Posted on by mikecronin2013

Context Matters!

Preventing global food security crisis under COVID-19 emergency ...

By Mike Cronin

There are some folks who seem to think that because COVID-19 cases and death rates are roughly similar to the annual flu, that we are blowing the disease out of proportion or dismissing it.  While there is some out-of-proportion fear-mongering AND some unwarranted dismissiveness going on, and while COVID-19 may indeed turn out to be of similar menace level as the annual flu, the flu is still there. COVID-19 is happening ON TOP OF the flu, not instead of it, and there is no vaccine yet. That’s why there is genuine concern over the number of hospital beds and respirators, and that’s why COVID-19 can’t be easily dismissed.

Concurrently, panic-pushers, America haters, and political opportunists are giddily touting that the US now has the most reported cases of COVID-19.  There are a few things they are omitting:

The US has the most REPORTED cases. What about UN-reported cases? Do you think all of the countries not as transparent or as capable as the US really have lower case numbers and lower infection rates?

China has nearly five times the population of the US, and most Chinese citizens live in dense urban sprawl. The Communist party would have us believe China had a peak of only ~80,000 cases. Do you really think the disease is done there, or that the Communist government is reporting accurate numbers?

Do you think Iran or Russia even know how many cases they have, let alone are reporting accurate numbers?

Our reported cases have recently exceeded Italy’s (105K cases vs 85K). But Italy has roughly one-fifth the population of the US.  In other words, Italy has fewer absolute cases, but their infection rate is over four times higher than ours. (Infection rate = cases/population. Italy = 85K vs 60M or 0.14%. US = 105K vs 325M, or 0.032%). Worse, the COVID-19 death rate in Italy is almost 10 times higher! (10.5% in Italy vs 1.6% in the US.) https://www.cebm.net/covid-19/global-covid-19-case-fatality-rates/

So, what’s the upshot?

The truth is in the middle:

  • As ever, news outlets are trying to sell airtime to advertisers. They do that by getting ratings. Breathless coverage and ominous alerts will induce alarm, and that will keep the ratings higher than dispassionate, in-context reportage.
  • COVID-19 is a slow-moving natural disaster that is affecting the entire planet – but it’s not the worst such thing that could happen. It won’t wipe us all out, not by a long shot; but we do need to address it.
  • Absolute numbers of reported cases don’t tell the story very well. Infection rates and death rates are better indicators.
  • Criticizing anyone for what has already happened won’t solve the crisis – but it may be a fun diversion!
  • Social distancing and attending to surface and hand hygiene are effective in slowing the spread of disease, but it rankles and induces fear to be commanded by government to all but shut down the economy.
  • Our politicians would all do well to remember that the USA was born when our Founders penned the most eloquent “F*ck You!” ever written in response to too much government intrusion (the Declaration of Independence).  Americans are not the most obedient lot in normal times, and just now there is an up-welling of  F*ck You brewing. Politicians must tread very carefully indeed.

We are going through some scary times, but the fundamentals of our geography and the political system our Founders instituted will have us come out of this thing in better shape than any other country.  Stay strong.

Posted on by mikecronin2013

Corona-nomics

By Mike Cronin

Have you decided to hate on the folks who hoarded toilet paper and are now selling it for $5.00 a roll? DeBeers did that with diamonds about 80 years ago, then followed it up with decades of shrewd market manipulation and marketing. We bought the diamonds with nary a peep.

Have you decided to hate stores that are “price gouging?”  The stores that aren’t gouging are out of everything you want.  Maybe if stores were allowed to set prices based on supply and demand without incurring uninformed moral outrage, the hoarders wouldn’t have been so keen to hoard, and now there would be more of everything available for the rest of us.

Do you think having the government step in to ration things would be a better solution?  Or maybe just takeover everything? The Soviet Union did that. The Soviets didn’t have some empty shelves during a short crisis; they had virtually empty stores for ~80 years.

Think the government should bail out companies and spend trillions to stop the stock market slide and “stimulate the economy?”  If the value of something goes way up when it’s scarce, like TP for $5 a roll, what happens to the value of a thing, such as the dollar, when it becomes ridiculously abundant?

Let me know when you get your $1000 check from the government.  I might have some toilet paper for sale.

Posted on by mikecronin2013

A Little Truth Bomb

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By Mike Cronin

Our public education system has done little to truly educate our public. Since the Department of Education was signed into existence 44 years ago, and after spending a trillion dollars or so, test scores have remained roughly flat and educational rankings have stayed middling compared to other developed and developing nations. This is abysmal news – if the goal is truly to educate the populace.

But what if genuine education is not the goal?

Our primary and secondary education systems are always referred to as “free,” yet they have cost Americans something like $1 trillion over 44 years (just at the Federal level). Indeed, we spend more money per-pupil than any almost any other country. Our FREE, $1 Trillion, among-the-most-expensive-in-the-world system is mediocre at best, worthless at worst – to you.

When college is free, it will also be mediocre-to-worthless – to you.

When healthcare is free, it will also be mediocre-to-worthless – to you.

When generations of Americans have been taught how and what to think by the state (for example, that the one of the world’s most expensive education systems is somehow “free”) from preschool age to the Ph.D. level, and when Americans’ lives depend on the state “giving” healthcare (provided by graduates of the mediocre-to-abysmal, “free,” expensive school system), then such systems will have proven quite valuable to the elites who run the state – they will have given the elites control over you.