Following Up: A Pathway Out of the History Wars

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African Americans, American Museum of Natural History, Andrew Jackson, Christopher Columbus, Confederate monuments, Following Up, imperialism, Lafayette Park, Matthias Baldwin, Native-Americans, racism, slavery, The New York Times, Theodore Roosevelt

I wasn’t originally planning on returning to the Confederate monuments/history wars issue so soon, but it’s the gift that keeps on giving for a blogger, and the last day or so has been filled with new developments.

Oddly, I’m going to tack positive today – despite the continuation of attempts at vandalism and mob violence (as took place in Lafayette Park, right across from the White House, last night); despite the recent example of both vandalism and rank stupidity in Philadelphia; despite the ongoing pigheadedness and possibly worse of the stand-patters, who seem to believe that removing memorials on public grounds even to the vilest racists always amounts to an “erasure of history”; and despite the virtual certainty of more of all of the above to come.

I’m feeling optimistic today because my beloved native New York City, and an institution that gave me some of my most terrific childhood memories, has just pointed the way toward a genuinely adult way to handle these contoversies.

As you might have read, the City’s American Museum of Natural History has just decided to take down the statue of Theodore Roosevelt that’s stood in front of its Fifth Avenue entrance since 1940. The rationale – flanking the mounted T.R. are statues of a native American and an African warrior whose depiction on foot supposedly symbolizes white supremacy and imperialism.

During all my years living in and around Manhattan, I never regarded the statue as a symbol of anything except the 26^th President’s well known egotism and conspicuous lionization of “the strenuous life,” as well as of the central role played by his family in establishing the museum and turning it into a world-class institution to begin with. And I certainly never looked at the native American and African warrior figures as T.R.’s inferiors. In fact, they each struck me as being handsome and dignified.

At the same time, the more I’ve thought about it, the more dubious and specifically paternalistic the whole tableau has appeared (and I am a huge Theodore Roosevelt fan). So I can understand how others, especially non-whites, could be deeply dissatisfied and downright offended.

So I’m far from condemning the museum’s decision as yet another monument to stupidity or political correctness run riot, or what have you. But the more I read about these moves, the more encouraged I was. First, the museum (which is privately run, but receives some funding from the City and New York State, and therefore is partly accountable to the public), didn’t simply resolve to haul the statue away. In order to honor Roosevelt’s justified reputation as a conservationist by adding an entire exhibit hall to the parts of the museum already named for the former President In other words, the museum recognized that T.R., like many of the relatively easy History War cases I’ve written about, was more than an imperious explorer and white hunter.

An even more promising strategy for honoring such figures has been suggested by Roosevelt’s descendants. As reported in The New York Times story linked above, one of his great-grandsons, a museum trustee, issued this statement on behalf of the entire family:

“The world does not need statues, relics of another age, that reflect neither the values of the person they intend to honor nor the values of equality and justice. The composition of the Equestrian Statue does not reflect Theodore Roosevelt’s legacy. It is time to move the statue and move forward.”

Other than striking an unusually wise and magnanimous tone, the statement suggests the following exciting possibility (and one I also hinted at in my discussion of the Pierre Beauregard statue in New Orleans): Why not replace the current statue with one that’s not a “relic of another age” and “move forward: with one that reflects the dimensions of Roosevelt’s legacy (in this case, his devotion to naturalism) that no patriotic American could possibly question?

Moreover, why not use the same approach to the Abraham Lincoln statues in Boston and in Washington, D.C., which have been criticized because they include a kneeling newly emancipated slave? Wouldn’t such monuments better honor Lincoln if they portrayed the freeman figure standing up and, perhaps, shaking the former President’s hand?  

As for statues of more legitimately controversial figures, they should be seen as candidates for more somber modifications that would nonetheless both accomplish needed educational aims without overlooking the case for singling them out for public display.

