Climate Alarmists Ignore Facts

Climate change alarmists routinely cite increasing incidence and severity of heat waves, hurricanes  and tornadoes. Facts do not stand in their way.  

More Evidence of Mask Failure

 Not one EXPERT has admitted that these mask mandates in Austria utterly failed

Recipe for Slower Growth in One Simple Chart

Want to see why our economy is not growing faster? In one easy chart?

You can replicate this on your own if you like. Divide your portfolio into higher and lower yielding investments. Now keep moving money from the former to the latter and see what happens. 

Work Doesn't Pay

Go back to work and take a pay cut? In Washington State the jobs would have to pay you $122,000 in order for your family to be better off than not working. No wonder so many jobs go begging. People can't afford to work!

Put a Stake in the Mask Mandate Myth

 Can we once and for all put an end to myth that wearing masks stops a virus from spreading? 

Printing More Money Tackles Inflation. Really?

A recent Newsweek poll found these results. Countering this level of stupidity is a pretty daunting task. And gives you some insight into why politicians keep telling what would seem to be obvious lies. 

The survey found 63 percent of respondents said they agree—with 42 percent saying they "strongly agree"—when asked if the federal government should issue new stimulus checks to tackle inflation.

How Odd. Less Qualified Students Don't Perform As Well In College

Any economist could tell you what will happen when you make less qualified people perform any task. 

Capitalism is Failing?

But the truer you are to capitalistic principles the better off you are. 

We Don't Have Revenue Problem. We have a Spending Problem

Federal tax collections are near an all-time high. 

Middle Class Families Who Work are Not Better Off Than Those That Don't

 After taxes and transfer payments form government, middle class working families are not any better off than those who are working little or not at all. Talk about a disincentive to work!

Paying People Not To Work=Less Work (SURPRISE!)

This study from researchers at Harvard and the University of Exeter brings facts to the arguments about whether government handouts are productive or not. 

During a randomized trial conducted from July 2020 to May 2021, researchers assigned 2,073 low-income participants to receive a one-time unconditional cash transfer of either $500 or $2,000. Another 3,170 people with similar financial, demographic and socioeconomic characteristics served as a control group. The trial was funded by an anonymous nonprofit.

Participants earned an average of about $950 a month and had $530 in unearned income (e.g., food stamps). About 80% had children, and 55% were unemployed. Over 15 weeks they were surveyed about their physical, mental and financial well-being. Forty-three percent also agreed to allow researchers to observe their bank balances and financial transactions.

The top-line result: Handouts increased spending for a few weeks—on average $26 a day in the $500 group and $82 a day in the $2,000 group—but had no observable positive effect on any individual outcome. Bank overdraft fees, late-payment fees and cash advances were as common among cash recipients as in the control group.

Handout recipients fared worse on most survey outcomes. They reported less earned income and liquidity, lower work performance and satisfaction, more financial stress, sleep quality and physical health, and higher levels of loneliness and anxiety than the control group. There was no difference between the two cash groups.

These findings contradicted the predictions of 477 social scientists and policy makers the researchers surveyed. That’s not surprising. Most liberal academics and politicians believe government handouts are the solution to all problems. If transfer payments were a ticket to the middle class, the War on Poverty would have succeeded long ago.

The researchers posited that perhaps the cash payments weren’t generous enough to generate a positive result. “Receiving some, but not enough, money may have made their needs—and the gap between their resources and needs—more salient, which, in turn, may have made them feel distressed,” they write.

“Needs” is a subjective term. The theory is that low-income people who got handouts became more stressed when they realized they still couldn’t afford everything they “needed,” or more likely, wanted. If that’s true, simply giving people even more cash would surely lead to the same problem.

More plausible, the payments made work less rewarding, which reduced feelings of personal well-being. Cash recipients reported less earned income and felt worse about their work. It’s no surprise that people who received a large percentage of their monthly income for doing nothing were less motivated to work and less satisfied with their work. Earning a paycheck can give workers a sense of personal agency that encourages them to make better financial and health decisions. Receiving a handout may do the opposite.

Why Are Americans So Sad?

 Why are Americans so sad? Possible answers:

1. The more you have the more obsessed you are with what you don't have.

2. Easy solutions with a pill mindset (think weight loss)

3. Pharmaceutical companies benefit

The Final Verdict on Mask Mandates

Could there be any stronger evidence that mask mandates did absolutely nothing to alter the spread of Covid?  And yet there are still people defending them -- for reasons that have nothing to do with health.

