A quick note published on April 19, 2020:
I originally published the following very short piece on March 22 with the intention to expand it significantly. However, a few days later, President Trump gave a press conference using the same words, “the cure is worse than the disease.” Having not had time to explain my thoughts further and not wanting to get lumped in with Trump’s line of reasoning (or lack thereof), I pulled the post. However today I re-instate it as it was.
While I have little doubt that lockdowns have significantly reduced the spread of the Covid-19, I wholly stand by view that shutting the economy and effectively imprisoning the majority of the population will be, over the long-term, far worse than the effects of the virus. This was true when the sophisticated “models” showed a worse case scenario of over 2 million Americans dead and it is even more true now that the models predict far fewer than 100,000 dead.
I, by no means, belittle the human tragedy brought on by nature. But the human tragedy being brought on by humans is far worse.
The original post (published March 22, 2020):
History teaches us that societies survive pandemics, even with horrifying loss of life. Societies do not survive economic collapse.
I write this as the U.S. economy grounds to a halt with nearly all states issuing mandatory lockdowns. The financial markets meanwhile are melting down, worse than in the 2008-2009 financial crises. The Federal Reserve has already, in about a week, exceeded its past extraordinary monetary stimulus. Congress is negotiating a stimulus package that dwarfs 2009’s.
And there is no end in sight.
We are past the time where social distancing will be effective. Perhaps this would have worked in December, or January, or even February but it will not work in March or April or May. The virus spreads too robustly and we have no technology to detect asymptomatic carriers in sufficient numbers.
We’ve lost the battle for containment. Unless we allow the economy to restart immediately, we will lose the war for society. Losing this war will prove far more painful than even the worst-case scenario of 2 million Americans dead.
More to come…