For example, it’s true that Christopher Columbus literally expanded humanity’s horizons and helped set in motion the long sequence of events that led to the United States’ founding. But he and his brother also mistreated the peoples they found in the Caribbean brutally, and (inadvertantly to be sure) opened the door to centuries of mass death, oppression, enslavement, and other forms of misery for the Western Hemisphere’s entire indigenous population. Maybe representations of these crimes and tragedies, which sadly are baked into U.S. history as well, could be erected besides Columbus statues? 

And why shouldn’t the various monuments to Andrew Jackson (like the statue that attracted the Lafayette Square vandals’ ire) similarly be replaced with a representation acknowledging that he was not only a national military hero and savior of the union (during the 1832 nullification crisis), with some legitimate claim as an advocate of working class Americans, but also, as critics charge, a slave-owner and active supporter of such servitude – not to mention an almost inhuman scourge of native Americans. 

When it comes to public art, for the sake of the nation’s spirit and self-respect, there’s nothing wrong with and indeed considerable value in a little romanticizing or glorification of individuals meriting much credit for creating an American national story that’s unmistakably a success story from every possible standpoint. But where the legacies are less overwhelmingly positive, it would be equally worthwhile to develop ways of displaying major virtues alongside important warts in statues, monuments, and plaques.

The challenges to be met are preserving the symbolic power of displays commemorating figures as genuinely heroic as inherently flawed human beings can possibly be, courageously facing facts about more ambiguous legacies, and calling and weeding out genuine villains such as traitors.

That is, all involved in creating America’s public art – which should be all Americans and their elected representatives – should avoid the temptation to champion the kinds of caricature bound to fuel considerable disillusionment and even contempt. And by meeting this challenge, today’s Americans would leave an invaluable legacy of their own for future generations.

Following Up: Another Confederate Statue Mess

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Albert Pike, Barack Obama, Bill Clinton, Clarence Williams, Confederacy, Confederate monuments, D.C., D.C. Police, District of Columbia, Following Up, George H.W. Bush, George W. Bush, history wars, National Park Service, peaceful protests, Perry Stein, Peter Hermann, protests, Trump, U.S. Park Police, vandalism, Washington Post

There is so much shameful behavior by various government and law enforcement authorities reported in this morning’s Washington Post account of the illegal takedown of a statue of a Confederate general (Albert Pike) in the District of Columbia (D.C.) that it’s hard to know where to begin.

But let’s begin on a positive note: There was nothing shameful in the Post‘s own account. Quite the contrary:  reporters Perry Stein, Clarence Williams, and Peter Hermann – and their editors – provided an unusual amount of useful information. Hopefully we’ll see much more journalism like that going forward.

In fact, the Post article taught me something that shows I made a significant mistake in a tweet yesterday. When I learned of the statue’s removal by a mob, I tweeted, “Let me get this straight: The #DC government is so #racist that #peacefulprotest-ers had no choice but to take the law into their own hands & tear down the #AlbertPike statue. Plus, DC cops stand by and watch. Totally disgraceful #vandalism & vandalism coddling. #murielbowser.” (Bowser is D.C.’s Mayor.)

The mistake has to do with jurisdiction. As the Post reported, the D.C. police noted that “The statue in question sits in a federal park and therefore is within the jurisdiction of National Park Service and the United States Park Police.” So the District’s government didn’t, as I implied, have the authority to remove the statue.

Yet although I apologize for the D.C. government reference, I still stand behind mob point (about the need always to follow lawful procedures for removing such monuments) and the D.C. police point. Unless everyone should applaud officers who stand by and do absolutely nothing when flagrant lawbreaking is not only within plain sight, but scarcely a block away? What if the D.C. police saw a murder being threatened in a federal park? (By the way, as a longtime District resident, I can tell you that the parks in which these monuments stand are mostly vestpocket-size parks, and aren’t watched or patrolled regularly by anyone at any time of day.)

Moreover, there’s evidence that the D.C. police were aware that something was wrong – and weren’t even positive that they lacked the authority to act. The Post  quoted a National Park Service spokesman as claiming that “D.C. police had called U.S. Park Police dispatch to ask about jurisdiction. He said in an email that when Park Police officers arrived, ‘the statue was already down and on fire.’ The toppling of the statue is under investigation, he said. Litterst [the spokesman] did not address whether the Park Service thinks D.C. police should have intervened.”

