They are your deadly enemy.
More reports of members of Congress & their aides dumping stocks that would tank and buying shares of companies that would soar in a global pandemic.
Downright evil.https://t.co/qje6cXbKZt pic.twitter.com/TUcwWnjaDT
— jordan (@JordanUhl) March 23, 2020
COVID-19 is a very serious problem that should be taken very seriously by individuals, organizations, businesses and governments but there are ways in which the public may get an exaggerated sense of the threat:
1. In general: Once a dominant narrative is formed (in this case: Covid-19 as huge threat) reporting will be more inclined to cover things that fit that narrative & ignore/dismiss things that seem to contradict it: The evidentiary standards for reporting that fits the narrative will be lower than for reporting that contradicts it.
2. Reporting focuses on *expected* problems rather than currently existing problems: Most hospital capacity reporting is about expected problems.
3. Ordinary events are now portrayed as evidence for the threat, eg:
a) Many hospitals run at near capacity in normal times and will routinely be over capacity but now this problem may be attributed to COVID-19.
b) Rare cases (eg of young people suddenly getting violently ill & dying from COVID-19) that in normal times are ignored (such rare deaths also happen with eg the flu and other viruses) now make the front page & are portrayed as more common than they are.
4. A large increase in the number of cases sounds scary but becomes much less so when this is because of an increase in the number of tests rather than an increase in the number of cases.
5. Death rates can seem very high when everybody who died from other causes but also had COVID-19 is counted as a COVID-19 death (to be sure, this problem is not that widespread, but it is what happened in Italy).
6. The extent of the problem is not put into context by comparing it to other problems. So while e.g. 500 COVID-19 deaths may sound very scary, if in that same period 10,000 people died from the flu it may seem less so.
7. Exponential growth rates are assumed to continue at that rate instead of quickly levelling off.
8. An excessive reliance on models that are only as good as their assumptions.
9. Relying on experts whose past pandemic predictions were way off.
10. Governments taking enormously far reaching steps to fight the problem give rise to a “Well, they wouldn’t take such extreme measures if the problem weren’t that extreme” attitude.
Tommy is joined by defense attorney Michael Harris to discuss the pros and cons of Private Membership Associations. Many doctors and patients, tired of bureaucracy and red tape, choose to find ways to interact without government involvement saving time and money.
Disclaimer: This episode was recorded a week ago, so all coronavirus related discussion is outdated.
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Jon Utley, one of the most dedicated and principled pro-freedom activists in the nation, passed away yesterday. For 30 years, Jon was in the forefront of the antiwar movement since he spearheaded a group to oppose President George H.W. Bush’s war against Iraq. Jon was a rare voice of reason and grace in conservative circles, patiently pointing out how foreign warring was destroying American freedom – as well as wreaking pointless havoc abroad. He was also a generous supporter of groups ranging from the Future of Freedom Foundation to Antiwar.com, where his columns trounced bloodthirsty politicians of all stripes.
Jon consistently raised issues that other Washington activists would not touch. In a 2005 Antiwar.com column headlined “Torture, the GOP, and the Religious Right,” Jon wrote: “The idea that America is ‘good’ and therefore need not show a decent respect to the opinions of mankind runs very deep among those now ruling Washington.” Many folks nowadays are unaware of how much support and acquiescence the Bush torture regime received from Washingtonians of most political stripes. Jon was opposed atrocities regardless of which political party was committing them.
I was always happy to see Jon at gatherings or conferences in Washington, Las Vegas, or wherever else he and I happened to coincide. Jon was almost a novelty in Washington: when he asked how you were doing, he actually gave a damn about the answer.
A few years ago, I asked him why he was attending an ACLU awards dinner touting a left-wing keynoter who didn’t seem truly concerned with individual liberty. Jon replied, “So that somebody will care when government agents take us away.” His own life was profoundly altered when government agents took his father off to the Gulag.
Jon was born in the Soviet Union in 1934. His mother was Freda Utley, a bestselling author who helped awaken Americans to the Soviet peril in the 1940s and beyond. Ms. Utley also wrote one of the first books published in America on the horrendous sufferings in postwar Germany – “The High Cost of Vengeance,” published by Regnery in 1949, available at this link. His father, Arcadi Berdichevsky, was murdered in Stalin’s Gulag in 1938. Return to the Gulag, a film on his father’s fate, has been shown on PBS and on other venues around the nation. Reason.com described the movie: “In 2004, Utley embarked upon a search to learn of his father’s fate. This documentary traces Utley’s journey through former labor camps and cities in northern Russia and his final uncovering of the horrible truth at the dreaded camp city of Vorkuta within the Arctic Circle.” You can watch the 28-minute documentary here.