The Real Racial Statistics of Police Shootings

BLM and their media friends often cite the fact that police shootings disproportionately involve black men more than white men. What they avoid is the data below that show blacks are disproportionately more likely to commit crimes that lead to police confrontations. If I were to point out that crime disproptionately occurs in cities with Democrat mayors, they would be quick to point out that crime is correlated to population density and large cities are disproptionately governed by Democrats. Similarly, police shootings are correlated to the incidence of crime, and blacks are simply more likely to be involved in crime.

Mask Data is Overwhelming

 The data on mask mandates is pretty conclusive -- and one sided. If masks had an effect, those red lines below would be higher than the black one. They're not. Not that anyone at the CDC or the Biden administration pays attending to data anymore. 

Reversing Energy Independence

 After 15 years of moving toward and achieving energy independence, the Biden administration is moving us in he opposite direction. 

Proof How Disconnected From Reality the Population Is

It's always been obvious that the majority of our fellow countrymen are woefully out of touch with reality, but once in a while you come across data that dramatically confirms it. Imagine thinking that 20% of the population earns more than a million dollars. Or that 30% are homosexual and 41% are black. In fairness if you watch TV and advertising a lot, it's easy to see how you might get that impression. 

Covid "Safety Precautions" Do Nothing to Make You Safer

It has been documented that Democrats are still more likely to stay at home than go out to work, shop or eat at restaurants . They are more likely to still be wearing masks and requiring school children to do the same. They obviously believe that these actions somehow reduce the instance of Covid infection, but the charts below say otherwise. As we continue to find out, all the hysterical "safety precautions" may make you feel better about yourself, but they do not actually make you safer. 

Mask Have Nothing to Do With Health

When California lifted its mask mandate, Santa Clara County insisted on keeping theirs. The infection rates in Santa Clara are identical to those without masks. What should that tell you about the effectiveness of mask mandates. They have nothing to do with health and everything to do with political posturing. 

Mask Mandates Did Nothing Positive. Case Closed. Let's Not Make the Same Mistake Again.

We have listened to the lockdown governors tell us to "mask up" for two years. Two years of wearing an appurtenance that does absolutely nothing to stop the virus. This is not exactly new information. Prior to turning masks into a political symbol, public health organizations did not recommend wearing masks.  

"There is no specific evidence to suggest that the wearing of masks by the mass population has any potential benefit. In fact, there's some evidence to suggest the opposite in the misuse of wearing a mask properly or fitting it properly," Dr. Mike Ryan, executive director of the WHO health emergencies program.

Then why were we subjected to useless torture? The most benign answer I can can give is that politicians suffer greatly from the DO SOMETHING Disease. Faced with a problem, they believe the worst possible decision is to do nothing, They knew -- or should have known -- that until some vaccine was developed there was little they could do to actually stop the virus. What to do? Masks have an intuitive appeal. After all surgeons wear them (yes, to reduce the transmission of bacteria, which are many times larger than a virus). They may be useless, but the pubic will see us doing SOMETHING. Like the War on Poverty. It didn't do much about actual poverty, but at least we were seen trying to DO SOMETHING. 

Now that data on the mask mandate is overwhelming obvious and negative, can we officially acknowledge reality so that we don't repeat the same mistake again the next time there is a new virus? 

Do You Avoid Stairs Because of the Risk?

A new report from the CDC, looks at the risks of Covid:

Among 1,228,664 persons who completed primary vaccination during December 2020–October 2021, severe COVID-19–associated outcomes (0.015%) or death (0.0033%) were rare. Risk factors for severe outcomes included age ≥65 years, immunosuppressed, and six other underlying conditions. All persons with severe outcomes had at least one risk factor; 78% of persons who died had at least four.

These are roughly the odds of dying from falling down stairs. Do you avoid taking stairs because they're too risky?

"Corporate Greed" or Basic Economics

 

Representative Pramilla Jayapal (Socialist, WA and whackadoodle chairman of the House Progressive Caucus), blamed “corporate greed” for recent price hikes at Starbucks.

Must be greed. Couldn’t be that the price of coffee has risen dramatically, right? Ms. Jayapal gets awarded an “F” in economics.

CDC's Own Data Shows Masks Don't Stop the Virus

 The CDC's own data shows that masks mandates don't do anything to stop the virus. Why do they keep putting out the mask myth? 

The Poor are Getting . . . Oh, wait.

 

Oxfam’s new report rails against a “40-year period of neoliberalism, during which economic policy choices have been purchased by rich, powerful and corrupt elites”.

