Economics

It is time to end the physical, emotional, and financial destruction caused by the lockdown.

With the ongoing shutdown we are getting way out there onto dangerously thin ice. Image courtesy of Adobe Stock.

We are past the point where the damage caused by the lockdown is greater than the damage caused by the coronavirus.  The damage could start compounding.  Here are just a few of the recent articles making this point:

4/22/20 – The Hill – The data is in – stop the panic and end the total isolation – A medical doctor says it is time for our leaders to examine the evidence instead of hypothetical guesses and then carefully let the country start operating again. He cites five factors ignored by people who want to keep the country in ongoing lockdown:

Fact 1: The overwhelming majority of people do not have any significant risk of dying from COVID-19.

Fact 2: Protecting older, at-risk people eliminates hospital overcrowding.

Fact 3: Vital population immunity is prevented by total isolation policies, prolonging the problem.

Fact 4: People are dying because other medical care is not getting done due to hypothetical projections.

Fact 5: We have a clearly defined population at risk who can be protected with targeted measures.

Keep in mind California will probably be on lockdown until August and Virginia may be locked down until a vaccine is in use.

Two severe medical problems are being caused by and will be prolonged by the severe lockdown.

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By Jim Ulvog, ago

Good news in some states for people who like to pay their rent and put food on the table. Bad news for California and Virginia.

A deep freezer, used for keeping large volumes of meat and vegetables frozen. That’s where the economies of California and Virginia are going to be stored for a long time. Image (but not commentary) courtesy of Adobe Stock

Many states are starting to open up their economy.

Virginia may be closed down tight for up to 24 more months.

California may not open up until August.

August.

There will be incalculable medical, emotional, and financial damage in California and Virginia from the lockdown. More on that momentarily.

This discussion will be posted on several of my blogs.

Good news

On the bright side, getting most attention for opening are:

  • Texas
  • Georgia

Other states are thawing because they also don’t want to bankrupt everyone, destroy all the hospitals, further tear down overall health levels, and permanently cripple their economy. List includes:

  • Alaska
  • Colorado
  • Minnesota
  • Montana
  • Mississippi
  • Ohio
  • Oklahoma
  • Pennsylvania
  • South Carolina
  • Tennessee

And then there is Virginia and California.

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By Jim Ulvog, ago

This shutdown is damaging our health, collapsing the economy, and shredding our freedoms. What will be the tally from ‘avoidable deaths?’

Will the Grim Reaper get more business from the coronavirus or the shutdown?

Every additional day of the shutdown is causing horrible damage. Not only is the economy suffering with record high unemployment, soon-to-be record high bankruptcies and shuttered businesses, but also there is now and will continue to be a decline in overall health. We will see increased mortality from other causes because of the shutdown. The damage to our freedoms is widespread and immeasurable.

Point made by the author of the column linked below puts it this way:

This is not a trade-off between lives and the economy. It’s a trade-off between lives and lives.

In a series of articles over the last week I attempted, in my own feeble way, to describe the wide ranging damage we are watching grow every day.

The question our governors and mayors urgently need to consider is whether we have already passed the point at which there will be more damage (including deaths) from the shutdown than from the coronavirus.

This post will be published on several of my blogs.

Trading off lives for lives

4/17/20 – Colorado Politics – Opinion/It’s time to shift tack – and contain the virus while reopening Colorado’s economy – Author was sounding the alarm on a pending medical disaster well before others realized there was a problem. That danger is now past.

He draws the analogy to a hurricane expected to make landfall at category 5 but deteriorated to a bad thunderstorm the morning it landed. In that analogy the cat 5 which was expected to land on the entire country only hit New York, New Orleans, and Detroit.

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By Jim Ulvog, ago

More entries on the list of economic sectors devastated by the shutdown.

Image courtesy of Adobe Stock.

