(What’s Left of) Our Economy: The CCP Virus Lockdowns’ State-Level US Effects II

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CCP Virus, Commerce Department, coronavirus, COVID 19, lockdowns, shutdowns, states, stay-at-home, Wallethub.com, Wuhan virus, {What's Left of) Our Economy

Yesterday’s RealityChek post presented some facts about the economic performance of America’s states during the CCP Virus era that struck me, anyway, as surprising and important. And it ended with the observation that two big states that have imposed relatively sweeping anti-virus curbs on business and consumer activity – New York and California – accounted for a considerably outsized share of the national economy’s shrinkage during the pandemic through the third quarter of this year (the latest economic statistics available).

Today’s post will use the same data – from a recent Commerce Department report – to show that overall, the states with the most restrictive lockdown etc regimes have generally experienced the biggest economic contractions. That conclusion may sound too obvious to bother thinking about, but it matters because economic distress, as I’ve written repeatedly, produces its own serious public health (both mental and physical costs). Moreover, at least according to most of the public health establishment, even if mass vaccination goes as quickly and smoothly as realistically possible, normality could still be nearly a year off.

As with the previous post, however, some qualifications need to be discussed, and in addition to yesterday’s, two more should be kept in mind. First, despite the connection between CCP Virus-related economic and business curbs on the one hand and slumping economies on the other, there’s a non-trivial number of exceptions, as will be shown below. So it’s distinctly possible that some states have found the kind of balance between still-sometimes (but not always) conflicting economic and public health imperatives that’s worth emulating.

Second, not only have the lockdowns etc been very on-and-off in nature since the pandemic became a pandemic in late winter, but measurements of these lockdowns’ scale unavoidably entail a pretty fair amount of subjectivity.

The source I’m using for this (at this link) looks on-target in general to me. But I have to admit puzzlement at some of the rankings. For example, the source organization, Wallethub.com, places Michigan right in the middle of these rankings – even though Michiganders have been among the most vehement opponents of virus curbs. Have many of the folks directly experiencing this state’s restrictions just been throwing unwarranted tantrums?

Moreover, Maryland, where I live now, has imposed pretty tight restrictions, too, although at least Republican Larry Hogan has been one of those governors who’s given different counties a fair amount of regulatory autonomy since the state (like even many smaller ones) is fairly diverse. But I’m not convinced that overall its curbs have been patchy enough to place it in the lockdowns-light half of states.

Meanwhile, New Mexico is ranked just a little more restrictive than Michigan, though my own look at this state’s policies concluded they’ve been quite lockdown-y.

But nobody’s perfect, so I’m going with Wallethub.com as my lockdown guide, and here’s what I did. First, I looked at the ten states whose economies grew the most (or contracted the least) between the firt and third quarters of this year, and identified where they stand in the Wallethub rankings, and then performed the same exercise with the ten states that suffered the worst contractions. The growth (and contraction) figures represented percentage changes in real gross domestic product, and the Wallethub scale assigns the least restrictive states the lowest numbers. Here are the results:

Top 10 1Q-3Q GDP                                               rank on lockdown scale

Utah: +1.07                                                                            3

Washington: +-0.44                                                             36

Delaware: -0.08                                                                   31

Arizona: -0.52                                                                     45

Iowa: -0.54                                                                            5

Idaho: -0.81                                                                           2

Indiana: -1.01                                                                      15

Georgia: -1.03                                                                     13

Arkansas: -1.27                                                                   10

Alabama: -1.34                                                                   14

The big takeaway? Of these ten states, seven imposed relatively light anti-CCP Virus restrictions

(earning rankings in the lowest half of the fifty states plus the District of Columbia). And four of these states were among the ten least restrictive states. So that looks like solid evidence that the relatively open states were rewarded with the best economic performances, and that this openness as such deserves significant credit. But three states on this list put into effect lockdowns on the tight side and fared relatively well economically, too – Washington, Delaware, and Arizona.

Have they found the policy sweet spot? Or is there something about their economies’ structures that have produced economic resilience? One observation pointing to the importance of structure: both Washington and Arizona boast highly developed tech sectors – Amazon and Microsoft, e.g., headquartering the former, and the latter containing much semiconductor production.

Here are the states with the worst growth performances during the pandemic:

Bottom 10 1Q-3Q GDP                                               rank on lockdown scale

Hawaii: -6.67                                                                              51

Wyoming: -5.24                                                                           7

New York: -4.56                                                                        38

Oklahoma: -3.84                                                                         4

Tenn: -3.33                                                                                18

Alaska: -3.28                                                                             12

Nevada: -3.14                                                                            20

New Jersey: -3.08                                                                     47

Vermont: -3.06                                                                          41

North Dakota: -2.98                                                                   9

And these results seem to cut against those of the previous list – because of these low growers, only four had imposed very restrictive lockdowns (Hawaii, New York, New Jersey, and Vermont). Further, three were among the very least restrictive states (Wyoming, Oklahoma, and North Dakota). And the other three were well in the half of states that have been least restrictive (Tennessee, Alaska, and Nevada).

Nonetheless, economic structure considerations as well as policy measures seem to be influencing these results. Principally, Wyoming, Oklahoma, and North Dakota all depend very heavily on a fossil fuels sector that has been plunged into a deep slump due to the virus’ overall economic effects. And lockdown-light-ish Nevada has suffered from the tourism depression.