But let's not let reality intrude. 

The Media Drives Polarization

 

 

This is pretty clearly driven by the media. The more time you spend amongst a group (like listening to Fox News CNN), the more “extreme” opinions you will develop. Examples that come to mind are racial “oppression”. You might start out thinking that racial discrimination is an unfortunate condition that has been improving slowly over the last 60 years. But if you spend all your time with CNN or MSNBC or Twitter you are now convinced that it is the hidden force behind everything in the world. If you spend your time with Fox News or Rush Limbaugh (RIP), you will become convinced that racism is mostly a fabricated tool used by Democrats and racial groups to gain power and spoils. You might not see anything wrong with Billionaires, but if you spend your time at MSNBC, you will soon grow to actually hate them and resent their success. You might not feel particularly strongly about abortion, but if you spend a lot of your time with Fox or at church, you will start to believe abortion really is taking someone’s life.

To the extent that it makes you aware of pertinent facts, this is a good thing. Maybe there’s more racial discrimination than we see ourselves. Maybe what we’re being told by government about masks and vaccines is really false. But then it also reinforces more questionable issues. Trump would have won the election but for fraud. Global warming is causing more extreme weather. The country was founded on racism in 1619.

I get frustrated because the leftists look at cold facts and ignore/deny them. I imagine they look at people like me and are frustrated that we are not more swayed by the strength of their emotional appeals to “fairness”.

If I’m right about this, I don’t see this changing much. Democrats seem to be out to purge the few “moderate” types left in their party. We’re going to see a wave of GOP primary candidates trying to unseat incumbents who aren’t sufficiently devoted to Trump. The only silver lining I can see is that the drift seems to be more toward the conservative camp than the radical left camp. But then, if we take over all three branches in 2025, we’ll be back to listening to the media create hoaxes about whomever is President at that time (I don’t even want to think about how bad it would be if it were Trump).

Is there a way out of this?

Manipulating Public Heath Officials

 From the wonderful book Thinking Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman (written 10 years ago).

One of the experiments he did was pose this question .

Imagine that the United States is preparing for the outbreak of an unusual Asian disease (!), which is expected to kill 600 people. Two alternative programs have been proposed. If chosen

1. 200 people will be saved
2. There is a one-third probability that 600 people will be saved and a two-thirds probability that no one will be saved.

A substantial majority chose A even though the expected number of people saved is identical.

Then he asked the same question, but put it this way:

1. 400 people will die
2. There is a one-third probability that nobody will die and a two-thirds probability that 600 people will die.

Framed this way, a substantial majority chose B. The two are obviously identical in outcomes, yet framing it about deaths versus lives-saved radically changed the selection.

He went on to say, that he was even more disturbed when he posed this to a group of public health officials he was speaking to. They chose the same way. As he put it, “It is somewhat worrying that the officials who make decisions that affect everyone’s health can be swayed by such a superficial manipulation.”

 I’d love to know what they think about this now that we’ve seen pubic health officials be manipulated for real.

Update: Government Subsidies Drive Prices Higher

 An update on the relative price change of different sectors. As always, it is goods and services that are subsidized by government that are increasing much faster than the average and dramatically more than goods and services in the private sector that are not subsidized. 

Rule of reference: The more government is involved, the higher will be the price. 

Liberalism IS a Mental Disorder. Proof.

Conservatives often joke that liberalism is a mental disorder. Now Pew Research provides evidence that this is not a joke. 

Tornado Activity Indicates the Climate is NOT Warming

The minute any element of severe weather appears, the Biden administration claims it is a result of global warming. This is just pure fantasy. If climate warming is linked to severity of tornadoes, this chart indicates that the climate must NOT be warming. 

Public Debt=Lower Growth

The chart below should not be surprising to anyone who understands economics. But it needs a bit of explanation. It is not debt itself that produces low growth rates. It is what the debt is used to finance that creates low growth. You would not see this same relationship with regard to corporate debt. That's because private debt is usually incurred to finance economically productive projects. Public debt is usually used to finance economically UNproductive projects -- like transferring money to less productive people and "green" projects that have negative ROIs. 

Marginalism and Ignorance and Covid

Two very good and short articles about marginalism --  and how people ignore it's importance.  

The first --  Marginalism - Econlib -- discusses the concept generally. How people confuse "Total Utility" with "Marginal Utility", and the enormous costs of that misunderstanding.

