thing in the New York Times.

We propose a third way of looking at the testing problem and the American response thus far. In the approval of new medical tools (drugs, laboratory tests, and medical devices), our system — including direct federal and state regulators and our civil liability regime — massively prefers safety (avoiding sins of commission, if you will) to the introduction of new technology that might save lives. We don’t put a feather on the “safety” side of the scales, we weigh it down with an anvil, and are thereby far more willing to commit the sin of omission (doing nothing) than commit the sin of approving a technology that is dangerous or ineffective.

Voters, politicians, government officials, and the press overwhelmingly favor the “safety paramount” approach of the United States. Unfortunately, the highly deliberative manner of the American approach becomes dangerous in a rapidly spreading pandemic. Much as the media and citizens wish it were otherwise, we cannot change our system, or even our bureaucratic impulses, suddenly. Even if lives depend on it.

Then there is the question of federalism. By design, even in matters of public health, the foundation of our government’s response is, first, state and local, however much the poorly educated or cynical in the media and among voters expect it to be federal. In a pandemic, that is probably more a bug than a feature, insofar as we are not able to marshal a simultaneous national policy and enforce it immediately. (It is far from obvious, however, that a polyglot multicultural continental nation can respond under any circumstances with the efficiency and compliance of, say, South Korea or Singapore, but that is an argument beyond the point of the post.)

Our system and culture, however, is not without its advantages. At the governmental level, we can see the policy mistakes in one state or city and avoid them in jurisdictions that are following along a few days behind. You might say that is worse than a perfect national policy, but it is better than a flawed national policy. The people who want the federal government to make all policy in these situations almost always assume that it will execute better than any other state. That is an extremely fraught assumption.

We have, however, cultural advantages. The independence of our private sector is a huge asset, even in the current crisis. In many countries, businesses do not make a move on a matter of public interest without consulting with the government, or waiting for government direction. In the United States, with our liability regime and history of initiative — something for both left and right! — some businesses move very quickly, and that builds tremendous public relations and liability pressure on the others to follow in a hurry. In the current experience, large American businesses (the “corporations”, for those of you looking for a label) have been running ahead of almost all levels of government in useful communications and effective policies to contain spreading, and are saving lives in so doing.

The approval of a vaccine may challenge us again. The usual “safety paramount” approach is to run a huge double-blind trial, in which half the people who enroll get the drug, and the other half get a placebo. That traditional process takes a long time, and people poorly educated in medical ethics may put pressure on the players (the manufacturers, investigators, and the FDA) to skip the placebo arm, or short-cut the trial. That may make sense, balancing the risks of the situation, but the manufacturers will want protection from liability if it turns out the rushed vaccine harms some people in addition to protecting millions. That will be a beautiful political moment.

Take care, and do everything possible to flatten the curve.

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The Official Blueberry Town predictions for 2017

January 1, 2017

We are not sure of the rules, but we do know that any blogger or other gum-flapper who does not make a list of annual “predictions” might as well hang it up and climb in to a bottle. Last year, under another nom de plume, we produced a list that was oh-so-very-wrong in the matter of presidential politics and the Rose Bowl, but did not lack for inspiration (our call on the Dow Jones Industrial Average was close enough for horseshoes and hand grenades, and we generally did a lot better than famous predictor Byron Wien).

Anyway, in no particular order:

1. The Iowa Hawkeyes will win the Outback Bowl tomorrow. Note that the shelf life of this prediction is about 24 hours.

2. Donald Trump’s earliest actions in office will relate closely to Barack Obama’s efforts to stymie him. This is a good summary of those efforts. Specifically, we predict that Trump will:

  • Quickly take some step to reinforce the U.S. commitment to Israel, including at least one of (a) moving our embassy to Jerusalem, (b) visiting Israel personally, perhaps on his first official trip abroad, and (c) directing some form of overt military cooperation, such as an exercise, that will draw the ire of all the right people.
  • Trump will issue an executive order reversing President Obama’s 11th hour designations under the Antiquities Act, triggering the first of what will be relentless litigation from environmental activists on a wide range of subjects (in general, we believe that environmental activists will be the biggest losers among the core Democratic constituencies under Trump).
  • Similarly, Trump will move aggressively against the big raft of new regulations that the Obama administration has pushed through in the last year or so, with an emphasis on the new regulations from the EPA.

3. President Trump will indeed pursue a rapprochement with Russia, with two main objectives: (1) to increase Russian commitment to the fight against radical Islam so their guys die instead of our guys, and (2) to create a geopolitical counterweight against China. However, he will pursue this slowly, waiting a few months until the “election hacking” kerfuffle fades from public memory.

4. Mexico won’t pay for the “wall.”

5. The Democrats and the press will continue to make a big deal out of Trump’s various conflicts of interest, but this will not diminish his relatively low popularity, such as it is, unless something else entirely intervenes to hurt him with his base. Then the conflicts will suddenly get traction in the public’s mind. Democrats will develop a keen interest in having the FBI investigate the executive branch.

6. The first big domestic crisis of Donald Trump’s presidency will be catalyzed by a horrible urban crime or an ambiguous police shooting. Trump’s reaction in the moment will have a far greater effect on his popularity and credibility than any “scandal” likely to emerge, unless the organized left gets too excited and overreaches, in which case that will have the biggest effect on Trump’s popularity.