Now let’s view the situation from the opposite perspective. Let’s take the states with the ten tightest and ten loosest lockdown regimes, and examine their respective economic performance. First, the ten tightest lockdowners, with the most resrictive at the top:

Most restrictive on lockdowns                                1Q-3Q GDP growth rank

Hawaii                                                                                    50

California                                                                               36

Mass.                                                                                      32

Maine                                                                                     34

New Jersey                                                                             47

Colorado                                                                                 33

Arizona                                                                                    4

Oregon                                                                                   20

Pennsylvania                                                                          37

Vermont                                                                                  41

Here the correlation between policy and performance looks awfully strong. Fully eight of the ten biggest economic loser states are among the states with the tightest lockdowns, and three of these are among the ten most restrictive. Interestingly, Arizona comes across as a standout according to this measure, too.

Economic structure is playing a role here, too – as seen by the presence of tourism-reliant Hawaii and Vermont. In addition, Pennsylvania’s become a big energy state thanks to the Marcellus shale formation, and Colorado has long depended heavily on both energy and tourism.

At the same time, Pennsylvania’s got lots of office workers who’ve been able to do their jobs from home – as does New Jersey (which along with New York was hit early and hard by the virus). And what gives with California – of course tourism-heavy, but in many ways the center of both high tech manufacturing and high tech service provision in the nation, not to mention research and development?

So lockdown decisions seem to have made major contributions to these states’ relatively deep downturns.

A similar conclusion seems justified from this list of the ten states that have permitted their economies to remain most open and imposed the fewest cubrs on behavior – with the least restrictive closest to the top:

Least restrictive on lockdowns                                1Q-3Q GDP rank

South Dakota                                                                     14

Idaho                                                                                   6

Utah                                                                                     1

Oklahoma                                                                         47

Iowa                                                                                    5

Wisconsin                                                                         11

Wyoming                                                                         49

Missouri                                                                           21

North Dakota                                                                   41

Arkansas                                                                            9

Seven of these ten lockdown-lightest states are in the top half of U.S. economic performers, four are in the top ten and one (Wisconsin) is Number 11. Moreover, the three conspicuous exceptions to this pattern – economically woeful Oklahoma, Wyoming, and North Dakota – are all, as previously pointed out, states that have suffered because they’re energy-heavy.

As a result, the way I see it, this table and at least two of the others of the four total presented here, along with yesterday’s state-level data, further strengthen the case that lockdowns per se have exacted major – though far from catastrophic –  economic prices. But by the same token, these results confront the nation with the question of far away the economic tipping point might be. 

Making News: Podcast On-Line of NYC Radio Appearance on Swalwell Media Cover Up…& More!

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CCP Virus, China, coronavirus, COVID 19, Eric Swalwell, Frank Morano, Germany, journalism, lockdowns, Mainstream Media, Making News, shutdowns, spying, The New York Times, The Other Side of Midnight, Wuhan virus

I’m pleased to announce that the podcast is now on-line of my appearance in last night’s wee hours on Frank Morano’s “The Other Side of Midnight” talk show on New York City’s WABC-AM radio. Click here to listen to a timely discussion of two recent RealityChek items: the national media’s near news blackout (and possibly coverup?) of the Eric Swalwell China spy scandal story, and the increasingly US-like anti-CCP Virus performance of Germany — whose lockdowns-heavy strategy and early successes won such fulsome worldwide praise.

Special bonus for Baby Boomer native-New Yorkers-in-exile (like me!) — right at the beginning of the recording, you’ll hear the same “77 WABC” jingle you may remember from your childhood and adolescence.

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

Im-Politic: Germany’s Looking Like an Increasingly Tarnished Anti-CCP Virus Gold Standard

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CCP Virus, coronavirus, COVID 19, Germany, Im-Politic, infections, lockdowns, mortality, reopening, shutdowns, stay-at-home, Worldometers.info, Wuhan virus

As the now-well-worn (but still pretty darned good!) wisecrack goes, “I’m old enough to remember when Germany was held up as a model for fighting the CCP Virus.” (See e.g., here and here.) And as this gibe implies, that portrayal of Germany keeps getting exposed as premature.

In fact, by several key grim virus metrics, Germany has caught up with the United States – which of course has just as often been held up as a model for how not to fight the pandemic.

For example, according to the Worldometers.info website, on a per capita basis, Germany’s daily death rate is now greater than the United States’. As of last Friday (I’m skipping the weekend numbers because CCP Virus-related info tends to get reported more slowly on Saturdays and Sundays), Germany’s new reported virus-related fatalities were 30 percent of America’s (838 vs 2,794). Yet Germany’s population (83.91 million) is only 25.28 percent of America’s (331.91 million).

Germany’s performance looks better in terms of seven-day average (7DA) daily figures – which are more accurate because they smooth out the inevitable random daily fluctuations. On December 18, the German figure of 598 was only 23.15 percent of its U.S. counterpart of 2,583.

But major German catch-up has still taken place. And it’s been going on for months. October 16 is when the American 7DA daily fatality total began its latest big move. That day’s figure was 716. So between then and December 18, it rose by 260.75 percent.

October 16 is just before Germany’s current death surge, and that day, the 7DA stood at 21. So through December 18, it’s risen by 2,748.62 percent. That’s more than ten times faster.

The new daily infections numbers tell a similar story. Let’s cut to the chase and examine the 7DAs. By this measure, the United States’ current and worst CCP Virus wave began about October 5, when the daily 7DA stood at 44,691. By December 18, it was up just under 400 percent.

Germany’s current wave (a true second wave) began about the same time, and on October 5, the 7DA for daily new infections stood at 2,292. As of December 18, the figure was 24,460 – a level just over 967 percent above October 5’s, and a rate of increase more than twice as fast as the United States.’

None of this means that Germany’s virus strategy has been a failure, and certainly doesn’t mean that America’s has been a success. In the first place, serious measurement problems continue to plague the infection and mortality data everywhere. (See, e.g., here.)

