“Don’t Disrupt The Supply Chain”: The 9 States Still Resisting Stay-At-Home Orders
Dr. Anthony Fauci has been talking up a federal-imposed nationwide ‘stay at home’ order, though many might challenge the very legality or possibility that Washington would even have the power to impose it on states. Thus far Trump has resisted such a move, preferring to leave these questions to the governors.
Fauci told CNN’s Anderson Cooper at the end of this week of a federal order, “I don’t understand why that’s not happening.” He said, “If you look at what’s going on in this country, I just don’t understand why we’re not doing that. We really should be.”
Meanwhile much of the mainstream media has directed its ire at the last “hold-out” states which have “dragged their feet” on the issue. Many governors have expressed that they don’t see the need to take such a drastic step that could decimate their local economies, leaving social distancing to the ‘good judgments’ of counties, towns, and individuals.
Via The New York Times
For example CNN has headlined its story: “Why these 8 Republican governors are holding out on statewide stay-at-home orders?”
The nine states that have resisted shutting everything down are Arkansas, Iowa, Nebraska, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Utah and Wyoming.
Gov. Kim Reynolds of Iowa expressed this during a recent press conference, saying:
“What else are we doing by doing a shelter-in-place or stay-at-home order except for potentially disrupting the supply chain, putting additional pressure on the essential workforce, and making sure that we are considering how we bring that back up?”
In some instances like Iowa, schools and ‘non-essential’ businesses have been closed, while a state-wide ‘one size fits all’ approach has been resisted. Oklahoma has also come practically close to a stay at home order, without actually issuing the formal directive.
Map & data via The Guardian/Johns Hopkins CSSE
Nebraska Gov. Pete Ricketts also affirmed it should be a local and regional matter. He was cited in ABC News as saying, “We’re a different state than states like New York that are doing that. We are much earlier in the epidemic curve than New York.”
By the New York Times’ numbers, some 311 million people have been urged to stay home in at least 41 states:
In a matter of days, millions of Americans have been asked to do what might have been unthinkable only a month ago: Don’t go to work, don’t go to school, don’t leave the house at all, unless you have to.
The directives to keep people at home, which began in California in mid-March, have quickly swept the nation.
On Friday, Alabama and Missouri became the latest states to issue such orders. A significant majority of states, the Navajo Nation and many cities and counties have now instructed residents to stay at home in a desperate race to stunt the spread of the coronavirus.
This means at least 311 million people in at least 41 states, three counties, eight cities, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico are being urged to stay home.
Governors have said they’ve “agonized” over the decision, given the economic effects among the earliest states to give the directive were felt immediately.
Ohio for example just days after its governor essentially shut down the state, saw an immediate 600% rise in unemployment filings, with that figure climbing steadily since.
Fast forward to 2020 and public fears of COVID-19 have encouraged law enforcement to turn neighbors into government snitches.
Geekwirerevealed how the Bellevue Police Department has turned a public service app into a report on your neighbors app. You can report these incidents through the MyBellevue app on your electronic device or the MyBellevue portal.
“Police in Bellevue, Wash., are asking residents to report violations of the state’s “stay home” order online in an effort to clear up 911 lines for emergencies.”
A recent Associated Pressarticle revealed that people are all to happy to report on their neighbors.
“Snitches are emerging as enthusiastic allies as cities, states and countries work to enforce directives meant to limit person-to-person contact amid the virus pandemic that has claimed tens of thousands of lives worldwide. They’re phoning police and municipal hotlines, complaining to elected officials and shaming perceived scofflaws on social media.”
LA Mayor Offers Snitches Rewards For Reporting On Neighbors
According to a CBS LA4article Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti announced that the city would reward snitches.
Four businesses have been referred to the city attorney’s office for misdemeanor filings.
“You know the old expression about snitches, well in this case snitches get rewards,” Garcetti said. “We want to thank you for turning folks in and making sure we are all safe.”