7. Trump will retract the Title IX “dear colleague” letter. University administrators will breath a sigh of relief, but not admit it in any circumstances that might involve a recording device. SJWs will go bananas, but nobody who has never heard the word “intersectionality” will actually care.

8. Black Lives Matter and allied groups will become much more active (see #6 above). Conversely, the word “alt-right” will all but disappear from the popular discourse by late spring.

9. In the spirit of striking “deals,” Trump will challenge the ideologues on both sides. Trump will act more like the “mayor” of America than its president, and at some point he will trade away some cherished position of the social conservatives — maybe a pro-business SCOTUS nominee who is a bit squishy on “life” — in return for Democratic Chuck Schumer’s support for corporate tax reform. Or something like that. Or, maybe, he will offer Democrats the huge infrastructure bill they have been clamoring for since, well, the end of the Johnson Administration, but only if they sign up for reforms in federal contracting, labor, and environmental rules that will allow that spending to be productive.

10. Trump will continue to call up CEOs and intimidate them in to high profile concessions. This will be very confusing for Democrats, who will not denounce the shakedowns per se — how could they after the Obama years? — but will try to deny that they do any good.

11. Income inequality in the United States will not increase, and may even narrow, during the Trump presidency (we will not see the data soon enough to know whether this will be true in 2017). The main reason will be because the stock market will do poorly compared to the Obama years, but the share of corporate expenses going to labor will also increase.

12. The Cubs will win the World Series for the second year in a row.

13. Other foreign leaders will follow Trump’s lead and will tweet with more, er, spontaneity than in the past. Twitter stock (NASDAQ: TWTR) will rally when investors figure out that it has become essential to populist democracy. For that obvious reason, Twitter will resist or ignore the many demands from the corporate media that it suspend @realDonaldTrump’s account. Because even Twitter isn’t that stupid.

14. The talk radio boobery — who spent the last eight years predicting financial and economic catastrophe — will now expect the economy and the stock market to go to the moon. Instead, the Dow Jones Industrial Average will crack 22,000 during the year, but close within 5% of 19,762, its close on Friday last.

15. Libertarians will worry that the trend toward legal weed will slow under Attorney General Sessions, but politics will prevail — too many states have moved too far, and it is far too popular. Especially with Trump’s base.

16. I will weigh no more than 202 pounds (my current weight) on this date next year.

17. Uber and Lyft will resume passenger service in Austin.

18. Willie Nelson will be alive on New Year’s Day 2018.

19. As a defense mechanism, the attention span of the average citizen will continue to shrink.

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Reasons to be happy for Cleveland

June 19, 2016

There are many reasons to rejoice in the NBA Championship of the Cleveland Cavaliers tonight. Among them, Cleveland itself has had an epic championship drought in all sports and had a tough run otherwise for something like 60 years, LeBron James had never delivered a championship for his hometown, and Golden State is named after California. All outstanding reasons to cheer the Cavs, especially if you are not from Cleveland. But that is not why we are so happy tonight.

It must be confessed that we are not a true fan of NBA basketball, or at least have not been since we lived in Chicago during the Jordan years, and now probably watch no more than three games in a season. We nevertheless read, virtually against our will, this article in the New York Times Magazine from a few months back, “What Happened When Venture Capitalists Took Over The Golden State Warriors.” Why were we compelled? Because the aggrandizement of Silicon Valley venture capitalists — who have accomplished many important things but are not nearly as godlike as they suppose — is such a banal elite media narrative that we were wondering if the Grey Bitch could possibly find anything new or interesting to write on the topic. It couldn’t, but it did mine this bit of championship class self-important douchebaggery from the majority owner of the Warriors, Joe Lacob:

But Lacob won’t accept that what the Warriors have achieved is a product of anything but a master plan. “The great, great venture capitalists who built company after company, that’s not an accident,” he said. “And none of this is an accident, either.”

There is no trash talk like VC trash talk, apparently. Suffice it to say, it was at that moment on a Sunday morning in late March, reading that paragraph with a great cup of coffee and a Spaniel by our side, that we resolved to cheer for whatever team was playing against the Warriors.

Here’s to the Cleveland Cavaliers, authors of the greatest and most just sports miracle of the decade.

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The all-important state dignity question

May 4, 2016

After last night’s proceedings, this seems like the apropos tweet of the day:

Your Editor grew up in Iowa, and now (obviously) lives in Texas, so the alignment of our personal and state dignity gives us the quiet satisfaction that, sadly, is our last refuge in this benighted election year.

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Eeyore’s birthday!

May 1, 2016

Your Editor always learns about Eeyore’s birthday because the streets in his neighborhood, and all neighborhoods within a mile of Pease Park, are lined with cars and people in weird costumes coming to and fro. So it was yesterday. We wandered over for some craft beer — which makes anything better — and to take in the fun and funk. We prefer the early and more sober phase, so our pictures are like totally safe for work.

Craft beer makes everything better

Acrobatics, Eeyore's Birthday

Another action shot, Eeyore's Birthday


Bubble craziness, Eeyore's Birthday


And, of course, painted ladies:

Painted ladies, Eeyore's Birthday