In the second place, it’s not cricket to compare any geographic regions’ CCP Virus strategies without taking major virus-related differences into account. In this case, it’s crucial to note that temperatures affect the virus’ spread, and that Germany got colder faster, at least between October and November, than the United States.  (For the U.S. data, see here. For the German data, see here.) Germany is also about seven times more densely populated than America, and its relatively crowded conditions alone clearly encourage virus spread. Moreover, it’s not as if Germany has locked down consistently since the CCP Virus’ arrival.

At the same time, the German-American differences in temperatures and temperature changes have hardly been enormous. (Further complicating the weather analysis – the United States’ enormous size also means enormous weather variance from region to region.) And the population density hasn’t changed during this year. So the gaps between these variables can’t possibly begin to explain why Germany’s current surge – albeit from much lower absolute starting levels – has been so much worse than the United States. But they’ve been the statistics used most often to judge virus strategies, so it seems fair to examine exactly what they’ve revealed lately.

Nor does it make sense to blame Germany’s relatively poor performance this fall and winter so far on its various reopenings. Unless you think shutting down an entire national economy for that many months consecutively, with no relief, is a viable approach to a pandemic.

Instead, it’s time to recognize, especially for lockdown and mask-wearing and other mass restrictions enthusiasts, that if – even before the pandemic is one year old – countries with mitigation approaches as far apart as those of Germany and the United States have been so widely labeled can see such completely unexpected infection and mortality results, the establishment conventional wisdom on sweeping behavioral curbs is weaker than advocates insist. And consequently, the best possible tradeoffs between CCP Virus spread and mortality effects on the one hand, and other public health and economic costs on the other, shouldn’t be regarded as set in stone.

Im-Politic: Trump-ism Without Trump for America as a Whole?

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"Defund the Police", allies, CCP Virus, China, climate change, coronavirus, court packing, COVID 19, Democrats, election 2020, enforcement, Executive Orders, filibuster, Green New Deal, Huawei, human rights, Im-Politic, Immigration, Joe Biden, judiciary, lockdowns, mask mandate, masks, metals, multilateralism, Muslim ban, Phase One, progressives, Republicans, sanctions, Senate, shutdowns, stimulus, Supreme Court, tariffs, taxes, Trade, trade wars, Trump, unions, Wuhan virus

Since election day, I’ve spent some time and space here and on the air speculating about the future of what I called Trump-ism without Donald Trump in conservative and Republican Party political ranks. Just this weekend, my attention turned to another subject and possibility: Trump-ism without Mr. Trump more broadly speaking, as a shaper – and indeed a decisive shaper – of national public policy during a Joe Biden presidency. Maybe surprisingly, the chances look pretty good.

That is, it’s entirely possible that a Biden administration won’t be able to undo many of President Trump’s signature domestic and foreign policies, at least for years, and it even looks likely if the Senate remains Republican. Think about it issue-by-issue.

With the Senate in Republican hands, there’s simply no prospect at least during the first two Biden years for Democratic progressives’ proposals to pack the Supreme Court, to eliminate the Senate filibuster, or to recast the economy along the lines of the Green New Deal, or grant statehood Democratic strongholds Puerto Rico and the District of Columbia. A big tax increase on corporations and on the Biden definition of the super-rich looks off the table as well.

If the Senate does flip, the filibuster might be history. But big Democratic losses in the House, and the claims by many veterans of and newcomers to their caucus that those other progressive ambitions, along with Defunding the Police, were to blame, could also gut or greatly water down much of the rest of the far Left’s agenda, too.

CCP Virus policy could be substantially unchanged, too. For all the Biden talk of a national mask mandate, ordering one is almost surely beyond a President’s constitutional powers. Moreover, his pandemic advisors are making clear that, at least for the time being, a sweeping national economic lockdown isn’t what they have in mind. I suspect that some virus economic relief measures willl be signed into law sometime this spring or even earlier, but they won’t carry the total $2 trillion price tag on which Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi seems to have insisted for months. In fact, I wouldn’t rule out the possibility of relief being provided a la carte, as Congressional Republicans have suggested – e.g., including popular provisions like some form of unemployment payment bonus extension and stimulus checks, and excluding less popular measures like stimulus aid for illegal aliens.

My strong sense is that Biden is itching to declare an end to President Trump’s trade wars, and as noted previously, here he could well find common cause with the many Senate Republicans from the party’s establishment wing who have never been comfortable bucking the wishes of an Offshoring Lobby whose campaign contributions it’s long raked in.

Yet the former Vice President has promised his labor union supporters that until the trade problems caused by China’s massive steel overproduction were (somehow) solved, he wouldn’t lift the Trump metals tariffs on allies (which help prevent transshipment and block these third countries from exporting their own China steel trade problems to the United States) – even though they’re the levies that have drawn the most fire from foreign policy globalists and other trade and globalization zealots.

As for the China tariffs themselves, the latest from the Biden team is that they’ll be reviewed. So even though he’s slammed them as wildly counterproductive, they’re obviously not going anywhere soon. (See here for the specifics.) 

Later? Biden’s going to be hard-pressed to lift the levies unless one or both of the following developments take place: first, the allied support he’s touted as the key to combating Beijing’s trade and other economic abuses actually materializes in very convincing ways; second, the Biden administration receives major Chinese concessions in return. Since even if such concessions (e.g., China’s agreement to eliminate or scale back various mercantile practices) were enforceable (they won’t be unless Biden follows the Trump Phase One deal’s approach), they’ll surely require lengthy negotiations. Ditto for Trump administration sanctions on China tech entities like the telecommunications giant Huawei. So expect the Trump-ian China status quo to long outlast Mr. Trump.