When law enforcement encourages Americans to turn against each other we all lose. We become a nation controlled by fear.
“Suspected violations are tracked in the MyBellevue app and generate a heat map that shows where gatherings have been reported. The map shows hot spots of activity throughout the City of Bellevue, which is about 10 miles from Seattle.
The Bellevue Police Departments’ MyBellevue page claims police need the public’s help monitoring their neighbors.
“The vast majority of people in our community are following the “Stay Home” order and are being safe,” said Chief Steve Mylett. “But we need your help in reporting violations where there may be a large amount of people at risk.”
Report Gatherings: You may report gatherings here in violation of the State mandate to “Stay Home”
Contact Your Police Sector Captain: Got an issue affecting your neighborhood? Contact the sector captain for your area! A captain is assigned to each of three geographical sectors — North, South and West — and is ultimately responsible for issues taking place in their sector.
“Sometimes there is a need to implement extreme measures but often these crises are used as justification to implement surveillance and data collection measures for purposes beyond that crisis,” the ACLU of Washington’s Jennifer Lee said.
Reporting on your neighbor apps fly in the face of the freedoms Americans have enjoyed for centuries.
The MyBellevue mobile app can be found at the Apple store and Google Play store. Two recent reviews spell out how everyone should view apps that encourage Americans to report on each other.
Leo Rosas said,
start sarcasm “Yes daddy, step on me harder, oh yes take my constitutionally protected rights away!* end. YOU SOULD BE ASHAMED OF YOURSELVES! tell on your neighbors for leaving their house is BS you have no clue where they are going or for what. Since no crime has been committed in traveling, the police have no right to know where you go or why. There is no right to Abridge constitutionally protected free travel! Y’all were sworn to protect and uphold the constitution, covid doesn’t change that.”
Matthew Harphan said,
“I bet Hitler is rolling in his grave, super Jealous of your app used to violate civil rights through unconstitutional enforcement during Corona virus. You swore an Oath to Uphold and Defend the Constitution.. this is pathetic. I expect better from police. Despicable”
Now is the time to fight for our freedoms before a panicked nation willingly gives them away.
UN Blasted As “Absurd & Immoral” For Appointing China To Key UN Human Rights Panel
In what will no doubt be taken as a direct shot across the Trump administration’s bow, China has been appointed to a key United Nations human rights post.
Fox reports on Saturday: “China has been appointed to a panel on the controversial U.N. Human Rights Council, where it will help vet candidates for important posts — despite its decades-long record of systematic human rights abuse that the U.S. has said fueled the coronavirus pandemic.”
UN file image
The timing couldn’t be worse, given the soaring tensions and weeks-long war of words between US and Chinese officials, both floating bombastic charges against the other of intentionally spreading COVID-19.
President Trump has even taken to calling the deadly virus the “Chinese virus” – given as he said last month: “It could have been contained to that one area in China where it started.” He followed at the time by saying of China “certainly the world is paying a big price for what they did.”
Jiang Duan, minister at the Chinese Mission in Geneva, will represent Beijing on the U.N. Human Rights Council’s Consultative Group, alongside four other international representatives.
A Geneva-based human rights watchdog called UN Watch, meanwhile, slammed the development as “absurd and immoral” for the UN to allow China to have a hand in selecting human rights officials for the top body.
“Allowing China’s oppressive and inhumane regime to choose the world investigators on freedom of speech, arbitrary detention and enforced disappearances is like making a pyromaniac into the town fire chief,” UN Watch said in a statement, according to FOX.
The Human Rights Council, itself long subject of controversy – especially after the Saudis recently occupied a top spot on the bloc – examines freedom of speech, war crimes, and disappeared persons issues around the world.
The central irony is that China – itself long documented to have an extensive ‘political prison’ system and with more recent charges of “disappearing” doctors and scientists who have tried to blow the whistle over its COVID-19 response – will now have a key role in selecting the top human rights body’s make-up.