Finally, if you believe, as I do, that monuments to traitors like Confederate generals have no place on public grounds, it’s clear that the federal government has been brain-dead on this issue (to put it kindly). But the Post account also reveals that this disgraceful neglect long predates the presidency of Donald Trump (who continues to oppose any changes in these statues’ placement or even renaming U.S. military bases named after such treasonous figures).

Specifically, “District officials have been trying to get the statue removed for several years. The D.C. Council petitioned the federal government to remove the statue in 1992.”

From then until Mr. Trump’s inauguration, four Presidents have served – including recent liberal and Mainstream Media darlings George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush, and Democrats Bill Clinton and Barack Obama. Why didn’t they remove the statue? Why haven’t they even commented on the matter? And why haven’t they been called on the carpet for their records on this matter, and for their silence?

But let’s close on a positive note, too. One question raised by this statue controversy – what to do with it – is pretty easily answered. Either stick it in a museum (with a full description provided of this minor Confederate figure) or throw it in the city or some federal dump.

Following Up: A U.S.-Less Pacific Trade Zone is Still Bogus After All These Years

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Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership, CPTPP, Following Up, globalization, Reuters, TPP, Trade, Trans-Pacific Partnership, United Kingdom

Time to pat myself on the back. It’s on a trade issue that may seem obscure, but that’s actually an important example of how completely dishonestly pre-Trump Presidents, and their enablers in the Mainstream Media, tried to sell offshoring-friendly trade agreements and similar policies.

The agreement in question was the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), pushed hard by former Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama, but resisted in Congress through the end of 2016 and nixed by Donald Trump two days after his first White House term began.

Any number of arguments were advanced by globalization cheerleaders in government, business, academe, and journalism alike. Some were economic (e.g., the deal would “compel” the 11 other signatory countries throughout the Pacific Basin region to abide by high standards for respecting worker rights and environment protections that would level the proverbial playing field for U.S.-based companies and workers). Some were strategic (mainly, the TPP would be a great instrument for containing the rise of Chinese power and influence in the economically crucial East Asia-Pacific area). They’ve been parroted conveniently here. 

All were utter baloney. For example, as noted on RealityChek, the labor rights and environment provisions of the deal – and other parts aimed at limiting government subsidization of industries – were completely unenforceable. As for the China containment claims, they ignored the TPP rules that permitted the importation into the new free trade zone of products with lots of Made in China parts, components, and materials – meaning that Beijing would have enjoyed many key benefits of the agreement while incurring exactly none of its obligations.

But arguably the most laughable (but widely swallowed) pro-TPP talking point involved the contention that the agreement would open to U.S. exports markets representing an impressive 40 percent of the entire world’s economic output.

I put the torch to that bit of fakery in this 2015 op-ed, which pointed out that at the time, fully 62 percent of the new trade zone consisted of the U.S. economy, and that without America, the rest of the members combined added up to just slightly over 15 percent of global product.

More fun facts: Another 20 percent of the economies of the proposed free trade area was comprised by Mexico and Canada – which were already linked to the United States via the North American Free Trade Agreement (which has since been updated and improved). So the only way anyone could legitimately call the TPP a potential export bonanza for the United States was if they counted America trading with itself.

And just today, a news report came out showing that I’m still right about the minimal possibilities offered by the TPP to the United States’ domestic economy (that is, companies that make their products state-side and employ Americans). According to Reuters, the United Kingdom (UK) is planning to join the “Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP).” That’s an effort by the other TPP countries to create a version of the former agreement without the United States.

The UK’s top trade official is making some familiar-sounding arguments: “Today we’re announcing our intent to pursue accession to CPTPP, one of the world’s largest free trading areas.” And to some extent, I can’t blame her. After all, the country’s trade opportunities will be significantly diminished by the Brexit decision to leave the European Union. So the UK clearly needs all the partial substitutes it can get.