Two scenarios that could see at least some of the tariffs or tech sanctions lifted? First, the Chinese make some promises to improve their climate change policies that will be completely phony, but will appeal greatly to the Green New Deal-pushing progressives who will wield much more power if the Senate changes hands, and who have demonstrated virtually no interest in China economic issues. Second, Beijing pledges to ease up on its human rights crackdowns on Hong Kong and the Muslims of Xinjiang province. These promises would be easier to monitor and enforce, but the Chinese regime views such issues as utterly non-negotiable because they’re matters of sovereignty. So China’s repressive practices won’t even be on the official agenda of any talks. Unofficial understandings might be reached under which Beijing would take modest positive steps or suspend further contemplated repression. But I wouldn’t count on such an outcome.

Two areas where Biden supposedly could make big decisions unilaterally whatever happens in the Senate, are immigration and climate change. Executive orders would be the tools, and apparently that’s indeed the game plan. But as Mr. Trump discovered, what Executive Orders and even more routine adminstrative actions can do, a single federal judge responding to a special interest group’s request can delay for months. And these judicial decisions can interfere with presidential authority even on subjects that for decades has been recognized as wide-ranging – notably making immigration enforcement decisions when border crossings impact national security, as with the so-called Trump “Muslim ban.”

I know much less about climate change, but a recently retired attorney friend with long experience litigating on these issues told me that even before Trump appointee Amy Coney Barrett joined the Supreme Court, the Justices collectively looked askance on efforts to create new policy initiatives without legislating. Another “originalist” on the Court should leave even less scope for ignoring Congress.

The bottom line is especially curious given the almost universal expectations that this presidential election would be the most important in recent U.S. history: A deeply divided electorate could well have produced a mandate for more of the same – at least until the 2022 midterms.

Im-Politic: Is the U.S. Really a CCP Virus Outlier?

Tags

CCP Virus, coronavirus, COVID 19, lockdowns, shutdowns, therapeutics, Trump, vaccines, Worldometers.info, Wuhan virus

It seems pretty clear that President Trump is in serious danger of losing Election 2020 in part because of his handling of the CCP Virus. Much less clear, especially as a second virus wave washes over not only the United States much of the rest of the world, is whether, as frequently charged , Mr. Trump’s record has been such an outlier. And if this allegation is still clear to you, consider the following data showing the rising numbers of infections in the world’s major high-income economies.

The period covered is, with the exception of France, October 2 (around the time when increases began significantly increasing) to yesterday (November 9). The numbers come from the well regarded Worldometers.info website:

United States: 140.20 percent

France: (Oct. 3): 18.75 percent

Spain: 74.62 percent

United Kingdom: 81.64 percent

Italy: 911.33 percent

Germany: 481.19 percent

Netherlands: 22.35 percent

Canada: 117.61 percent

Sweden: 380.20 percent

Japan: 53.07 percent

It’s important to note that these percentages could well change dramatically on very short notice – because some have already changed dramatically in the last few days. For example, through November 7, France’s increase was 411.74 percent. Through October 30, the Netherlands’ was 190.69 percent.

But it’s even more important to note that, especially taking these recent and potential fluctuations into account, America’s results are in the middle of the pack – and even closer to the lower end.

Although any evaluation of these statistics also needs to recognize that major, virus-relevant differences separate these countries (e.g., population density, climate, various demographics), they’re also separated, as widely noted, by substantially different approaches to CCP Virus mitigation. (Regarding population density in particular, that’s why I’m not mentioning very small, crowded European countries like Belgium and Switzerland and Luxembourg. In fact, I almost left out the Netherlands for this very reason.)

And in this vein, it’s more than a little interesting with worst recent records than the United States are Germany and Italy – where lockdowns of their economies and societies have been much more prompt and complete than in the United States.

This leaves the continuing major knock on the Trump record the exceptionally big absolute numbers of virus infections in the United States (including on a per capita basis) compared with those of peer economies and societies. It’s a big knock. But unless you think that large countries can or should be shut down until whatever public health goal their governments happen to set at a given time (bending the curve? slowing the spread? “crushing the virus”?), it shouldn’t be difficult to recognize that the appearance of a second wave immediately following the first reopenings in heavily locked down countries shows that putting the clamps on at best kept the virus temporarily dormant.

One possible conclusion to which these common problems being faced by such a diverse group of countries is one that the American character seems especially resistant to — that not all problems are readily solvable, or solvable at all, or even easily mitigated (at least until science figures out how to produce safe and effective vaccines and cures much faster). And if many of President Trump’s critics can be faulted for such assumption, he’s guilty of similar pollyannism due to his numerous claims that the virus is “under control” – even though nothing about its spread through Europe, in any case, indicated that enduring progress like this was possible at these stages.

That’s not to say that Americans shouldn’t prize their can-do spirit, or that governments are helpless in the face of such disasters – especially since, as far as is known, this disaster wasn’t government- or man-made. And it certainly doesn’t mean that better performance (in addition to better messaging) shouldn’t be expected and demanded. But it does point to the need to scale back expectations and demands, specifically to the realm of the doable, of tradeoffs and genuinely tragic choices, and of the priority-setting that naturally follows.

There’s no guarantee that national leaders will be rewarded for this kind of sober realism. But if this latest U.S. presidential election is any indication, there’s no guarantee that peddling overly rosy scenarios pays off with voters, either.

Following Up: Nursing Home Deaths Still Dominating U.S. CCP Virus Fatalities

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assisted living facilities, CCP Virus, CDC, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, coronavirus, COVID 19, Following Up, Foundation for Research on Equal Opportunity, Kaiser Family Foundation, lockdowns, nursing homes, shutdowns, The New York Times, Worldometer.com, Wuhan virus

Given the recent U.S. surge in reported CCP Virus infections (but not yet U.S. deaths, according to sources such as the Worldometers.com website), I thought it was time to take another look at the nursing homes dimension of the pandemic. Depressingly, most of the evidence signals that it’s still at least as central to America’s virus fatality story.