2 Passengers Die Aboard “Coral Princess” Cruise Ship Amid Another COVID-19 “Nightmare At Sea”
Two people on the Coral Princess cruise ship died overnight, after the ship reported 12 positive cases of coronavirus on Thursday, according to an announcement from the ship’s captain, who said the ship likely wouldn’t arrive in South Florida on Saturday as planned, but would rather make landfall on Sunday.
The captain didn’t say whether the deceased had tested positive for the virus, but he confirmed they were treated in the ship’s medical center.
“I know how difficult this news is to bear, but given the current situation, we remain committed to transparent and consistent communication with you,” he said. “This information will need to be shared with shoreside authorities and will become public, so I wanted you to hear it from me first,” the Captain said, according to a recording of the announcement provided to the Washington Post.
Appearing to follow a similar playbook to the Zaandam – another Carnival-subsidiary-owned cruise ship that docked along with another ship in Port Everglades this week after several passengers and crew had died of the virus, and the ship had been refused entry to several ports – Princess Cruises said guests who are deemed “fit to fly” are expected to start disembarking Sunday and will transfer straight to Miami International Airport to catch flights home. Meanwhile, anyone with respiratory symptoms who is not too sick to require immediate hospitalization, or who is recovering from being sick previously, will stay on the ship until they are cleared by doctors on board.
The ship is carrying 1,898 people, including 1,020 guests. It left San Antonio, Chile, on March 5, a week before the cruise line announced it would suspend operations after the debacle with the “Diamon Princess”, which became host to what was at the time the biggest outbreak outside mainland China after it docked in Yokohama.
At least 12 infected individuals who traveled aboard the “Diamond Princess” eventually died from their infections.
Around half a million Chinese people, some of them infected with coronavirus, entered America from December to February at the height of the COVID-19 outbreak, new figures show.
The numbers, which were obtained from Commerce Department and U.S. Customs and Border Protection records, were compiled by ABC News.
They show that in the three month period when coronavirus was raging across China, 759,493 people entered the U.S. from China.
This number included 228,000 Americans who were returning home, meaning that roughly half a million were Chinese citizens or people living in China who were visiting the U.S. for tourism, business or to see family.
This number of people were pouring into the U.S. while the World Health Organization was simultaneously insisting that no country should enforce any kind of border controls to stop the spread of the virus.
President Donald Trump restricted travel from China from February 2nd onwards, but that was too little too late because the outbreak (which was subsequently covered up by China for two months) had started in Wuhan in November, according to Johns Hopkins University.
According to Dr. Vinayak Kumar, an internal medicine resident at the Mayo Clinic, out of the total figure arriving in the U.S. from China, “a large number might have been infected at the time of travel.”
The numbers illustrate “how globalized our world has become,” he added.
However, infectious disease specialist Dr. Simone Wildes suggested that the virus outbreak was the price of globalization and that Americans would just have to get used to it.
“It shows that globalization is here, and we have to be better prepared to deal with the impact this will have on all our lives in so many ways,” he said.
The data also shows that “From December, January and February on travelers entering the U.S. from eight of the hardest-hit countries: 343,402 arrived from Italy, 418,848 from Spain and about 1.9 million more came from Britain.”
As we document in the video below, while three quarters of a million people, some of them infected with coronavirus, were entering America, political leaders were telling Americans to go out and congregate in huge crowds, including at Chinese Lunar New Year parades.
* * *
My voice is being silenced by free speech-hating Silicon Valley behemoths who want me disappeared forever. It is CRUCIAL that you support me. Please sign up for the free newsletter here. Donate to me on SubscribeStar here. Support my sponsor – Turbo Force – a supercharged boost of clean energy without the comedown.
Tucker Carlson On Fauci’s Quarantine Call: Pushing “National Suicide” While He Has Job Security
Tucker Carlson on Friday night blasted Dr. Anthony Fauci for his lately publicly urging the Trump administration to declare a federally-imposed ‘stay at home’ order across all 50 states, while also underscoring the FOX host still considers the White House coronavirus task force member and nation’s top infectious disease expert to be an “impressive person”.