Hat tip to Behind the Black for the legwork identifying additional sectors of the economy that are collapsing. Large segments of the economy I haven’t mentioned before:

  • Home sales
  • Housing construction
  • Apartment rentals
  • Clothing production
  • Flower trade

Damage to these sectors won’t immediately heal the moment state governors decide they will allow the economy to come back to life out of its induced coma.

Home sales

4/21/20 – Fox Business – US home sales plunge 8.5% in March, and it may grow worse – Sales of existing homes dropped 8.5% in March. Article use the word “cratered.”

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By Jim Ulvog, ago

More sectors of the economy being destroyed by shutdown of the economy.

Imagine all that frantic hustle and bustle of Denver airport back in 2018 dropping by 95%. Photo by James Ulvog.

I can barely type fast enough to keep up with the adverse impact on the economy or freedom. Can barely keep up with the news about entire sectors of the economy collapsing. Most recent sectors I’ve learned about:  airlines and the entire health care system. Since drafting this post last evening, learned about the destruction in the clean energy industry and saw some stats on the devastation in the restaurant sector.

This post will be printed on several of my blogs.

Airlines

4/20/20 – NewsMax – Big 3 US Airlines May Cut More Than 100,000 Jobs by Fall – At the moment passenger loads are frightening – article says domestic flights are averaging 10 passengers and international flights are averaging 24 people plus crew.

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By Jim Ulvog, ago

A reminder of previous government pronouncements before they are pushed down the memory hole.

Image courtesy of Adobe Stock.

We can now see an extensive effort to re-write the story of the shutdown of the economy. Before that is accomplished it is necessary to put a number of factors on the table so they don’t disappear down George Orwell’s 1984 memory hole.

4/13/20 – American Institute for Economic Research – Liberation From Lockdown Now – Article discusses recent explanations and how we got to this point.

We need to remember this uncomfortable information before it is removed from the discussion.

I shall quote one paragraph from the article to keep the information alive before it is erased from the record. The early advice from the experts was:

“For a family sitting around the dinner table tonight,” said Dr. Nancy Messionnier, a spokesperson for the CDC on January 17; “this is not something that they generally need to worry about.”

Let’s not forget the next sentence:

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By Jim Ulvog, ago

Magic of the price signal to change production levels.

Fourteen wells on one pad, located on the southeast side of Williston, N.D. Photo by James Ulvog.

The double black swan of COVID-19 pandemic from the demand side and Saudi Arabia flooding the market from the supply side is creating a sales problem and storage problem for the oil industry.

Regulators in Texas are thinking about about ordering a pro-rate reduction in production. In other words, they are considering giving each producer an order on how much to cut.

North Dakota has no such plans.

North Dakota is planning to rely on capitalism to rapidly adjust production.

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By Jim Ulvog, ago

Capitalism or fascism? Which economic system will better resolve the supply shortages?

Image courtesy of Adobe Stock.

How do we get enough of the respirators, personal protective equipment, and medicine we need to get through the COVID-19 pandemic?

Fascinating to watch the press conference Saturday 3/21/20 with various federal officials and members of the coronavirus task force.  Most fascinating feature was looking at the various comments and questions/answers from an economics perspective. Thought about Friday’s briefing as well.

Here is the difference in perspective I perceived: do we rely on capitalism or fascism as our model to get things done?

Underlying the comments from all the federal officials is the idea that the private sector can figure out how to provide everything we need.

The common thread underlying a huge portion of the questions from media is the idea that the federal government should tell which specific companies how much of which specific products to produce, specify they price they will charge, and provide the addresses for where to send each pallet of supplies.

In other words, should we use a capitalist model to provide goods we need or should we use the fascist model?

As a thumbnail description, in the fascist economic model the means of production are owned by the private sector but the central planning authority tells companies how much of which product to produce. In contrast, the next step away from freedom is communism, in which the means of production are owned by the government and a central planning agency decides how much of each specific product to produce.

Capitalism?

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By Jim Ulvog, ago