Tag: news

Does City’s Painting of Messages on City Streets Require It to Give Equal Access to Other Messages?

Various cities are painting “Black Lives Matter,” “End Racism Now,” and similar messages on city streets. Does that create a “public forum” where everyone would have the same right to do so?

No. In Pleasant Grove City v. Summum (2009), the Court recognized that a city is free to put up certain monuments in its parks—and to accept selected monuments from private groups—without having to put up or accept other monuments. Such monuments are government speech, and the government is free to discriminate based on viewpoint in choosing what messages to affirmatively promote this way:

A government entity has the right to “speak for itself.” “[I]t is entitled to say what it wishes,” and to select the views that it wants to express.

In the words of Rust v. Sullivan (1991), on which Pleasant Grove relied,

When Congress established a National Endowment for Democracy to encourage other countries to adopt democratic principles, it was not constitutionally required to fund a program to encourage competing lines of political philosophy such as communism and fascism.

And that’s true of all viewpoints that the government chooses to express, however controversial or uncontroversial.

Now when it comes to private speech that merely uses the streets, sidewalks, or parks (rather than seeking to erect permanent or semipermanent structures there), the government must indeed allow all viewpoints and indeed speech of all kinds of content (setting aside the traditionally recognized exceptions, such as true threats). “Granting waivers to favored speakers (or, more precisely, denying them to disfavored speakers) would of course be unconstitutional,” and may be declared so whenever “a pattern of unlawful favoritism appears.” (Thomas v. Chicago Park Dist. (2000).) For a good example of that, see Hoye v. City of Oakland (9th Cir. 2011), which held unconstitutional a city policy restricting speech on city sidewalks around abortion clinics; the policy was ostensibly content-neutral, but the court found that the city enforced it in an unconstitutionally content-based way:

The City’s policy of distinguishing between speech that facilitates access to clinics and speech that discourages access is not content-neutral…. “[T]he fundamental principle behind content analysis is that government may not grant the use of a forum to people whose views it finds acceptable, but deny use to those wishing to express less favored or more controversial views.” … To distinguish between speech facilitating access and speech that discourages access is necessarily to distinguish on the basis of substantive content. Asking a woman “May I help you into the clinic?” facilitates access; “May I talk to you about alternatives to abortion?” discourages it. Telling a woman, “It’s your right to have an abortion!” facilitates access; telling her, “If you have an abortion, you will regret it!” discourages it.

Here, the City has conceded, both at oral argument and through Captain Toribio’s deposition, that its policy is to permit speech on one side of a controversial public debate, but not on the other. The City’s implementation and enforcement of the Ordinance is therefore indubitably content-based.

But when it comes to the government’s own speech, the government can pick and choose what to say. And that includes permanent or semipermanent items on sidewalks, on streets, or in parks, such as monuments, plaques, street signs (including for streets that have ideologically laden names), traffic control signs, electronic message signs put up by the Transportation Department, or ideological messages written on the pavement.

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‘Defund the Police’ Should Include Federal Cops Too

Protesters demanding policing reforms are understandably focused on increasing accountability and slashing police budgets at the state and local levels.

But the call to “defund the police” should not ignore the large and growing presence (and expense) of federal law enforcement in recent decades—and would-be reformers should be careful not to hand-over more power to federal agencies that will be more difficult to hold accountable than local departments.

Federal police spending has skyrocketed since the 1980s, notes Chris Edwards, director of tax policy studies for the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank. The federal government’s police budget includes includes grants for local and state police departments, though that is a small portion of overall spending. The vast majority funds traditional federal law enforcement offices like the FBI and Drug Enforcement Agency, as well as the Secret Service, Customs and Border Patrol (CBP), and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms.

According to data from the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis, which tracks spending on all government programs, federal police spending averaged about 0.05 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) during the 1980s, and climbed to about 0.1 percent of GDP on average during the 1990s. Over the past decade, however, federal spending on police has averaged 0.26 percent of GDP.

“This spending has risen much faster than state‐​local police spending in recent decades,” writes Edwards. “That is a big concern if you believe in federalism and decentralized government.”

It’s true that state and local governments spend a larger portion of their budgets on policing. It was a member of the Minneapolis Police Department who brutally killed George Floyd last month, and it was local and state police who were responsible for many—but not all—of the subsequent displays of police brutality aimed at protesters. It makes sense that local policing is more in the spotlight at the moment.

But that doesn’t mean federal police forces should be exempt from reforms. Indeed, their growth in recent decades suggests they could be due for some budget-trimming too.

Unfortunately, the opposite seems to be happening. The Justice in Policing Act, which was introduced by House Democrats this week, would expand the role of the federal government in doing police work—and would hike federal police spending by $900 million.

Worse, perhaps, is the fact that the bill’s most high-profile police accountability measure—ending the legal regime of “qualified immunity” that protects officers from being held civilly liable for damage or injuries they cause while on the job—applies only to local law enforcement and not to federal officers that are part of the FBI or CPB, for example.

An expanded, unaccountable role for federal law enforcement is hardly the appropriate response to problems with state and local police forces. As Derek Cohen, the policy director for Right On Crime, a conservative police reform advocacy group based in Texas, explained on Twitter, federal intervention in local policing issues should be a last resort. And a top-down approach is unlikely to encourage reforms.

To put it another way, if you think forcing a citywide police department to change its ways is tough, wait until you’re dealing with the federal government.