“We’ve interviewed Dr. Fauci respectfully on this program, and we’d gladly do that again if he came back, and he will come back. He’s an impressive person. But that does not mean that he’s never wrong,” Carlson said. “On the question of this pandemic, Fauci has been wrong repeatedly.”
Carlson expressed he’s particularly bothered by Fauci’s recommendation of a national quarantine given that economic devastation would be pretty much assured. The night prior Dr. Fauci told CNN’s Anderson Cooper during a coronavirus town hall: “I don’t understand why that’s not happening.” He said further, “You know, the tension between federally mandated versus states’ rights to do what they want is something I don’t want to get into,” and added, “But if you look at what’s going on in this country, I just don’t understand why we’re not doing that.”
Carson slammed Fauci’s “extreme measures” as tantamount to “national suicide”:
“More than 10 million Americans have already lost their jobs. Imagine another year of this. That would be national suicide, and yet, that is what Anthony Fauci is suggesting, at least. Now, we’re not suggesting that Fauci wants to hurt America. We don’t think he does, he seems like a very decent man. But Fauci is not an economist or for that matter someone who fears being unemployed himself. Like most of the people around him. This is not an attack, this is just an observation. Fauci has bulletproof job security. He’s not thinking that way. He has the luxury of looking at the world through the narrow lens of his profession. He doesn’t seem to think much outside that lens.”
Carlson aired the clip of Fauci saying, “I know it’s difficult, but we’re having a lot of suffering, a lot of death. This is inconvenient from an economic and a personal standpoint, but we just have to do it.”
Tucker Carlson launches attack on Tony Fauci, but also says “to be clear we are not attacking Tony Fauci” pic.twitter.com/ebmORdxVgE
“Inconvenient? 10 million Americans out of work and staring at poverty. That is not inconvenient, as you just heard Dr. Fauci put it. It’s horrifying. In fact, it’s a far bigger disaster than the virus itself by any measure. Tony Fauci, decent as he may be, can’t see that because he doesn’t think it’s his job to see it. But even a doctor should be able to think beyond the models. Our response to coronavirus could turn this into a far poorer nation. Poor countries are unhealthy countries, always and everywhere. In poor countries, people die of treatable diseases. In poor countries people are far more vulnerable to obscure viruses, like the one we are fighting now. You want to keep Americans from dying before their time? Then don’t impoverish them. For all his credentials, his experience, his apparent personal decency, Dr. Anthony Fauci does not seem to understand any of this and we should never let someone like that run this country.”
Meanwhile much of the mainstream media has directed its ire at the last nine “hold-out” states which have “dragged their feet” on the issue.
Many governors have expressed that they don’t see the need to take such a drastic step that could decimate their local economies, leaving social distancing to the ‘good judgments’ of counties, towns, and individuals.
The nine states that have resisted state-wide ‘stay-at-home’ or ‘shelter in place’ orders are Arkansas, Iowa, Nebraska, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Utah and Wyoming — though it should be noted that Oklahoma has passed measures that come very close yet without giving a final formal directive.
GGI has come under massive attack for reporting these stories from so-called fact-checker organisations like NewsGuard who themselves are funded by Bill Gates to clear their name. The mainstream media owes GGI a big apology for slandering our name, failing to ask the basic question of ‘conflict of interest’.
The Complaint
The International Council of Jurists (ICJ) and All India Bar Association have moved the United Nations Human Rights Council seeking compensation from China for “surreptitiously developing a biological weapon capable of mass destruction.”
The complaint was penned by senior advocate Adish C. Aggarwala, the Chairperson of All India Bar Association and President of International Council of Jurists, in the backdrop of the spread of deadly coronavirus, which has claimed thousands of lives across the world.
“It is humbly prayed that the UNHRC may be pleased to enquire and direct China and to adequately compensate international community and member states, particularly India, for surreptitiously developing a biological weapon capable of mass destruction of mankind,” Aggarwala stated in the complaint.