RealityChek‘s last update, from mid-August, found that, since the pandemic’s early stages, the share of CCP Virus deaths linked with these facilities had more than doubled – to at least 41 percent. The phrase “at least” matters a lot because U.S. states’ reporting of these losses is far from uniform.

The New York Times, which had been doing an admirable job of tracking the scattered statistics that are available, hasn’t focused on the issue since then, but several others have stepped into the breach and some suggest that the problem has worsened.

In early September, the non-partisan Kaiser Family Foundation reported that “People in long-term care facilities make up 8 percent of coronavirus cases, but 45 percent of all COVID-19 deaths.” And worrisomely, Kaiser found signs, as of August, of an uptick.

Moreover, in a second September report, Kaiser examined another set of institutions in which senior citizens are heavily concentrated – assisted living facilities. It concluded that, despite data even less complete than for nursing homes, CCP Virus deaths were strongly increasing among residents and staff alike between June and August.

Similar figures were published in late August by the Foundation for Research on Equal Opportunity, a think tank that bills itself as non-partisan but that looks like of right-of-center-ish to me. (“Not that there’s anything wrong with that.”). Actually, the organization published three sets of figures, each using a different methodology and each covering both nursing homes and assisted living facilities. The low end number pegged virus deaths associated with both at 42.1 percent, the middle at 42.7 percent, and the high end estimate was 46.9 percent.

What says the U.S. government, you might ask? Nothing terribly helpful. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) does try to monitor the situation, and its data are more recent than those of the other two outfits – bringing the story up to October 18. But it only includes information from the relatively small number of states that voluntarily send in their numbers. That is, there’s no reporting requirement. The two private sector organizations discussed above use other sources, like press accounts – which are admittedly not definitive.

If you do look up these numbers, however, you’ll find that the agency pegs the nursing home death toll at 61,765 as of October 18. But you’ll also find that no overall U.S. death total is provided for that date.

The Worldometers site’s number for the day is 224,792. Do the math, and nursing home deaths as a share of total deaths comes to 27.47 percent. Yet not only is the result missing many states’ fatalities. It doesn’t include assisted living facilities, either.

I’ve argued in my previous posts that the high share of total U.S. virus-connected deaths is argues strongly for concentrating prevention and mitigation efforts on such unusually vulnerable populations, rather than the economy or the society as a whole. As new infections climb once more, and talk of major lockdown increase just as quickly, this still sounds like the strategy to choose.

Im-Politic: Some History Lessons for Virus Policymakers

Tags

CCP Virus, coronavirus, COVID 19, Hong Kong flu, Im-Politic, lockdowns, schools, shutdowns, Wuhan virus

Once the CCP Virus began taking a major toll on American lives and the nation’s economy, I became aware of an historical comparison that I found as astounding and revealing as it’s been widely ignored. Today, months later, I’m still astounded by it, and it remains widely ignored. It’s the mind-boggling-by-any-measure contrast between the way that the current pandemic has been generally viewed and handled, and the way an even deadlier pandemic was handled between late 1968 and the winter of 1970.

That earlier disease outbreak was called the Hong Kong flu (after its supposed origin point), and according to U.S government health agencies, it killed about 100,000 Americans. And the reason I’ve found this fact astounding and revealing is that although this fatality number is just under half that currently attributed to the CCP Virus (218,000), as a share of the U.S. population then, it was only slightly lower. The actual numbers? In 1968, the fatality rate was 0.050 percent (in a population of 200.71 million). Today, it’s 0.066 percent (in a population of 330.47 million).

And even so, the economy and major institutions like schools were left almost completely open. I was in my mid-teens, and I don’t even remember any mention of it – and I was the kind of kid of read newspapers and watched the evening news. And my memory seems pretty accurate, as here’s the historical account that I’ve found whose descriptions of curbs and impacts that were put in place are the most extensive:

“All 50 states experienced increased school absenteeism during the pandemic; 23 faced school and college closures and 31 saw elevated worker absenteeism….

“Newspaper articles chronicled the widespread college closures, slowdowns in business and industry, and threats to Christmas mail deliveries. In December, the Apollo 8 astronauts were vaccinated to protect them from pandemic influenza in advance of their December 21 moon-orbiting flight, and President [Lyndon B.] Johnson was hospitalized with a respiratory infection that his aides said ‘could be called the flu.’ National concerns were reflected in a December 19 New York Times editorial describing the pandemic as ‘one of the worst in the nation’s history,’ bemoaning the ‘amount of discomfort and distress suffered by the millions who have already been hit,’ and the potential for ‘billions of dollars’ associated with treatment and lost productivity.”

Moreover, because the widespread shutdown and lockdown and stay-at-home route wasn’t taken, it’s more than reasonable to assume that collateral public health damage was minimized as well. That’s especially important because treatments for serious physical and mental health problems were so much less advanced back then. And of course, for all the New York Times‘ understandable economic concerns, growth and employment and overall living standards were barely affected.

These diseases are by no means identical. For example, the Hong Kong flu was particularly likely to hit school-age children – roughly the opposite of the CCP Virus pattern, in which seniors have been by far the most vulnerable.