But as Reuters’ coverage makes clear, the prize is even more underwhelming than when I quantified it five years ago, as the U.S.-less trade area right now represents only 13.5 percent of the global economy.

And by the way, as with the pre-Trump United States, London is bound to be disappointed with its new CPTPP partners in another important way: Most of them rely heavily on growing by racking up trade surpluses. That is, agreement or not, they’re unlikely to display any greater appetite for British products and services as they were for any U.S. counterparts or for any foreign products and services – they can’t create them themselves.

Since the 18^th century, “Rule Britannia” has been one of the most popular British patriotic songs. Joining the CPTPP could well prompt a composer to create a modern version titled “Rue Britannia.”

Im-Politic: The CCP Virus Crisis Has Become Even More of a Nursing Home Crisis

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Canada, CCP Virus, coronavirus, COVID 19, Europe, Following Up, lockdown, nursing homes, reopening, seniors, shutdown, Sweden, The New York Times, United Kingdom, Wuhan virus

About three weeks ago, I posted about the degree to which total U.S. CCP Virus-related deaths were occurring in nursing homes and other special facilities for seniors. And I noted that the answer – “really big” – provided significant evidence for the idea that substantial reopenings of the U.S. economy were much more feasible than widely believed.

The reason: If the virus’ main dangers were so highly concentrated in a single, highly vulnerable, and already confined population, then by definition, such dangers to the rest of the public were considerably less serious than widely believed. Therefore, relatively low-risk populations could be permitted to reengage in normal economic activity sooner rather than later.

Three weeks later, the case for faster, wider reopenings is even stronger – along with the arguments for focusing virus containment measures on seniors, and especially those inside or outside such facilities.

For example, that previous post cited data indicating that about twenty percent of all U.S. virus deaths were taking place in elder care facilities. More recently, a comprehensive New York Times survey pegged the share at 35 percent.

Moreover, data are coming in making clear that this pattern is hardly confined to the United States. In Canada, the share has been reported at 81 percent. Across Europe, national shares are thought to be between 42 percent and 57 percent. In the United Kingdom, it’s estimated at 25 percent.

Possibly the most intriguing findings concern Sweden. That’s because its lockdown was the lightest imposed among the wealthier national economies. The overall Swedish virus death rates, however, have been right in the middle of the pack for Europe.  (See here for the latest numbers.) Yet the Swedish government has also reported that nearly half those deaths have taken place in elder care facilities.

In other words, if Sweden had its nursing home act together, its virus fatalities would have been about 185 per million people – which would have put it well behind the United States, Spain, the United Kingdom, Italy, France, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Switzerland. Sweden’s economy, unfortunately, seems unlikely to escape taking a major virus-related economic hit anyway. But the toll seems largely due to its relatively small size and as a result its relatively heavy reliance on foreign trade – not to its failure to shut down more broadly.

The United States, of course, is much less reliant on foreign trade. In theory, then, if its nursing and similar facilities get the aid they need, America’s economy can continue reopening – and even faster than at present – without running major further health risks. Indeed, as I’ve also noted previously, such reopening per se could well curb other emerging public health dangers. Moreover, as observed by the Washington Post editorial board, moving toward the Swedish model might speed up progress toward creating herd immunity in the United States. This status would mean considerable protection against the second virus wave that might arrive along with cooler weather this fall.

As always, “reopening” doesn’t mean an immediate, complete return to the pre-virus normal. And serious uncertainties continue surrounding the nursing homes data, and indeed all virus-related data. But a pattern visible in so many high income countries can’t be dismissed, either, and it should put ever more pressure on backers of slower reopenings to justify their positions.

Following Up: Inside April’s U.S. Manufacturing Crash II

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aerospace, appliances, automotive, CCP Virus, chemicals, components, computers, coronavirus, COVID 19, durable goods, electrical equipment, electronics, fabricated metals products, Federal Reserve, Following Up, food products, healthcare goods, inflation-adjusted output, machinery, manufacturing, manufacturing output, manufacturing production, medical devices, metals, non-durable goods, paper, real growth, Wuhan virus

A little earlier today, RealityChek presented some lowlights from this morning’s Federal Reserve U.S. manufacturing production report (for April). As promised, here’s a more granular look at the results, which yield even more insights as to how the CCP Virus blow to the economy is reflecting – and probably influencing dramatically changed spending patterns.