The advocate demanded remuneration from China for inflicting serious physical, psychological, economic and social harm on the world. Aggarwala also pointed out the effects of the pandemic on the Indian economy, the imbalance in demand and supply of commodities and migration of marginalized people.
“The economic activity of the country is put on hold, in turn causing a huge dent on the local economy of the country as well as in general, the global economy,” the complaint added.
The complaint further claimed that China meticulously hatched a conspiracy to spread the coronavirus in the world and violated provisions of International Health Regulations (IHR), International Human Rights and Serious Violations of International Humanitarian Laws and UDHR clauses.
“It remains a mystery as to how the virus has not spread to all provinces of China but at the same time, has spread to all countries in the world. The speculation only increases the likelihood of the COIVD-19 being a carefully assembled biological weapon, aimed at crippling major countries in the world leaving only China as the beneficiary,” the complaint pointed out.
The complainant further claimed that the virus was developed in the Wuhan Virology Lab from where it was carefully deployed to affect a miniscule 0.001% of the Chinese population.
He said that the neighboring country deployed the coronavirus virus in a bid to control the economy of the world by buying up stocks from countries that are on the brink of economic collapse.
The Chinese government had deliberately censored information and hid the early warnings given by Dr. Li Wenliang, who was, in fact, reprimanded and initially punished by local authorities in China, he said.
“The government also did not sufficiently contain and curb the travel of infected persons from further contaminating the world.”
GGI Impact
It complaint states that the Chinese government has meticulously planned the execution and spread of the Novel Coronavirus and the same can be inferred in the way China has taken regard of the situation as also of the curious case of the spread of the virus all over the world. As pointed earlier, it remains a mystery as to how the virus has not spread in all provinces of China but at the same time, has spread to all countries in the world.
A group of Chinese scientists in Canada were accused of spying and were stripped of their access to Canada’s National Microbiology Lab, sometime in August 2019 and the said lab is known to contain some of the world‟s deadliest pathogens. These scientists then were sent to a High security biochemical Wuhan Lab, which is one of the world‟s most heavily guarded labs. That these scientists later developed the COVID-19 virus and released it to the outside world somewhere in the early days of December 2019 in Wuhan, from where the virus spread.
Further the complaint also blasts the mainstream media’s agenda for suppressing these facts being raised by prominent experts and influential personalities worldwide.
The purpose of developing such a potent and deadly virus remains a secret. However, there are solid evidences to show that the Chinese government intends to utilize the same to take control of the world’s economy. The hypothesis of biological warfare behind the global pandemic had already been raised by Russian experts some weeks ago.
Like any opinion that is slightly different from the official version of Western governments and their media agencies, the thesis was ridiculed and accused of being a “conspiracy theory”. However, as soon as the official spokesman for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the second largest economic power on the planet publishes a note attesting to this possibility, it leaves the sphere of “conspiracy theories” to enter the scene of public opinion and official government versions.
First page of the class action lawsuit brought by Larry Klayman against China for waging a Biological War. Find the full document here Source: Freedom Watch
In the lawsuit, Klayman argued that because China had already agreed by Biological Weapons Convention treaty to outlaw such weapons c. November, 1984, these actions cannot be official governmental actions of the People’s Republic of China and therefore, China cannot claim legal immunity from the class action lawsuit.
Klayman added in a statement, “There is no reason why the American taxpayer should, contrary to the establishment in Washington, D.C., have to pay for the tremendous harm caused by the Chinese government. The Chinese people are a good people, but their government is not and it must be made to pay dearly.”
Klayman is seeking $20 trillion in damages and has called for affected Americans to sign up at his website Freedom Watch USA and become part of the class action lawsuit. The case has been filed in a Texas Federal Court.