But it seems fair to express the difference between the anti-pandemic strategies of today and yesteryear in this way: During the late-1960s, the federal and state and local governments let life proceed pretty much as normal, and although about 100,000 died, both non-virus public health damage (including deaths) and economic distress were minimized. Nowadays, much of the economy and other institutions (including schools) have been closed for varying periods and many remain closed today, and although the recorded death rate is virtually identical, the non-virus public health damage has been extensive, and the nation is struggling to climb out of its worse economic downturn since the Great Depression.

Without dismissing the need for precautionary and preventive measures (focusing on those most vulnerable,, to be sure), it’s hard to avoid the conclusion that viewed holistically – as is essential – the U.S. CCP Virus approach, as ragged as it’s been, has enabled the perfect to be the enemy of the good.

(What’s Left of) Our Economy: Why Trump’s Solid Trade Record Survives the Lousy New U.S. Trade Report

Tags

automotive, Boeing, CCP Virus, cell phones, civilian aircraft, coronavirus, COVID 19, Made in Washington trade deficit, manufacturing, manufacturing trade deficit, non-oil goods deficit, shutdowns, tariffs, trade deficit, trade war, Trump, U.S. International Trade Commission, Wuhan virus, {What's Left of) Our Economy

This is how bad this morning’s official US. trade figures (for July) looked at first glance for folks like me – who value trade deficit reduction, and believe that trade policies like President Trump’s can make a real difference: When I began examining the data, even though I kept telling myself, “It’s only one month’s worth of statistics,” I scarcely knew what to despair about most.

Yet the “at first glance” point matters a lot. Because when you dig into the weeds, you’ll find plenty of evidence making clear that much of the deterioration had nothing to do with trade policy at all. And the evidence comes in two tables in these monthly trade reports on which I usually pass: Exhibit 7 and Exhibit 8. They cover U.S. exports and imports of goods “by End-Use Category and Commodity” and they provide the report’s most detailed picture of which areas of the economy have performed best and worst trade-wise during the month covered.

They’re not as detailed as those available from the U.S. International Trade Commission’s interactive search engine, but that database isn’t yet updated, so let’s go with what we have to begin seeing exactly where the biggest goods trade deficit increases came in July. (Goods trade, also called merchandise trade, makes up the bulk of U.S. trade flows, and it’s relatively unaffected by the policy decisions made by Washington – including by trade-minded Presidents like Donald Trump – mainly because international negotiations to deal with barriers in these sectors are still in pretty early stages)

Again, from the 30,000-foot level, the July results look terrible. The goods trade shortfall hit $80.91 billion – $9.26 billion, or 12.92 percent, higher than the June figure of $71.65 billion (which mercifully was revised down slightly). That increase proportionately is dwarfed by the record 31.60 jump of March, 1993. But that nearly 18-year old all-time high can be disregarded pretty easily, both because the law of small numbers is at work here (i.e., when you’re dealing with small absolute numbers, relatively small absolute changes can result in outsized percentage changes), and because back in those days, U.S. trade flows were heavily affected by oil trade – another sector of the economy rarely subject to trade policy decisions.

So what mainly accounted for that $9.26 billion merchandise import surge? First of all, we know that more than all of it ($9.94 billion) came in non-oil goods trade. As known by RealityChek regulars, those are the trade flows most heavily influenced by U.S. trade policy. So this increase in the “Made in Washington” deficit seems to reflect badly on decisions made in Washington. Drilling down a little deeper, manufacturing emerges as an even bigger culprit. Its $89.15 billion June trade gap ballooned to $104.63 billion in July – a rise of $15.48 billion. Not so incidentally, that manufacturing trade deficit is the worst ever in U.S. history, eclipsing the $101.65 billion recorded for October, 2018.

Nearly as interesting, though: China trade – where the President has been fighting a war – was not the biggest problem, as the manufacturing-dominated goods gap with the People’s Republic rose by just $3.22 billion. And neither the 11.35 percent on-month increase nor the $31.62 billion total goods gap was anywhere close to a record. 

So we’re back to manufacturing, and figuring out where the big deficit widening took place. Here’s where Exibits 7 and 8 matter.

What they tell us is that the monthly worsening of the merchandise trade deficit was highly concentrated in a handful of industries, and that these latest developments either have little or nothing to do with the Trump tariffs, or actually  demonstrate their effectiveness in widely overlooked ways.

Most relevant of all here is the automotive sector. Between June and July, the deficit in vehicles and parts combined increased by just under $3.20 billion. That represents more than a fifth of the sequential worsening of the manufacturing trade deficit, and nearly a third of the difference in the non-oil goods deficit. But the problem says little about the Trump trade policies, and a great deal about the reopening of U.S. automotive sector in late spring and early summer after the CCP Virus led to its almost complete shutdown in March and April.

From May through July, total American automotive production nearly tripled in real terms, according to the Federal Reserve’s industrial production reports. So it’s no surprise that since production in this industry is so globalized, and thus so many of its parts and materials (and the parts of the parts) are still imported, its trade deficit ballooned, too.

Then there are cell phones. Between June and July, the trade deficit here rose by just under $1.44 billion – 9.30 percent of the increase in the manufacturing deficit, and 14.48 percent of the problem in non-oil goods.

The cell phone category in the monthly trade releases also includes “other household goods” – one of the reasons I don’t love these numbers like I love those available from the International Trade Commission. But it’s reasonable to suppose that most of these goods are cell phones, and that most of these are coming from China – with which the Trump administration of course has been fighting a trade war.

As observed on RealityChek last month, however, Mr. Trump decided not to tariff them. So although cell phone imports indicate that the trade war is incomplete, they certainly don’t show that tariffs don’t work. If anything, they underscore what can happen when they’re missing.

