Economics

Side-effects of lockdown: increasing suicides, higher unemployment.

Image courtesy of Adobe Stock.

The devastating side-effects from government-imposed lockdowns keeps growing. The lack of benefits and damage from lockdowns is becoming more obvious with every week that passes.

Merely a few of the recent articles in the news:

  • Suicide attempts amongst youth increasing.
  • Long-term care residents in Canada remain in solitary confinement in spite of 90% of them having been vaccinated.
  • Unemployment rate higher in states with harsh lockdowns, lower in states with freedom.

3/16/21 – Foundation for Economic Education – Child Suicide is Becoming an “International Epidemic” Amid Restricted Pandemic Life, Doctors Warn – Associated Press interviewed a British doctor who works in an ER.  Number of suicide attempts he is treating has gone from a couple a week before the pandemic started to several a day now.

(more…)
By Jim Ulvog, ago

Cost of the devastation caused by closing schools.

Image courtesy of Adobe Stock.

To the extent there was ever justification for closing schools, emerging research demonstrates it has been an extremely long time since any such justification evaporated. Research from Wharton shows the severe, lifelong cost of losing out on two or three semesters of education.

This is the fifth in a series of posts reminding us we have completed one year of “fifteen days to smooth the curve.” In California, we have started our second year of curve smoothing.

10/12/20 – Penn Wharton School of University of Pennsylvania, Budget Model website – Covid: Trade-offs in School Reopening – Detailed economic analysis is thoroughly devastating to any argument there is any value in keeping schools closed and in fact there are substantive questions whether there was any value to closing any schools.

Summary

There will be permanent damage to the education level of most students with a serious adverse impact on lifetime earnings with a disproportionate impact on kids who are poor kids, disadvantaged kids, and persons of color.

Read the full article. Please.

Recap of the highlights

(more…)
By Jim Ulvog, ago

Back (reverse) of Venezuelan currency, 2007 – 2017

Reverse of 100,000 Bolivares paper currency. In 8/12 this would have been worth $10,000. In 9/15, only $125. By 12/17, it was worth $0.90. In 12/18, seven of these would have been worth a US penny.

Before we use Venezuelan Bolivares currency to show the devastation of hyperinflation, let’s finish looking at the currency.

Previous post showed the front (obverse) of 2 through 100,000 Bolivares paper money.

Now let’s look at the back (reverse).

The reverse side shows various wildlife.

2 – dated 12/27/12 – Toninas

5 – dated 5/24/07, Cachicama gigante, giant cachicamo

(more…)
By Jim Ulvog, ago

Front of Venezuelan currency (obverse), 2007 – 2017

Reverse of 100,000 Bolivares paper currency. This is now worthless. In 12/20, one US dollar could get you 1.2 MILLION of these.

To illustrate the devastation from hyperinflation, we will now use Venezuelan Bolivares currency to see what it looks like in terms of paper currency.

To start, we will look at the currency itself.

As usual for currency outside the U.S., the paper money of Venezuela are esthetically beautiful. All the bills are colorful with lovely illustrations. All the ones we will now see have a nice sized watermark at the otherwise empty space. The watermarks are same face at the bottom of the obverse (front).

Portraits on the obverse of the currency are patriotic reminders of the struggle for Venezuelan independence.

To start our pictorial excursion, here are the obverses of the 2 Bolivar through 100,000 Bolivar currency:

2 – dated 12/27/12, featuring Francisco de Miranda, his efforts for independence in South America failed; he served as forerunner of Simon Bolivar.

5 – dated 5/24/07, featuring Negro Primero

(more…)
By Jim Ulvog, ago

This is hyperinflation, Venezuela edition. Expected devastation from socialism. Part 4.

Final graph in this series of posts showing the devastating hyperinflation currently running loose in Venezuela will combine two sets of data.

Purpose of doing so is to see if the two sets of data overlap so that there is some good longer-term information that can be used into the future. The source for current data only goes back to late 2020.

Graph at the top of this post shows exchange rate of Venezuelan Bolivars into US dollars between June 2019 and March 2021. This graph is expressed in Bolivar soberanos (Bv.s).

(more…)
By Jim Ulvog, ago

This is hyperinflation, Venezuela edition. Courtesy of socialism, of course. Part 3.

This image has an empty alt attribute; its file name is Venezuela-exchange-rate-2012-2018.jpg

Let’s look at the exchange rate in Venezuela in more detail, breaking out the exchange rate before and after 2018. On the previous graphs it looked like the exchange rate deterioration wasn’t that bad in the lead up to 2018 and it looks like things turned real bad starting in 2019.

That’s the weird thing about hyperinflation. If you remove the recent severe acceleration you still see the rapid increase earlier.

Graph at the top of this post shows exchange rate through 2018. It looks like hyperinflation kicked off in early 2018. Actually, it was going crazy before that. Inflation so severe as to destroy the economy has been running since 2012. Let’s change that graph above to a logarithmic scale to show the percentage changes better.

(more…)
By Jim Ulvog, ago

This is hyperinflation, Venezuela edition. Courtesy of socialism, as always. Part 1.

Banknotes of Zimbabwe after hyperinflation. Image courtesy of Adobe Stock.

Socialism in Venezuela has produced the expected results – poverty, a collapsing economy, and people fleeing for their lives. Twenty some odd years of socialism has also produced another foreseeable consequence – hyperinflation.

Let’s track the exchange rate of Venezuelan Bolivars to US dollar as an indicator.

According to Exchange-Rates.org, here is exchange rate of the Venezuelan bolivar to dollar from 9/11/20 through 3/5/21. Here is the month end data:

(more…)
By Jim Ulvog, ago