This Is Where The World Is On The “Corona Curve” At This Moment
Two weeks ago, we wrote that “with 1.7 billion people in the world under quarantine (and India about to make that 3 trillion) and desperate to find out where on the coronavirus “curve” they are to calculate how much more pain there is, JPM has made an attempt at a (very nonscientific) visual representation of where on the curve the main covid outbreaks in the world currently stand.”
Furthermore, this is how we laid out the good news/not so good news/bad news on March 24:
The good news, China has is now well into the recovery phase, although since any and every number out of China is a lie, we would ignore any reports that the covid pandemic in China is easing especially after a spate of recent indications that China is openly manipulating its infection numbers. Also good news: Korea is almost “over the hump”, and absent new clusters emerging in the next few days, should be in recovery.
The not so good news: both Italy and Iran are in the “late accumulation” phase. If they fail to halt the breakout at this point as the recovery phase approaches, it will get very ugly as much of the local population could then be infected. Behind Italy and Iran is the rest of Europe, with Spain, Germany, France, the UK all in the acceleration phase. The onus in on them to execute successful lockdowns.
Finally, the bad news: both the US and India are at the very start of the curve and things will get much uglier in the coming weeks before they get better.
Long story, short, this is how the global “corona curve” looked as of March 24.
Fast forward to today when we we again have some good and bad news, oh and a graphic update of where on the curve the world is.
First, the bad news: putting the past two weeks in context, back on March 24 there were roughly 350,000 global cases, with 15,000 deaths. As of today, there are now 1.2 million cases and rising by 80,000 every day, with roughly 67,000 deaths and rising by about 8,000 per day.
Now the good news: with every passing day, the world – most of which is currently on lock down – gets closer to the infection inflection point, and as the updated “corona curve” chart shows, all the nations that were in the exponential rise phase (acceleration), are now moving into the stage of infection growth rate slowdown (accumulation), suggesting that a pea for most countries is now just a matter of time, at which point the number of new cases will start slowing down aggressively.
This means that while US cases continue to soar, the light at the end of the tunnel is now visible. One caveat: the giant populations off Brazil, Indonesia and Phillippines are only now enterting the acceleration phase, meaning that the number of global cases could soar in the coming weeks.
Finally, here is how the virologists over at JPM summarize where the world currently stands:
From an epidemiology modelling perspective, an assumption that 0.1-0.2% of the global population (or 8-16 million people) is subject to initial exposure to infection and that ~10% of the susceptible are subject to being infected could be a highly conservative pandemic scenario, in our view. In the case of COVID-19, reported infections are now above 1 million, which suggests that over 0.1% of the global population (under the assumption of a 10% conversion from test to infection) could be in the infection group.
Three key things we have learned so far are that COVID-19 can be asymptomatic and have up to two weeks of latency, and that there are limited test-kit supplies. Thus, if we assume that reported infections represent only about one-third to one-quarter of total infections, 0.4-0.5% of the global population might be initially exposed to COVID-19. Considering a four- to five-week virus cycle and global efforts to reduce new contacts via strong social distancing and city lockdown, the global infection cycle, which currently looks to be in the middle of the exponential rise (acceleration), could be gradually moving into the stage of infection growth rate slowdown (accumulation).
Translation: finally some good news as the bank concludes it might be reasonable to “gradually map out the potential global curve peak within two months.” The risk is that any indication of a slowdown in new cases will also lead to an early relaxation of stricter social distancing practices, as this could drive an infection curve rebound, something which is already happening in Japan, where today there were a record 118 new cases . And since China has been rushing to reopen its economy to avoid an all out economic depression and did away with “social distancing” long ago, one can be certain that China’s real numbers are exponentially higher than the political propaganda that Beijing is reporting to the outside world
“If a government wishes to alleviate, rather than aggravate, a depression, its only valid course is laissez-faire—to leave the economy alone. Only if there is no interference, direct or threatened, with prices, wage rates and business liquidation, will the necessary adjustment proceed with smooth dispatch.”