The table below shows the findings for durable goods industries, the super-category that covers products with expected usage and shelf lives of three years or more. Included are the original March inflation-adjusted output changes, the revised March data, and the April statistics:

Wood products:                                                -4.22%       -3.15%      -9.04%

non-metallic mineral products:                        -6.56%      -6.50%     -16.26%

Primary metals:                                                -2.82%      -3.95%     -20.37%

Fabricated metal products:                               -8.28%      -4.23%     -11.33%

Machinery:                                                       -5.56%      -3.05%     -10.98%

Computer & electronic products:                     -1.89%      -1.24%      -5.02%

Electrical equip, appliances, components:       -2.24%      -2.83%      -5.99%

Motor vehicles and parts:                               -28.04%    -29.96%    -71.69%

Aerospace/miscellaneous transport equip:      -8.12%      -8.90%     -21.65%

Furniture and related products:                       -9.99%      -6.50%     -20.60%

Miscellaneous manufacturing:                        -9.94%      -7.09%       -9.05%

   (contains most of those non-pharmaceutical healthcare goods)

As in the broader category analysis from earlier today, the automotive collapse – over both March and April – stands out here, although it was joined in the double-digit neighborhood (at much lower absolute levels of course) by six of the other eleven sectors. And as predicted in last month’s post on the March Fed report, the sector that’s held up best has been the computer and electronics industry – though following surprisingly close behind is electrical equipment, appliances, and their components.

It’s also easy to see how the rapid deterioration in automotive and the miscellanous transportation category that includes aerospace (especially in April for the latter) spilled over into supplier industries like metals and fabricated metal products, and machinery.

One durable goods puzzle: the relatively fast April decrease in the miscellaneous manufacturing category, which contains non-pharmaceutical medical goods so crucial for the nation’s CCP Virus response.

The second table shows the same information for the non-durables super-category, where the virus impact has been considerably lighter. Among notable results – the sharp worsening of after-inflation output in the food sector. Although it fared relatively well, there can be little doubt that the worker safety problems in meat-packing plants, along with the cratering of big customers – mainly the restaurant and hotel businesses – played big roles.

The non-durables results also make clear that the sector that’s survived best so far has been paper. Also excelling (at least relatively speaking): the enormous chemicals sector. This industry also contains the pharmaceutical industry, although the any positive CCP Virus impact seems unlikely to date because no vaccines or treatments have been developed yet.

Food, beverage, and tobacco products:          -0.76%      -1.56%       -7.10%

Textiles:                                                        -14.05%      -6.98%     -20.72%

Apparel and leather goods:                          -16.54%    -10.31%     -24.10%

Paper:                                                            -2.04%      -0.08%        -2.58%

Printing and related activities:                    -18.18%    -10.75%      -21.16%

Petroleum and coal products:                       -5.93%      -6.56%      -18.55%

Chemicals:                                                   -1.65%      -1.50%         -5.14%

Plastics and rubber products:                      -7.60%       -4.37%       -11.03%

Other mfg (different from misc above):     -5.37%       -4.29%       -10.37% 

The virus crisis contains so many moving parts (e.g., vaccine and therapeutics progress; infection, fatality, and testing data; uneven state reopening and national social distance practicing; consumer attitudes; second wave possibilities) that extrapolating the manufacturing trends to date seems foolhardy. But tracking industry’s winners and losers as the months pass could still provide important clues as to how much further the economic woes it’s caused will continue; and when, how quickly, and how completely recovery arrives.   

Following Up: Podcast Now On-Line of National Radio Interview on U.S.-China Decoupling

Tags

China, decoupling, FDI, Following Up, foreign direct investment, investment, manufacturing, pensions, public employees, retirement, tariffs, The John Batchelor Show, Trade, Trump

I’m pleased to announce that the podcast is now on-line of my interview yesterday on John Batchelor’s nationally syndicated radio show.  Click here for a timely update on dramatic new evidence that the U.S. and Chinese economies keep steadily – and in some cases quickly – disengaging.