Here is a video made during a Committee for the Republic celebration of Jon’s 80th birthday:
Here is a nine-minute tribute video last year from the American Conservative – which Jon helped found and served as Publisher and kept alive through perennial budget squeezes: “Jon Utley – A Lifetime of Courage” featuring Kelley Vlahos, John Henry, Roger Ream, and others:
That American Conservative dinner last year was “black tie optional.” Jon sent me a note a few weeks before the event: “Would you like to come, a comp ticket, to our GALA? I told them you might trim your beard, you really do sometimes look like an anarchist.”
Jon was sufficiently conservative that “look like an anarchist” was probably not an unvarnished compliment. In honor of Jon, I happily trimmed my beard for that event. I even sported a nice suit. Admittedly, a USA Today editor notified me that the knot in my necktie failed her inspection.
Jon Utley made the world a better place. He was someone who would sound the alarm when government agents took anyone away, regardless of whether he supported their cause. He will be sorely missed as America deals with the next deluge of threats to our peace and prosperity.
My good friend Jon Basil Utley died on Friday. Jon had been fighting lymphoma for a few years. I believe he was 87. He was one of the sweetest men I ever met. For the last several years, he served as Publisher of The American Conservative magazine and website. Last year, he wrote a brief history of trying to organize conservative opposition to US interventionism.
I met Jon in 1991 when he was organizing the Committee to Avert a Mideast Holocaust, against the first Gulf War. He was very supportive of my efforts in starting Antiwar.com in 1995, and became our first major donor in 1999, and continued to support us generously over the years. He was so genuinely appauled by US wars and committed the latter part of his life to fighting them. He wrote occasionally for Antiwar.com, his articles are available here. Jon was given a lifetime achievement award by The American Conservative last year.
Jon was the son of famous conservative writer Freda Utley and Russian communist economist Arcadi Berdichevsky, a close associate of Joseph Stalin. Jon was born in Russia in the early 1930s. In 1936, Stalin’s police arrested Arcadi. Unable to aid him, Freda left soon after for England with young Jon, using British names and passports. There, she mobilized important leftist friends like George Bernard Shaw, Bertrand Russell, and Harold Laski to try to find Arcadi and even sent a letter directly to Stalin. She received two postcards from Arcadi reporting his five years’ sentence to an Arctic Circle concentration camp for alleged association with Trotskyists. In 1956, she learned he had died on March 30, 1938. She later became a fervent anti-Communist and became an important figure in the US conservative movement.
Jon grew up around prominent conservatives, and became an important part of the movement. When he became disgusted with America’s wars, he used his position within the movement to try to turn them against the wars. Although frustrated with his attempts, he continued to attend meetings and speak out for peace for many years. Jon would often call me and tell me about these endeavors. I usually saw Jon in person about once a year when he would visit California.
In 2004 Jon travelled to Russia and learned that his father was executed by firing squad for leading a hunger strike at the Vorkuta prison labor camp. He was “rehabilitated” posthumously in 1961 under post-Stalin rehabilitation laws. Jon told me that he was able to see files in Russia that included photos of his father and the actual execution order signed by Stalin himself.
I am having a hard time writing this. I spoke with him a few weeks ago and realized how ill and frail he was getting. I had been trying to reach him every day for the last two weeks and feared the worst. I will so miss talking with him. I will post additional tributes to him in the coming days.
Here is Jon’s biography from The American Conservative website:
Jon Basil Utley is publisher of The American Conservative. Utley is a graduate of Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service with language studies in Germany and France. He first worked for American International Group insurance in Cuba, Venezuela and Colombia. Later he became a foreign correspondent in South America for Knight Ridder newspapers and for 17 years, starting during the Reagan Administration, was a commentator about third world issues on the Voice of America. He managed an oil drilling partnership in Pennsylvania and later worked in real estate development. He has written for the Harvard Business Review, Washington Post, and other papers. He was formerly founding editor of The Bogota Bulletin, associate editor of The Times of the Americas, and a contributing editor to The Conservative Digest. He was born in Moscow.His father, a Russian trade official, was sent to the gulag and executed at the Brick Quarry in Vorkuta for being one of three leaders of a hunger strike. His mother, Freda Utley, became a prominent anticommunist author and activist.
Jon Utley asks me a question at my Committee For Responsible Foreign Policy speech in 2018.
The wonderful and heroic John Basil Utley, life-long anti-communist and antiwar crusader, and publisher of The American Conservative has died after a long illness.
We will update this entry with further details when they become available.
This is truly a sad day for all people who love liberty.
Rest in peace my friend.
This is why people that work in U.S. health care are trying so hard to keep the number of cases down. When medical systems become overwhelmed, they have to make heartbreaking decisions about who lives and who dies.
The Covid-19 crisis is fueling a race to find solutions for the problem while also shutting down large parts of the economy and giving governments enormous economic powers. Except for wartime mobilization, this situation is unprecedented. In this article I discuss fifteen major potential negative consequences of the crisis.