A third major source of the deterioration shown in the new trade report is the civilian aircraft industry – where a surplus of $575 million in June became a $1.50 billion deficit in July. That’s a trade balance worsening of nearly $2.08 billion. In other words, this development alone accounts for 13.44 percent of the lousy July manufacturing trade results and 20.93 percent of the woes in non-oil goods trade flows.

Aircraft’s problems, however, have nothing to do with U.S. trade policy, and everything to with Boeing’s safety failures, which have led to big production shutdowns.

Add up the trade performances of these categories, and together they account for fully 43.38 percent of the manufacturing trade deficit’s increase between June and July, and a whopping 67.57 percent of the monthly rise in the non-oil deficit.

Combine these findings with a U.S. economic recovery that so far has been faster than the bouncebacks of many of its leading trade partners (except, notably, for export-heavy China) and the discouraging July trade figures don’t look nearly so discouraging.

Mission accomplished, then, for the Trump administration? Hardly? But the July trade report is far from a conclusive sign of failure, either. In fact, it leaves any fair-minded evaluation of the Trump trade record pretty much where it’s been since the CCP Virus arrived – deserving of solid grades before the bug arrived, and an incomplete during the completely abnormal times we’ve experienced since then.

(What’s Left of) Our Economy: More Trade Surprises in the New U.S. GDP Report

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CCP Virus, Commerce Department, coronavirus, COVID 19, exports, GDP, goods trade, Great Recession, gross domestic product, imports, real GDP, recession, services trade, shutdowns, trade deficit, Wuhan virus, {What's Left of) Our Economy

First, let’s get the obvious out of the way: The U.S. economy took such a huge hit during the second quarter of this year that the 36.87 percent nosedive in output sequentially at an annualized rate reported this morning by the Commerce Departent was actually slightly good news. Specifically, it represented an improvement over the plunge estimated in last month’s advance read on the gross domestic product (GDP) – nearly 38 percent. Talk about a low bar!

(Just FYI, the above figures differ from what the Commerce Department itself has calculated and the media have reported. Mine are based on taking the second quarter annualized figure (in this case) of $17.2822 trillion in inflation-adjusted terms (the most closely watched of the GDP statistics) subtracting it from the first quarter figure ($19.0108 trillion), and then multiplying by four.)

Now for the less obvious: The GDP figures, which of course are historically awful because of the CCP Virus-induced shutdowns (and therefore maybe not very good measures of the economy’s underlying condition) keep producing noteworthy surprises on the trade front.

Specifically, last month’s initial Commerce Department GDP release pegged the inflation-adjusted trade deficit at $780.7 billion at an annual rate. This morning’s number was down to $760.9 billion. That’s a big revision, and it means that since the first quarter, the gap has narrowed not by the 3.71 percent estimated last month, but 13.76 percent – more than 3.7 times more! This shortfall, moreover, was the lowest since the second quarter of 2016’s $745.2 billion.

Interestingly, the main source of the improvement was on the goods side. Service sectors – which have suffered the most during the pandemic period because so many depend on human contact of some kind or other – saw their trade results barely budge from the previous estimates for the second quarter.

At the same time, let’s not overlook one stunning services trade-related result. As was the case with that previous second quarter services import figure of $372.7 billion annualized, this morning’s $372.8 billion result was the lowest in more than fourteen years, when the fourth quarter 2005 services import figure came in at $368.4 billion.

As for the rest of the components of inflation-adjusted U.S. trade flows (all annualized):

Second quarter U.S. total exports were revised up 0.60 percent, from $1.9316 trillion to $1.9431 trillion. That quarterly total was still the lowest since the first quarter of 2010 ($1.9026 trillion) – early in the recovery from the Great Recession of 2007-09.

Second 2Q total imports were revised down 0.30 percent, from $2.7123 trillion to $2.7040 trillion – the lowest since the third quarter of 2011 ($2.6970 trillion).

Second quarter goods exports were revised up 0.99 percent, from $1.3386 trillion to $1.3519 trillion. But that’s also the lowest such number since the first quarter of 2010 – which was exactly the same!

Second quarter goods imports of $2.3575 trillion represented a 0.37 percent upward revision from the previously reported $2.3487 trillion. That’s the smallest such figure since the second quarter of 2013 ($2.3381 trillion).

Second quarter services exports are now judged to have been $591.5 billion – just 0.12 percent lower than the first estimate of $592.2 billion – and the worst such total since the first quarter of 2010’s $586.8 billion.

And finally, that new second quarter services imports figure of $372.8 billion is virtually unchanged from the previous estimate of $327.7 billion. But again – it’s a nearly 15-year low.

For the time being, there’s one more second quarter GDP estimate to come from the Commerce Department – about a month from now. Then we’ll be getting into the reports for the third quarter, which is widely thought to have witnessed a strong but far from complete rebound in the economy. I for one can’t wait to see if those numbers produce any comparable trade surprises – and if so, what kind.

Im-Politic: The Surprising Politics of Mask-Wearing

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California, CCP Virus, conservatives, coronavirus, COVID 19, Democrats, Eric Garcetti, facemasks, Florida, Gavin Newsome, Im-Politic, liberals, lockdowns, Los Angeles County, masks, Miami-Dade County, Orange County, Republicans, Ron DeSantis, San Diego County, shutdowns, Trump, Wuhan virus

Republicans and conservatives are recklessly or stupidly or (INSERT YOUR FAVORITE DEROGTORY ADVERB) resisted orders issued by many state and local governments mandating facemask wearing in various circumstances to fight the CCP Virus more effectively. No less than Paul Krugman, one of The New York Times‘ uber-liberal uber pundits, says so. So do a number of Republicans – especially those from the nearly extinct Bush wing of the GOP. And special ire is reserved for Prsident Trump, who until July 11 refused to wear a mask in public, and who still hasn’t issued a blanket endorsement of the practice, and remains opposed to a federal mandate.

