Maddog's wry look at economics, history, society, culture, and politics

After the crisis is over, pay them back, tax their endowments!

3/31/2020

HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE, LET-THEM-EAT-CAKE EDITION: Convincing Ivy League school to help with coronavirus efforts is like pulling teeth.

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We need fewer or better cops or both

3/31/2020

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WITH SEATTLE OVERRUN BY CRIME AND DISEASE, THIS IS A PRIORITY? Seattle Police Chief Tells People To Call 911 If They Hear ‘Racist Name-Calling.’

"Racist name-calling isn’t a crime, and can’t be made one." Not in the USA anyway.

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Biden, the man who knew too little...

3/31/2020

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Joe Biden Can't Be President (2)

I remember Blowhard Joe from the 1980s, the 90s, the 2000s, the 2010s. He was an incompetent buffoon and a fool back then. Today he is all of that plus mental incompetence. Biden is the man who knew too little ... to be President or anything else of substance.

I wish Biden were Bill Murray's character from the movie The Man Who Knew Too Little, but he is Chance the Gardener from Being There.

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Are there good regulations?

3/31/2020

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"The Real-Life Costs of Bad Regulation"

"Early administrative failings of the FDA and the Centers for Disease Control greatly exacerbated the Covid-19 crisis in the United States."

See also "Is the CDC to Blame for the Lack of Adequate Coronavirus Testing?"

And more, from two Univ. of Chicago professor: "To Fight the Coronavirus, Cut the Red Tape".

Still more, from John Stossel: "The Red Tape Pandemic".

Yet more: "FDA Shouldn’t Keep Safe Drugs off the Market".

Oh, there's more: "Doctors need freedom to choose off-label drugs".

Finally, from economist Art Carden: "The Anatomy of Government Failure in a Pandemic".

This means there is a discrepancy between the private and social benefits from flu shots and careful hand washing, and according to the standard stories about externalities that we teach in introductory economics classes, we probably won’t do as much as would be socially optimal. . . .
As I wrote over the summer, “just because an externality exists doesn’t mean the market has ‘failed’ enough for command-and-control regulation or even corrective taxation to be appropriate.” The stories we tell in introductory economics classes also tend to assume away the problem of government failure–and governments are failing mightily in response to the COVID-19 epidemic."

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We need to reform the FBI and the DOJ

3/31/2020

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DOJ watchdog finds additional problems with FBI's surveillance warrant process

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Economic good news

3/31/2020

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Trump administration rolls back Obama-era fuel efficiency standards

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Increased work from home will increase both work satisfaction and productivity

3/31/2020

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Remote working during lockdown could create job satisfaction

Now if we could speed up the elimination of the vast excess of retail space/jobs we would be back into a more productive economy ready to grow.

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Oh, look, a professional buffoon

3/31/2020

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Maddow ridiculed for claiming the hospital ship Mercy was weeks away

She has lied about pretty much everything for the past four years, why stop now?

After the crisis is over, pay them back, tax their endowments!

We need fewer or better cops or both

Biden, the man who knew too little...

Are there good regulations?

We need to reform the FBI and the DOJ

Economic good news

Increased work from home will increase both work satisfaction and productivity

Oh, look, a professional buffoon

Strict curfew

Light at the end of the tunnel

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