Fiona Harrigan and Peter Earle correct Anthony Fauci: Gov. Cuomo did not do it “correctly.” A slice:
Needless to say, there will be no recognition of the role that awful models played in the formulation of practices that extinguished so many innocent lives. Real-time evaluation of prediction models would allow policymakers and medical experts to arrive at better prvention methods if their established plan of attack was proven inaccurate––or at the very least, they could tailor the rigidity of policy responses to the evinced exactness of outcomes. But such an approach was clearly absent in New York State. In terms of predictions of hospital resources being utilized, the degree of error between forecasts and reality was so great that it could have counterbalanced the fervor with which nursing home residents were sent back to those facilities to preserve hospital beds.
All of this is playing well with a press corps that can work from home and is happy to stay locked down until there’s a Covid-19 vaccine. But New York’s job losses compared to those of even neighboring states show that Mr. Cuomo’s virus triumphalism has come at a frightful economic price. The damage is deeper than it needs to be, even if the virus doesn’t return to New York.
My GMU Econ colleague Dan Klein offers the make-’em-miserable hypothesis.
In short, the U.S. semiconductor industry may have temporarily lost its global manufacturing lead, but it’s still quite healthy – in many ways still globally dominant – and is investing billions of its own dollars to stay at or near the top in the future (something the companies’ shareholders seem to think they will accomplish).
China, on the other hand, remains years behind industry leaders in the United States, Korea and Taiwan, and it might never catch up, despite (or perhaps because of) boatloads of subsidies and industrial planning. In fact, a detailed 2019 report on China’s semiconductor industry by the United States International Trade Commission showed that it is precisely this planning and subsidization, along with human capital constraints and international competition, holding back China’s industry.
What delivered us from the undeniable racism of the past to the election of Barack Obama? The American creed—“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal”—inspired the laws that changed our social and legal structure to make the aspiration real.
We are witnessing an all-out assault on America, not only as it was but as it is and as we seek it to become. As a society, we have been slow to respond to those who propose to transform the U.S. We have not asked, as we should have: Transform from what to what? The answer to this question may be found in the bluest of American states—among them California and Washington—where the transformation is in full bloom.
The operating thesis of a significant segment of the leadership in these states is that America is a racist nation, governed by a horde of white male supremacists who use the pretense of equality to maintain their superior position. When asked for evidence to support the claim of white supremacy,” the only response I have been given is, “Look all around.” They hold this untruth to be self-evident.