And keep checking in with RealityChek for news of upcoming media appearances and other developments.

Following Up: National Radio Podcast on China Trade Policy Now On-Line…& More!

Tags

CCP Virus, China, coronavirus, COVID 19, decoupling, economics, Following Up, free trade, Gordon G. Chang, IndustryToday.com, manufacturing, supply chains, The John Batchelor Show, Trade, Wuhan virus

I’m pleased to announce that the podcast is now on-line of my interview last night on John Batchelor’s nationally syndicated radio show.  Click here for a great and timely conversation with John and co-host Gordon G. Chang on how U.S. manufacturers are dealing with China during the current CCP Virus crisis – and how they keep decoupling from the People’s Republic.

Also, it was great to see IndustryToday.com re-post (with permission of course!) my Wednesday piece on how the dangers of doing business with China are greatly undermining the purely economic case for the freest possible global trade flows.  Read it at this link.

And keep checking in with RealityChek for news of upcoming media appearances and other developments.

Following Up: The CCP Virus is Making the Case for Free Trade Look Ever Sicker

Tags

CBO, CCP Virus, China, Commerce Department, Congressional Budget Office, coronavirus, COVID 19, Financial Times, Following Up, free trade, GDP, Goldman Sachs, gross domestic product, Guggenheim, IMF, inflation-adjusted growth, International Monetary Fund, Morningstar, output gap, real GDP, Trade, Wuhan virus

A month ago, I put up a post claiming that the gargantuan economic losses stemming from the CCP Virus outbreak were shredding the standard economics case for free trade. Essentially, most economists have long insisted that the gains from trade always exceeded the losses that might be suffered by individual parts of the economy and their workers. (I purposely excluded the debate over whether more trade has exacted excessive non-economic costs, like eroded national security or more pollution.) Even better, the freest possible international trade flows would create enough additional wealth to permit generous compensation for these losers.

But I then documented that the virus-related hit to American economic output – which will clearly had stemmed from decades of freeing up trade and broader commerce with China – had already dwarfed the trade gains claimed even by cheerleaders for doing ever more business with the People’s Republic.

One month later, the China trade bonanza estimates haven’t gotten any better. But the projections of damage to the U.S. economy have greatly worsened.

My April 6 post cited two leading private sector forecasts of U.S. output losses for this year, measured in terms of gross domestic product (GDP) adjusted for inflation – Morningstar’s figure of $954 billion, and Goldman Sachs’ judgment of nearly $725 billion.

Since then, some official figures have been released, and most are bigger. For example, on April 29, the U.S. Commerce Department came out with its first read on real GDP for the first quarter of this year. Even though most of that January through March period preceded the onset of various shutdown orders across the nation, the Commerce statisticians still found that the economy shrank by 4.87 percent at an annual rate in price-adjusted terms. This means that if output kept falling at that rate for all of 2020, by year-end the economy would be $928.86 billion smaller than on New Year’s Day.

That’s still a smaller production plunge than estimated by Morningstar, but Commerce (as usual) never actually predicted that the drop-off would remain constant. Its annualized figures are simply notional.

A few days before, the Congressional Budget Office did engage in some prediction. Its expectation of constant-dollar GDP decline in 2020 was $1.27789 trillion. The International Monetary Fund’s (IMF) expectation for the U.S. economy was pretty similar – a $1.1253 trillion slump in inflation-adjusted U.S. GDP.   

As also noted in last month’s post, though, virtually everyone agrees that CCP Virus-induced damage will continue beyond 2020, and the way most economists try to quantify such losses is by calculating what they call an output gap. It’s an effort to specify how much lower output will be over a period of time as a result of a shock like the virus compared with how an economy would have performed had the shock never taken place.