In the interests of full disclosure, I wear masks (as required by law) when I patronize indor businesses in Maryland (where I live), and would don them in crowded outdoor areas, too (not required). And I’d abide by any mask regulations elsewhere. Evidently scientific evidence on mask effectiveness has been mixed enough to prevent the World Health Organization (WHO) from encouraging their use until June 5. But these coverings make intuitive sense to me, and although I find tem sort of uncomfortable, they’re anything but unbearable.       

What I do find irksome is how the Mainstream Media and most of the rest of America’s chattering classes have decided that it’s only one half of the political spectrum that’s to blame for shortfalls in America’s mask-wearing record. Because evidence abounds that there’s lots of opposition, or at least indifference, to masks among Democrats and liberals, too. And the experiences of Florida and California – two big states whose governor have taken dramatically differing approaches to handling the CCP Virus – make the point nicely.

In case you’re ignoring national news completely, Florida deserves special attention because of the “ha-ha factor.” As in “Ha ha – Republican Governor Ron DeSantis had been bragging about how the Sunshine State had suppressed the virus with a light regulatory touch, but lately it’s become a major hot spot.”

Specifically, the indictment against DeSantis began with his refusal to close the state’s beaches for spring breakers and Florida natives who relish the shore, continued with his decision to reopen the beaches and the rest of the state after a shelter-in-place order had been in place fairly briefly, and has been reinforced by his own opposition to order mask-wearing state-wide, which is blamed at least in part for Floridians’ continually casual attitude about face coverings and related practices like social distancing, and the state’s recent spike in cases and deaths. (See here and here for examples.)

But if you look at the pattern of infection in Florida, it quickly becomes clear that Democrats as well as Republicans must be ignoring mask-wearing and distancing en masse. After all, the five Florida counties with the biggest numbers of registered Democratic voters are (in descending order) Miami-Dade, Hillsborough, Broward, Palm Beach, and Orange. Indeed, together, they account for nearly 45 percent of the Florida Democratic total. They also happen to be the state’s five most populous counties, adding up to just under 42 percent of its population.

Yet this Big Five has contained more than 54 percent of the 80,236 new CCP Virus cases recorded in Florida during the week ending yesterday. In other words, these Democratic strongholds punched significantly above their new cases weight. And Democratic voter champ Miami-Dade all by itself, whose population represents 12.65 percent of Florida’s total, is home to more than 24 percent of those new Florida virus cases. And with the exception of one tiny black majority panhandle county, it’s also Florida’s most lopsidedly Democratic county. So its even greater “out-perform” is all the more noteworthy.

One possible counter-argument is that these five populous Democratic counties are also more densely peopled than state counties with much smaller populations, where the virus’ impact has been slighter. But that sounds like an excuse to me. If Democrats are less selfish and/or stupid and/or reckless than Republicans, and therefore more committed to mask-wearing and social distancing and the like, then they should be making much greater efforts to tone down their recreational or social lives to slow the spread, and save the lives of their fellow Floridians.

Obviously, not every resident of these counties, or every registered Democrat, is ignoring the need to fight the pandemic. But the prevalence of Democrats in these counties is just as obviously signaling that many are.

California’s a somewhat different story – and an even stronger challenge to the narrative. Unlike Florida, where the Democratic-Republican ratio overall is only 1.06:1, in California, it’s Democrats outnumber Republicans by a 1.90:1 margin. Not surprisingly, the Golden State is governed by a Democrat – Gavin Newsom – and its lockdowns came much earlier, and were much more pervasive, than Florida’s. So Californians were by no means receiving the kinds of mixed messages about responsible behavior from their statehouse than DeSantis has been accused of sending.

But many of the state’s residents evidently decided to ignore them – and pretty quickly. For example, as early as late April, so many Californians were crowding the state’s beaches in violation of social distancing protocols that Newsom decided to close them. A little over a month ago, after major increases in the state’s CCP Virus case numbers, deaths, and deaths followed Newsom’s cautious reopening program, Newsom charged that the problem wasn’t a too hasty lifting of economic restrictions, but Californians’ irresponsible behavior:

“Simply put, we are seeing too many people with faces uncovered — putting at risk the real progress we have made in fighting the disease. California’s strategy to restart the economy and get people back to work will only be successful if people act safely and follow health recommendations. That means wearing a face covering, washing your hands and practicing physical distancing.”

Much of this incautious beach-going is surely going on in Orange and San Diego Counties, where the Democratic-Republican split is smaller than in the state as a whole. So even though both counties combined boast nearly 1.3 million Democratic voters, maybe all of theirDemocrats were well-behaved.

But no such case can reasonably be made for Los Angeles County, the state’s most populous by far, and a jurisdiction where registered Democrats outnumber registered Republicans by more than three-to-one – much higher than the state average. Here, the virus’ comeback has been strong enough that Los Angeles City Mayor Eric Garcetti is warning that he is “on the brink” of imposing another stay-at-home order. And for good measure, he laid much of the blame at the feet of the public:

“It’s not just what’s opened and closed. It’s also about what we do individually. It’s about the people who are getting together outside of their households with people they might know. It might be their extended family, it might be friends. They might think because they got a test two weeks ago that it’s OK, but it’s not… We have to be as vigilant right now as we were the first day…bring 100 percent of our strength the way we did the first or second month.”

Even before the debut of the the Trump face covering, Republican and conservative resistance to mask-wearing had been crumbling, and despite my continued uncertainty that the results will be game-changing it’s a trend I applaud.  And I suspect it would be accelerated if America’s Democratic and liberal leaders admitted that their supporters have considerable work to do on this front, too.