The second--  Maximum Vaccination - by eugyppius - eugyppius (substack.com) - focusses on how so many resources are being spent on trying to vaccinate a high percentage of the population, which will has very little effect on the per capita cases of Covid. The chart below summarizes low correlation between population vaccination rates and Covid. 

Useless Mask Mandates

Two neighboring states. One chose to force it citizens to wear masks. The other didn't.  Can you tell which is which? 

natural immunity is more protective than vaccine related immunity

Very good research that shows natural immunity is better than immunity from one of the vaccines. SARS-CoV-2 Vaccines, Breakthrough Infections and Lasting Natural Immunity (cure-hub.com)

The data exists and multiple studies show that reinfection in people with natural immunity is rare. Data also suggests that natural immunity is more protective than vaccine related immunity

Mask Up? Why?

Once again we are being told by EXPERTS that wearing masks will stop the spread of the Corona virus. If so, shouldn't virus activity be far less in Japan where virtually everyone wears masks than it is in Sweden where very few people wear masks? But it's not. As Dr. Fauci said last year before he was corrected by the politicos, masks are mostly symbolic. They provide little if any protection against organisms as small as viruses.  They do keep much larger bacteria in check, though, which is why surgeons wear them. 

Socialism Saps the Energy From the Economy

The track record of socialism is so consistent, one wonders how it can retain such widespread interest among people who haven't suffered it. 

Data on the Ineffectiveness of Masking

So maybe the mask crusaders can explain why Peru, Czech Republic and Los Angeles have such high death rates despite having the earliest mask mandates? And why Sweden that didn’t have mask mandates di so much better.

It’s almost as if there are other factors at work that trivialize any impact masks might have (if any).  

The Minimum Wage Does Almost Nothing for Low Wage Workers

Mark Perry points out that doubling the minimum wage does not provide much net financial benefit to low wage earners. 

Lockdowns Do Not Control the Virus. Evidence from Europe

Last year the Fauci Oracle said that Europe was managing Covid better than the US because they were employing more widespread economic shutdowns. If so, why wasn't the mortality rate different there? Why do more widespread shutdowns not result in lower death rates? Any statistician can answer that question for you. easily.

Mask Mandates Unmasked

 More research confirms what we (and the CDC) have always known:

“Mask mandates and use are not associated with slower state-level COVID-19 spread during COVID-19 growth surges."

The CDC has known this for years, but kept quiet to protect politicians. 

“There is limited evidence for their effectiveness in preventing influenza virus transmission either when worn by the infected person for source control or when worn by uninfected persons to reduce exposure. Our systematic review found no significant effect of face masks on transmission of laboratory-confirmed influenza.”

The fact is that THE SCIENCE governors continually said they were following is not science. It was simply an effort to obscure the fact that they have no power to control a virus. They never like to admit that they don't possess god-like power, so they invented a Kabuki Theater of masks, hand washing, sanitizing, arbitrary and selective restrictions (you may attend BLM rallies, but not go to church). 

The Unaffordable Healthcare Results

After the "Affordable Healthcare" Act passed, health insurance became LESS affordable and LESS available.  

Of course, not all states suffered this way. Six states were able to get Obamacare waivers. In those states premiums actually dropped by around 10%.

Thank you Democrats.

More People = More Abundance (Economist versus Biologists)

Contrary to what "experts" and media say, we are NOT running out of resources or being threatened by over population. 

We found that humanity is experiencing what we term Superabundance—a condition where abundance is increasing at a faster rate than the population is growing. Data suggests that additional human beings tend to benefit, rather than impoverish, the rest of humanity.

The Simon Abundance Index 2021 - HumanProgress

The Simon Abundance Index is measured in time prices. To calculate a commodity’s time price, the nominal price of a commodity is divided by the global average nominal hourly wage. Over the last 40 years, the average nominal price of the 50 commodities rose by 51.9 percent, and the global average nominal hourly wage rose by 412.4 percent. So, the average time price of the 50 commodities fell by 75.2 percent.