The last time a major output gap-estimating exercise took place was in the aftermath of the Great Recession – caused by a shock resulting from the bursting of closely related credit and housing bubbles. As shown by the chart below (originally published in the Financial Times), a team at Guggenheim investments at least consider the gap to have started in 2010 (the first year after the recovery is generally thought to have started) at about $750 billion (according to my eyeballs). Thankfully, it proceeded to shrunk steadily thereafter. But the bad news is that it shrunk so slowly that the lost growth wasn’t made up for until 2018 – eight years later.

Nevertheless, if the Guggenheim economists are right, that output gap literally was nothing compared with the one that CCP Virus’ outbreak will open up. It starts this year at about $2.7 trillion (again, as my eyeballs see it) after factoring in price changes, and it closes at a rate no faster than that seen during the last economic recovery – which was historically sluggish. In other words, the decision to free up trade with China could cost the United States economy trillions of dollars of lost growth year after year for the foreseeable future.   

Maybe during this period, someone or some organization will come up with a study of the gains to America from freer trade with China that will claim purely economic benefits orders of magnitude greater than previously judged. In order to preserve a serious case that such trade expansion has turned out satisfactorily for the United States, they’ll have to.

Following Up: Why the Economy Shutdown vs Restart Debate is Still Idiotic

Tags

CCP Virus, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, coronavirus, COVID 19, drug abuse, Following Up, healthcare, Im-Politic, infant mortality, mortality, opioids, poverty, restart, suicide, Tim Mullaney, Trump, Wuhan virus

The heated debate over whether it’s more important to open the economy relatively quickly, or wait until the CCP Virus really is under control slogs on. And I mean slogs on, since once it became clear that the pandemic wasn’t going to be even close to a Black Death-like catastrophe, everyone with a working brain should have recognized that immense uncertainties are all around, and that both approaches therefore entail terrible risk.

One built-in complication, though, continues to muddy the waters. And even though decisive clarity can’t be gleaned from the available data, it’s worth pointing out: CCP Virus deaths are relatively easy to calculate – even if not perfectly identifiable, because single causes of death tend to be difficult and controversial to pinpoint for victims with important underlying health problems, and therefore different U.S. states have (not surprisingly) come up with different standards for counting them.

Deaths from a prolonged economic slump like the one into which America has been plunged are much harder to determine, and data are therefore more controversial. But no one should doubt that they’re noteworthy, and worth taking into account in any economy restart decisions.

As commonsensical as these observations sound, however, they continue being vigorously disputed, and one of the few such arguments I’ve seen that try to quantify relative rates of loss has come from economics journalist Tim Mullaney. Full disclosure: I’ve criticized Mullaney here before, finding him to be an extreme hater even by Never Trumper standards. But I hope you’ll trust me when I say I’m singling out his latest article simply because it makes the “restart later” argument in such data-dependent terms.

According to Mullaney, President Trump and other prominent conservatives are blowing the most deceitful smoke imaginable by insisting “You have to reopen the economy despite the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic, quickly, lest a wave of suicides, domestic battery and the like overwhelm even the death toll from coronavirus.”

His evidence? The CCP Virus daily U.S. death toll when he wrote his article (2,763) dwarfs the numbers of lives lost each day in the United States to economic-related causes (like many suicides), as well as the numbers lost daily during the nation’s wars. (As of yesterday, daily national CCP Virus deaths hit a much higher 4,591.) * SEE CORRECTION BELOW

The war comparisons are sobering – no doubt about it. But if you look at them realistically, so is what we know of the death toll from various forms of economic privation. For example, it’s true that “only” 132 Americans took their lives each day in 2018 (the last year for which statistics are available, as is the case with all the following numbers). And there’s no way to know how many were due to the victims’ economic circumstances. But it’s also true that, as of 2017, 1.4 million Americans tried and failed to commit suicide. There’s no way to know the reason for each one, but the daily figure comes to 3,865. Surely economics had something to do with many of them.