The economic disruption caused by the government’s coronavirus clamp-down may lead to a deep recession or depression; arguably, it already has. President Trump’s $2.2 trillion relief package indicates what his answer to such an economic disaster will be: mega-spending on hand-outs and social projects. Trump is setting himself up as a modern version of Franklin D. Roosevelt (FDR) whose New Deal programs defined 20th century America by diverting it from a largely free-market path down a largely statist one. Trump wants to be an activist president — the type that history books applaud. Congress’s near-unanimous support of the relief bill means that no real brake will be applied on the speed or depth of federal spending. Few voices even question the need for government to lift up the economy by its bootstraps.
The Great Depression of the 1930s is often viewed as the gold standard for a federal response to an economic crisis. And, yet, FDR’s strong-man policies ushered in a decade of economic misery that did not end until the jolt of a world war in which over 400,000 Americans were killed.
Happily, a less bloody “success” story exists.
The financial analyst and historian James Grant offers the do-nothing alternative in his path-breaking book The Forgotten Depression. 1921: The Crash That Cured Itself.The crash of 1920-21 is called “the forgotten depression” because it has almost vanished from history books.
The main reason:
its lesson is anathema to the political and economic elites who derive power from controlling the marketplace.
Its lesson:
when the economy is melting down, do nothing because the free market will self-correct and naturally return to a healthier equilibrium.
Recessions — even deep ones called depressions — cause short term pain and damage; in the long term, however, such corrections allow for the healthy adjustment of overvalued assets and provide buying opportunities for the prudent.
Government interruption of this dynamic is useless, and worse. It is useless because government policies cannot prevent a depression. It is “worse” than useless because the policies can prevent a free-market recovery and needlessly draw out the economic pain. The “missed” recovery is never seen, of course. The 19th century French economist Frédéric Bastiat wrote eloquently of the “seen and unseen” costs of government intervention.
In the department of economy, an act, a habit, an institution, a law, gives birth not only to an effect, but to a series of effects. Of these effects, the first only is immediate; it manifests itself simultaneously with its cause — it is seen. The others unfold in succession – they are not seen: it is well for us, if they are foreseen. Between a good and a bad economist this constitutes the whole difference — the one takes account of the visible effect; the other takes account both of the effects which are seen, and also of those which it is necessary to foresee.
In order to perceive the “unseen” cost of government’s intervention into an economic crisis — that is, the missed opportunity for a natural recovery — it is invaluable to draw upon history for comparisons. In America’s Great Depression, Murray Rothbard observed, “The 1920 recession had adjusted itself within a year. There was no reason why the 1929 recession should have taken longer, for the American economy was fundamentally sound.”
What happened in 1920 that did not happen in 1929?
When World War I ended on November 11, 1918, A brief recession and a fast recovery followed. Then, a sharp deflation hit and lasted from January 1920 to July 1921. In a Wall Street Journal article entitled “The Depression That Was Fixed by Doing Nothing,” Grant explained, “Beginning in January 1920, something much worse than a recession blighted the world. The U.S. suffered the steepest plunge in wholesale prices in its history (not even eclipsed by the Great Depression).”
Indeed, the first year of the 18-month crash was worse than the first year of the Great Depression. Unemployment went from 4 to 12%; production fell by 21%. According to Grant,
“the nation’s output in 1920-21 suffered a decline of 23.9 per cent in nominal terms, 8.7 per cent in real terms. From cyclical peak to trough, producer prices fell by 40.8 per cent, industrial production by 31.6 per cent, stock prices by 46.6 per cent and corporate profits by 92 per cent.”
“The successive administrations of Woodrow Wilson and Warren G. Harding met the downturn by seeming to ignore it — or by implementing policies that an average 21st-century economist would judge disastrous….” The government did not lower interest rates nor did it ramp up the public debt. Under Harding, the government raised interest rates and paid down the debt. Average money wages were allowed to fall by 19% in one year. “ Grant continued, “Yet by late 1921, a powerful, job-filled recovery was underway.
This is the story of America’s last governmentally unmedicated depression.”