 

Minimum Wage = Lower Total Compensation

 This study published in the Harvard Business Review by three economists demonstrates that when companies are forced to pay wages higher than the market price (e.g. minimum wage laws), they will adjust other labor factors to compensate. In fact their conclusion is that the higher minimum wage results in lower worker compensation. 

in the stores that experienced a minimum wage hike, workers on average worked fewer hours per week, were less likely to qualify for benefits, and had less-consistent schedules. These factors corresponded to an average 11.6% decrease in total compensation for every $1 increase in the minimum wage.

https://hbr.org/2021/06/research-when-a-higher-minimum-wage-leads-to-lower-compensation

Mask Mandates Do Not Stop Viruses

 A very detailed statistical statistical analysis by two biology professors on "Mask mandate and use efficacy in state-level COVID-19 containment" came to this conclusion:

In summary, mask mandates and use were poor predictors of COVID-19 spread in US states. Case growth 282 was independent of mandates at low and high rates of community spread, and mask use did not predict 283 case growth during the Summer or Fall-Winter waves

No Evidence that Lockdowns Work Part 3

If there is one chart the sums up the effectiveness of mask mandates, lockdowns and other restrictive measures, it is this one. Lockdowns may give you the illusion of DOING SOMETHING (and they clearly give government control over your life), but they do NOTHING to change the course of a virus. 

 

No Evidence That Lockdowns Work -- Part 2

 The states that locked down their economics, obviously had the worst economic performance, but those costs are not even offset by lower mortality rates. NY, NJ, MI, IL and PA had way above average excess death rates. One might have been tempted to cut these governor some slack a year ago, but this has been quite evident for some time. They simply do not want to admit how wrong they were -- and continue to be. 

No Evidence That Lockdowns Work

If lockdowns are effective in stopping the virus, then shouldn’t those states that lock down have fewer deaths per capita than those states that didn’t lock down? Yet government continues to play up this hoax. Perhaps because stopping the virus isn't really their objective?

Climate Change in the Holocene Era.

I don’t pretend to be a climatologist, but I can read graphs. Even if the climate has been in a warming trend the last few decades, why should we think that would be terribly alarming or unusual? Climate alarmists like John Kerry say we have only a few years left to "save the planet from destruction". But even their apocalyptic forecasts are far below the temperatures of a few thousand years ago. 

The Big Factor Contributing to the "Wealth Gap"

 The media is constantly telling us about the "wealth gap" between white families and black families. Does the chart below suggest a factor other than racial discrimination why this might be?

Biden's Plan to Drive Corporations Away from the US

 Joe Biden is proposing that the United States become the worst place in the world to domicile a corporation. Even a first year economics student can tell you what will happen if that occurs. Capital is more fluid today than ever, and it moves from where it is poorly treated to where it is well treated. 

Media LIes About Forest Fires

The media keeps fanning the flames of climate change, claiming that forest fires are increasing because of increased CO2. Just another lie in service of an agenda. 

Poverty Around the World is Decreasing Rapidly

Thanks to the media drumbeat of Fake News, people have no idea that poverty is decreasing around the world. 

1%ers Are Not Paying Their Fair Share

The "One Percent" are not paying their fair share. They are paying as much as the bottom 95% of taxpayers do. 

The Poor Are Getting Poorer? No, They're Not

According to the rhetoric from Democrats, the poor are getting poorer. The problem, as usual, is that this ignores the facts. Source: https://www.humanprogress.org/the-simon-abundance-index-2020/ 

The time price denotes the amount of time that a person has to work in order to earn enough money to buy something. To calculate the time price, the nominal money price is divided by nominal hourly income. (We got the former from the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, and the latter by combining the World Bank’s GDP figures with Conference Board’s estimate of annual hours worked.) The average time price of 50 commodities fell by 74.2 percent. That means that for the same length of time that a person needed to work to earn enough money to buy one unit in our basket of 50 commodities in 1980, he or she could buy 3.87 units in 2019. In other words, the average person saw his or her level of abundance rise by 287.4 percent.

Figure 1: Time Price Toolkit (1980-2019)

White Male Privilege

Mark Perry serves up this chart showing the income of American white men relative to female non-white women. 

Economics Is About The Unseen. Politics About the Seen

 Zaldy Dandan made this excellent observation

Economics is mostly about “that which is not seen.” In contrast, politics deals with “that which is seen,” and so, all around the world, when it comes to economic issues, many politicians are in favor of the “obvious”:

• Wages are low? Increase them.
• Prices and rents are high? Control them.
• Money should stay here so it can “circulate.”
• Exports good, imports bad.
• Trade deficits are bad.
• Raise taxes to collect more revenue.
• Natural disasters are good for the economy.
• People first before profit.
• “You didn’t build that!”
• “You don't necessarily need a choice of 23 underarm spray deodorants or of 18 different pairs of sneakers when children are hungry in this country.”
• Sincere, well-meaning, highly educated leaders with integrity and political will, a la Plato’s philosopher-king, can solve our economic problems through planning and legislation in close consultation with experts and scientists.

White Privilege

Clearly your income is influenced by your ethnicity. Just not as the media portrays it.