The clear implication: If not for circumstances unrelated to the economy, the numbers of  suicides and of economy-related suicides would be much higher. Therefore, economic-induced extreme despair is undoubtedly much more widespread than the actual suicide rates indicate. And they signal the presence of huge economy-related mental health problems. Further, given the stigma society still attaches to suicide, it’s fair to assume that the attempt numbers in particular are undercounted.

That same year, 192 Americans each day died of drug overdoses. Of these, 130 came from opioids – the category most likely influenced by worsening economic circumstances and prospects. And just as with suicides and attempted suicides, the numbers of overdose deaths are dwarfed by the attempted overdose numbers. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention don’t provide absolute annual figures, but they do note that “For every drug overdose that results in death, there are many more nonfatal overdoses….” Chalk lots of them up to economic despair, too.

You can also learn a lot from estimates of annual lives lost to poverty as such. In 2011, a Columbia University study pegged them at 671 per day in 2000 – not a matter of thousands, but not bupkis, either. And here’s another poverty-related mortality statistic: In 2018, about 59 newborn American babies died each day. Were all due to poverty? Of course not. But they’re most heavily concentrated in racial and ethnic minority groups with the highest poverty rates, so that’s pretty revealing.

Infant mortality, moreover, points to another health and death rate reality that’s strongly affected by the state of a national economy: the state of its healthcare system.

Given America’s vast wealth and annual healthcare expenditures, and its continuing major healthcare problems, there’s no doubt that money is no panacea for better health and lower death rates. Structures of national healthcare systems matter critically. At the same time, does anyone seriously believe that the U.S. healthcare system is going to do a better job on mortality and other fronts the worse the economy fares and the longer the current downturn lasts?

Which brings up a related question: What’s likelier to happen first? Indeed, much likelier to happen first? The kinds of major economic and social policy reforms needed to alleviate American poverty significantly, or to cure what ails the healthcare system? Or finding anti-CCP Virus vaccine or cure? If you’re not sure, you just haven’t been paying attention.

Those wanting a substantial economy restart sooner rather than later can legitimately point out that the above economy-related mortality numbers overlap a great deal. And that’s true. Second and even third waves, as they warn, seem all too likely as well. But it’s also true that, when you add them all up, they’re significant, and at best can’t be too far away from the CCP Virus death figures in which much more confidence is justified.

How far away? Honestly, why should anyone care? They’re clearly close enough to warrant concern that, as Mullaney’s conservative targets contend, a prolonged mandated economic slump will exact terrible human health costs – and that the longer it lasts, the higher it will grow. It’s also crucial to remember that the CCPVirus death toll shows signs of trending down – however horrific it will ultimately be – and that absolutely no one who anyone’s listening to is urging a total national economy restart all at once. 

All of which reinforces conclusions I’ve been pushing since the CCP Virus became a genuine crisis: It confronts Americans will trade-offs as tragic as they are difficult to figure out, and that anyone arguing to the contrary is more interested in taking cheap, invariably partisan, shots than in finding solutions.

*CORRECTION.  The 4,591 U.S. deaths figure I reported here was not for April 17, but for April 16.  The April 17 figure was actually 3,856, and today’s figure is only 1,891.  Moreover, as explained here, “The spike in mid-April is due to New York City authorities adding probable cases to the city’s death tally.”  So this is the kind of correction that clearly works in favor of my argument, since these numbers indicate even more strongly that this still terrible daily figure is on the way down, and that any gap between it and comparable figures due to economically-induced mortality is even smaller than previously apparent.

Following Up: Podcast Now On-Line of National Radio Interview on the CCP Virus & Global & China Trade

Tags

CCP Virus, China, coronavirus, COVID 19, Following Up, global supply chains, globalization, Gordon G. Chang, supply chains, The John Batchelor Show, Trade, Wuhan virus

You’re in luck! I didn’t get advance word on the exact broadcast time of my interview last night on John Batchelor’s nationally syndicated radio show. But the podcast is now on-line!

Click here for a great discussion (including co-host Gordon G. Chang) of how U.S.-China trade relations could look once the CCP Virus has come and gone, and how the pandemic could change the entire world economy.

And keep checking in with RealityChek for news of upcoming media appearances and other developments.