1. Small, independent businesses will decrease as a share of the economy
Small, independent businesses will tend to be the first to collapse because:
· they typically have smaller reserves than big companies
· they typically have less access to stimulus funds
· they and/or their customers remain on (partial or complete) lockdown while giants such as Walmart & Amazon remain open (especially online) & take over their business
2. More people become dependent on government
Meanwhile, millions or tens of millions of people will lose their jobs or encounter great economic difficulties, and will turn to the government for help.
3. More businesses become dependent on government
Many smaller or medium sized businesses that do survive will have had to rely on government assistance. Dependence on aid and other privileges may persist for some time and to some extent, and government loans will have to be paid off.
4. Public-private partnerships benefit big business
The technological and institutional solutions to the Covid-19 problem will involve lots of ‘public-private partnerships’ that benefit well connected businesses and that will create new industries or transform existing ones. Through government contracts and regulations these businesses may come to form de facto cartels, keeping out or crowding out independent competitors.
5. A public-private surveillance industry and control system emerges
To keep track of virus spread governments need data. Businesses will develop new, more advanced and comprehensive tracking and collection systems that can be used by governments. Said governments will use those new tools to not just contain and control the virus but also the people.
6. Revolution through crisis
For decades governments, businesses, NGOs, voters have been talking about economic measures against climate change. These talks are slow, the negotiations tense and difficult, the changes small & incremental— lots of talk, little action. But now with Covid-19 we are fundamentally restructuring the economy in a matter of weeks, with little to no talk and all action.
7. A supply crunch followed by a demand crunch = not good
Due to the virus’s first confirmed cases happening in China and due to the drastic measures the Chinese government took to contain it, supply chains to Western economies were severely disrupted. These seem to be recovering but now Western economies are shutting down, causing a huge demand crunch. In a hyper-leveraged economy and a very uncertain economic environment, this is a recipe for disaster.
8. Borders become a thing again
The problem with viruses is that they spread. Border controls of people and goods can slow or halt that spread. So borders —both between countries and within countries— will become a thing again, and trade and travel will become less free.
9. The world economy becomes more protectionist, less free
Western countries —especially under pressure of a pre-existing anti-China lobby that is seizing its opportunity and is painting China as the Great Enemy that brought this plague upon us— will erect more barriers to trade with China, will try to decouple more, start making more goods (especially pharmaceutical & medical) at home or in other countries.
10. Protectionism creates a more dangerous international situation
A reduction in trade and the further politicization of existing trade cause political tensions between countries. With less economic interconnectedness the direct economic and social costs of conflict decrease which means there are lower barriers to war and war-like actions.
11. A big geopolitical shift away from the US and toward China could take place
If the US keeps its economy shut down for much longer and if China’s economy continues its recovery from the Covid-19 crisis, and if China continues to assist other countries in dealing with the pandemic, the US will lose economic and political power while China gains it. Expect the US to put up some serious economic, political and military resistance to this development. Few empires go gentle into that good night.
12. Anti-China rhetoric and policies will go up by a lot
For several years now politicians, media and think tanks have been increasing their anti-China rhetoric. Now faced with an economic collapse and looking for scapegoats the Trump administration will pull a Hillary: Blame a foreign power for his own failure.
China and China alone will be blamed for the Covid-19 crisis, despite the lack of evidence for the accusations, the considerable evidence to the contrary and ample evidence for the Trump administration’s own mishandling of the Covid-19 crisis and the disastruous effects it has had. Those people and special interests with a pre-existing hatred of China will seize the opportunity this climate provides them with.
Like Russophobia, Sinophobia will soon become a key part of the bipartisan foreign policy consensus.
13. High unemployment & high economic uncertainty create a volatile domestic situation
Institutions will come under pressure; scapegoats will be sought and found; demagogues find willing audiences; people become more open to radical solutions; people’s and businesses’ increased dependence on government means those governments will have more power to wield; divisions within the country can be created or fueled and exploited; war against perceived domestic or foreign enemies may come to be used as a tool to unite a country, give its people a sense of purpose and a way to channel their anger & frustration.
14. Emergency work and life changes become permanent
To contain the virus, protect themselves and the people around them, a lot of individuals, families and businesses are making big changes: Working from home, home schooling and online education, various forms of social distancing. After the virus threat has receded and life has gone back to normal, some of these changes will endure because more people will now have experience with these practices and because a better infrastructure will have been built up to facilitate them.
15. A new narrative rationalizing the transformed political economy emerges
There was no public process of discussion, analysis, reflection and justification that formed the intellectual basis for the fundamental changes made to the political economy. The public was not given an opportunity to vote on whether they want this new system or not. Instead, these changes came in the form of direct emergency actions taken in the middle of the crisis or as a result of more indirect macroeconomic developments that the crisis and the measures taken to combat it gave rise to over time.
But although there was no prior process of deliberation and justification of the new system, the public will have to come to see the new system as legitimate. And so a new narrative or framework that rationalizes the new system will form and be communicated to the public by politicians, media, economists, social scientists, think tanks, schools and other major influencers of public opinion.
Koen Swinkels
This article first appeared on Foreign Policy Follies.
