States Rights

The tension between the individual states and the federal government, over who has authority over what aspects of society, has existed since the constitution was ratified.  The short version is that the states have constantly losing ground to the expanding federal government, ever since states rights reached their peak at the signing of the tenth amendment.  Traditionally Republicans have favored maintaining as much authority at the state level as possible, while Democrats have been in favor of shifting as much of that authority to the federal government as possible.

Now that there is a Republican president, we hear less about states rights, because neither side of the aisle benefits as much from advancing their traditional position.  But this week, we have seen a big shift in how the Democrats are approaching that issue, with two separate compacts being agreed to by multiple states, to work together outside of the federal government, to coordinate the re-opening of America as the corona virus lock-down restrictions get lifted.  This is in direct defiance of the President's assertion that he has the authority to determine when the lock-downs get lifted.  I was originally encouraged by this conflict between the states and the federal government, as it weakens the overall power of government (think checks and balances) and would lead to getting things open sooner.

I favor easing the restrictions progressively over time, but starting immediately, since the peak has passed.  And two entities competing over who has authority creates a race for one of them to pick a date that the other has to respond to.  If someone throws out May 31st, it will be hard for the other to extend past that, putting them in a weak position, but they could push it forward, so that it will be visible that they were the one responsible for re-opening the economy.  This probably leads to an earlier release than otherwise would have happened.  I still think that is possible, but most of the talk is still about things over a month out, which I think is ridiculous.  It is unnecessary and unsustainable, both economically, and politically.  There will be a rebellion before then, and rightfully so.  And the economic damage increases at an exponential rate over time, just like the virus did.

The longer the lock-downs are in place, the more force will be required to maintain them, especially as it becomes more obvious that they are not necessary.  That application of force is the main problem, both it its implementation, and in the precedents that is sets.  We are already seeing all sorts of abuses of power that escalate as the situation deteriorates, and those are more concerning to me than the virus ever was.  I would prefer to risk losing 2% of our population, to losing a higher percentage of our freedom.  There are all sorts of ways to illustrate that freedom is more valuable than life, but in this context, the best one might be to point out that even the most oppressed beggar in Asia has life, but very few of earth's inhabitants have freedom.  And scarcity is one measure of value.  That scarcity will only increase, based on the direction we are headed, further increasing the value of the freedoms we have.

Big Decisions

I continue to be more worried about the response to the virus, than the virus itself.  While it is still spreading, it is slowing, which is a positive sign.  Fewer new infections each day than the day before, same with hospitalizations.  But that has not led to the loosening of any of the virus related restrictions.  Hopefully soon.  Trump had a conversation with reports about how big of a decision it was, to determine when to re-open the economy, the biggest decision he has ever had to make.  I could make the case that it is the biggest decision anyone has ever had to make.  If we look at other big individual events, like D-Day, "only" 150K people were involved in that, and 3.5K died, at least that day.  Many more over the next year of that invasion of Europe, but that was still small in comparison to 300M Americans, which could lead to up to 2M deaths if the virus is allowed to spread undeterred.  Determining when to re-open the country is a big decision, but only because the government got so involved in shutting it down in the first place.  That is a lot of responsibility, and it didn't have to be that way, and still doesn't.  Re-opening can be as voluntary as closing down should have been in the first place.  And the decision making can and should be done at more local levels, by states and counties, because they each have different situations, so they won't be prepared at the same time for the same steps.  Trump could encourage areas that are less impacted to loosen restrictions, while leaving the specifics to local officials, and could override certain decisions making certain aspects of the response voluntary, or declaring certain things essential, and immune to local regulation.  Church is the main one that comes to mind, as we are seeing the most conflict there, not because of the virus, but the response.  He could also ban all enforcement of the health recommendations, telling people to follow them at their own discretion, but that they are responsible for the results.

It occurred to me while watching the county health directive video, put together by the county's health officer, who is "responsible for the health of all citizens in the county" that it would be good to have an official who was responsible for the freedom of all citizens of the county, who could weigh the recommendations of the health officials against the other interests that are impacted.  Then I realized we do, or should.  They are called mayors, county supervisors, governors, judges, etc.  Their job is to protect our freedom, and they seem to have all been intimidated by the media into playing along with the "we should save lives from the corona virus at all costs" narrative.  I came across a statistic that the government usually values a single human life at around $5M, which makes a $25K hospital ventilator that only saves 1 in 6 of the patients that are put on it, a bargain.  But if we value a single life at $5M, and just spent $9T in the last month, so far, on the shutdown, we better have saved 2M lives to make it worth it.  Ironically 2.2M was the number being thrown around when the federal government started taking this seriously, but I think that is inflated, and could have been easily lowered by earlier intervention.  The total cost has yet to be scene, but I am confident that it would be best to start loosening restrictions in areas that are past the peak of infections, even though I recognize that risks increasing infections going forward.  There is a balance that can only be found by trying.  Different states can try different things, and learn from each other, as that is the benefit of the decentralized power of federalism.

I just hope that we can see certain restrictions loosened soon, which should relieve some of the tension of the situation.  The instability and high tension is what has me concerned that it will lead to bigger problems.  Certain social distancing techniques can continue with little cost, but we need people to get back to work, for their own good.  Hopefully they can grow from the positive aspects of the recent pause to normal life, and recover from the negative aspects.

Corona Virus in the Moment

We are about two weeks into the Corona virus lock-down, and while we have far surpassed my initial estimates of 50K infections and 1K deaths, we are still nowhere near the millions that certain people were predicting.  Some people want to lift the restrictions, while others want to tighten them,  Some are convinced it will eventually infect nearly everyone, and we are just slowing it down.  But viewing the progress in foreign countries, whether Europe or Asia, indicates that there is a light at the end of the tunnel, as things seem to be improving there.  Auburn never took the shelter in place orders as seriously as our more densely developed neighbors, but so far seems no worse for the wear.  I am much more concerned about the precedents set by enforcing those orders than I am about the spread of the virus, but both are potential problems, that have the possibility of getting way out of hand.

Personally, I have been focused on installing my own solar panel system for the last few weeks, but now that it is up and running, I will have a bit more time on my hands to try to use wisely while stuck at home.  And I am fortunate enough to have the resources to stay home for the time being, and just make preparations for the future, as we all try to determine what that will look like.  I still think is in likely that things will improve within a month, but I am planning for the eventuality that it does not.  The garden becomes the next focus, as things warm up, as an alternate source of food.  Might be time to expand the chicken flock as well, since that has been an under utilized resource.  But those things are longer term investments, that we have to make it through the short term in order to benefit from.

Current totals are 270K infection and 7K deaths.  At this point I think we may see 1M infections, and 50K deaths, but it is hard to know who to trust, as both the media and the government are incentivized to exaggerate the extent of the issue.  It will be interesting to see with hindsight how many people had minor infections early on, without realizing it.  Lots more people think they have COVID-19 than actually do (<80% of tests are negative) and lots of other people thing they have already had it.  It will be really interesting to see the blood test results when searching for anti-bodies in a random selection of the population.