The government’s laissez-faire attitude may seem surprising because Wilson, a Democrat, was not a fan of the free market. During World War I, Wilson had been an activist president with his hand clenched around every lever of control. His inaction in 1920 has been grotesquely ascribed to “a stroke of luck.” In October 1919, toward the end of Wilson’s second term, he had a debilitating stroke; his wife Edith assumed stewardship of her husband’s office and decided which items were important enough to bring to his bedside. Many matters experienced benign neglect.
In March 1921, when Harding was inaugurated, the economy was already turning around after fifteen months of decline or stagnation. The Republican Harding was an open advocate of laissez-faire, and he did nothing to hamper the ongoing cycle of recovery. Harding and Andrew Mellon, his Treasury Secretary, reduced federal spending, paid down the debt, and lowered tax rates. A Washington Post article entitled “Curing a Depression through Austerity” commented on the effect of Harding’s economic policies. “The unemployment rate fell from 15.6 percent to 9 percent (on its way to 3.2 percent in 1923), while constant-dollar output leapt by 16 percent. After which the 1920s proverbially roared.” By the summer of ‘21, the depression had reversed itself, America proceeded into the Roaring Twenties with a surging economy and happy-go-lucky consumerism.
How specifically did a recovery occur without government “assistance”? A significant part of the answer lies in the incredible power of the price mechanism to motivate human behavior. Which is to say, people want to prosper, and they will respond quickly in the presence of opportunities to advance themselves. “America was on the bargain counter,” Grant observed in his book, and Americans love a bargain.
Grant poured over financial pages of the 1920-21 period, especially those of the Wall Street Journal, as a way to take the economic pulse of the time. Among the insights Grant picked up: “Stocks were commandingly cheap, the Journal’s capitalist source concluded. ‘Scores’ of companies were valued in the market at less than their working capital — as if the business itself, apart from the net cash, was worthless. The shares of ‘large numbers’ of industrial companies were selling at “one-third of their respective intrinsic values’.” It was time for Americans to buy solid value at basement rates.
The preceding analysis is simplistic, but it sketches one of the most remarkable episodes in America’s economic history: a depression that cured itself. Unlike the Great Depression, it did so rapidly and without the political disruption of massive social programs and huge transfers of wealth.
Trump has chosen the path of FDR and the Great Depression rather than Harding and 1920. Rothbard referred to these past economies as “fundamentally sound.” Whether a similar statement is true of today’s economy can be hotly debated, and the prevalent presence of government is a complicating factor; the short-term misery of the correction will be deeper than it needed to be. What the 1920-21 depression demonstrates, however, is the salutary effect of allowing economic consequences to play out; what the Great Depression demonstrates is the incredible damage of doing the opposite. And, if the current economy is not as solid as in the past, perhaps this is all the more reason to abandon the one factor most responsible for destroying it: government intervention.
Nevertheless, instead of “doing nothing,” the Trump administration will “do everything.” The money supply will balloon and cause run-away inflation; resources will be misdirected, preventing free-market allocation; the market will be centrally coordinated according to a bureaucratic vision; interest rates will be driven artificially low; spending and debt will explode; unsustainable investments will be bolstered by tax funding…. In short, the depression will grind on to the misery of many and to the profit of a well-connected few.
Trump refers to the campaign against the coronavirus as a “war.” Like FDR, he is prepping to be a wartime president with the attendant legacy of glory. Or so the history books will read.
In this quest, the narrative of FDR serves Trump well. We can only hope that, unlike the Great Depression, it will not take an actual war to break the cycle of depression being spun.
Watch Live: White House Coronavirus Task Force Delivers Saturday Briefing
As the number of confirmed COVID-19 cases confirmed in the US races toward the 300k mark, President Trump and the rest of the White House coronavirus task force will deliver their latest daily briefing on Saturday.
Watch live below. Trump tweeted that it’s set to start at 330pmET…
I will be holding a News Conference at 3:30 P.M. at the White House. Thank you!
