Monthly Archives: April 2020

The individual, the state, and the virus

Posted on April 17, 2020 by Arnold Kling

What is the role of the state in the virus crisis?

Posted in virus crisis | 17 Comments

Who is going to want to dance?

Posted on April 17, 2020 by Arnold Kling

[I wrote and scheduled this post before I found out that the White House has released its plan for Opening up America Again. I could pick apart the plan, but instead I will just stick with what I already wrote, … Continue reading →

Posted in virus crisis | 17 Comments

Discussion of regional heterogeneity

Posted on April 17, 2020 by Arnold Kling

The definition is that region Y has many more deaths per million than region X. Examples include:

Posted in virus crisis | 14 Comments

Contrarian on infrastructure

Posted on April 17, 2020 by Arnold Kling

[This is one of those posts that is not about the virus crisis, although it wouldn’t be at all difficult to talk about pandemic response preparation as infrastructure] Eli Lehrer writes, There is no evidence that America’s infrastructure is crumbling … Continue reading →

Posted in Setting Economic Priorities | 4 Comments

3DDRR update

Posted on April 16, 2020 by Arnold Kling

This site, which I use for updating, does not include the 4000 deaths that NYC added with a lag. The 3DDRR is at 1.30, but excluding New York it rose to 1.36, the highest since before Easter. For those of … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 10 Comments

General update, April 16

Posted on April 16, 2020 by Arnold Kling

1. On the issue of enclosure vs. outdoors, a reader alerted me to an article from 2009, by Richard A. Hobday and Jown W. Cason about the Spanish Flu outbreak, which seems to support my idea of treating patients in … Continue reading →

Posted in Tyler Cowen is my Favorite Blogger, virus crisis | 12 Comments

Creating a timeline

Posted on April 16, 2020 by Arnold Kling

Cato’s David Boaz had a good idea. He put together a timeline that shows how the private sector started to act on the virus before the government did. I would like to expand the timeline, particularly to contrast the CDC, … Continue reading →

Posted in virus crisis | 51 Comments

Stock buybacks

Posted on April 16, 2020 by Arnold Kling

[Note: askblog had an existence prior to the virus crisis. I still schedule occasional posts like this one.] A commenter asks, Could you write an explanation of the financial / economic logic behind stock buybacks, vs. lowering debt and/or paying … Continue reading →

Posted in financial markets | 23 Comments

3DDRR upate

Posted on April 15, 2020 by Arnold Kling

Today it is at 1.28, and outside of New York it as 1.32 Apart from New York, the whole Acela corridor, from Massachusetts to Virginia, today saw their cumulative death totals rise by more than 10 percent. I am seeing … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 5 Comments

General update, April 15

Posted on April 15, 2020 by Arnold Kling

1. Robin Hanson writes, to the extent pandemic policy is driven by biomed academics, don’t expect it to be very flexible or abstractly reasoned. And my personal observation is that, of the people I’ve seen who have had insightful things … Continue reading →

Posted in PSST and Macro, The Wisdom of Robin Hanson, Tyler Cowen is my Favorite Blogger, virus crisis | 16 Comments