Slowing the growth of spending on federal police and shrinking the mandate given to federal law enforcement is, in many ways, a separate project from the one currently underway in cities across the country. But if Congress wants to get involved in fixing what’s wrong with America’s police departments, it should not turn a blind eye to federal law enforcement budgets that are directly under its control.

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It’s Millennials Vs Boomers: A Look At The Retail Investors Shaping The Market

It’s Millennials Vs Boomers: A Look At The Retail Investors Shaping The Market

Tyler Durden

Tue, 06/09/2020 – 17:25

Over the past few months, a lot of attention has fallen on retail investors who at times appear to have taken over the market, as institutional investors have been slow in jumping in on the “hated” rebound from the March 23 lows, with many commentators lumping all retail investors in the same bucket.

However, as Goldman’s Tony Pasquariello points out, within the retail cohort there is a clear demographic divide: “the Boomers are selling equity mutual funds and ETFs every single week … that totals $73bn of YTD outflows. In stark contrast, the younger investor base is very active in single stocks … in many regards, retail traders today are as active as they’ve been at any point since ‘99/’00.”

Why the variation? A somewhat amusing summary of investment “fundamentals” was provided by @Keubiko today who summarized the key investment terms of the 1950-2019 period vs 2020 as follows:

1950-2019:

2020:

Joking (maybe) aside, DataTrek’s Jessica Rabe shares a somewhat more more take in answering the question whether millennials will fundamentally alter US societal capital allocation in favor of their personal values rather than simply maximizing returns, with the COVID-19 Crisis providing a useful case study into how this cohort invested as markets swooned.

Here is what Rabe found:

We use data from Robintrack, which tallies the number of accounts that hold specific stocks at no-fee trading app Robinhood, well known for its predominantly millennial user base. The app, already popular with this group, saw a flood of investor interest during the recent volatility and added +3 million funded accounts this year as of early May, half of which the company reported were first-time investors.
While the common narrative suggests millennials will invest differently than their baby boomer parents, here’s what the data actually shows:

#1: If most millennials invested based on their environmental beliefs, Ford would not be the top position among Robinhood users as it is today. In fact, 3.5x more accounts hold F – which makes its profits by selling polluting pickup trucks – as they do clean-energy electric car-maker Tesla. Yes, we understand Ford is trying to move to an eco-friendly future but it certainly is not there yet. Not even close…

Moreover, the top 20 most-held names at Robinhood include major airlines, such as American Airlines (#3), Delta (#4) and United Airlines (#12). Jet engine manufacturer GE is the second most held stock, and airplane manufacturer Boeing comes in 13th. As with Ford, an odd choice for a demographic cohort keenly aware of the environmental damage caused by high-altitude carbon emissions.

Our take: the lack of environmental, social and governance (ESG) friendly names at the top of the Robinhood leaderboard contrasts with the notion that millennials will only back companies that align with those characteristics. For example, the number of accounts that invested in Ford has doubled since mid-March, while those for AAL, DAL and UAL grew by 8.7x, 9.7x and 14.2x respectively.

“Big Tech” companies are also among the top held positions despite having well-known social (i.e. diversity, political issues, etc.) and governance (i.e. monopolistic) problems: Microsoft (#9), Apple (#10), Uber (#24), Twitter (#26), Facebook (#30), and Amazon (#31). In fact, the largest ESG ETF (iShares ESG MSCI USA ETF or ESGU) is currently ranked 4,147th on the Robinhood leaderboard, despite receiving significant inflows overall this year. Just 300 accounts hold ESGU on the online broker versus +890k for Ford.

#2: Millennials followed the age-old maxim to “buy low, sell high” by purchasing beaten down stocks over the last few months. Ford is a good example because its chart closely mirrors the rest of the 20 top held names on Robinhood. As Ford’s price started to crater heading into and during the pandemic, the number of users holding F jumped when shutdowns began in mid-March. They were up +44% from March 15th through March 31st (the low in its stock price was on March 23rd), and have consistently grown from there (doubled since March 15th to +890k accounts). The stock price is also up almost double (+88%) since the low in March.

Other 20 top held names that took a big hit from the virus include cruise line stocks: Carnival Corp (now #6 on the Robinhood leaderboard), Norwegian Cruise Line (#11) and Royal Caribbean (#20).

Our take: millennials showed strong conviction in names with uncertain outlooks even as older institutional investors sounded the alarm.

#3: Millennials tend to invest in companies they believe in or feel they understand. This includes:

  • Brand names: Ford and GE (#1 & #2 on the list), Disney (#5), Bank of America (#15)
  • Tech: GoPro (#7), Microsoft (#9), Apple (#10), Fitbit (#14), Snap (#17)
  • Public marijuana stocks: Aurora Cannabis (#8) and Canopy Growth (#19)

Our take: millennials bought what they know, not dissimilar to baby boomer retail investors in the 1980s and 1990s (think Peter Lynch). Millennials grew up using technology (i.e. MSFT programs, AAPL products, social media platforms like Snapchat) and with the brand names listed (i.e. Ford cars, trips to Disney or the bank). They’re also the cohort most in-favor of legalizing recreational marijuana.

In sum, the portion of millennials that took control of their finances when stocks were falling apart did not invest more “ESG” minded than their parents. No doubt millennials care about the environment and other social issues, but they still invest just like prior generations.

* * *

We leave the last word to Bleakley Financial Group’s Peter Boockvar: “It’s great that Vegas is open again, but who needs it when you have the stock market instead. After an incredible run since March, we now have clear froth in parts of the market. We know this level of speculation has coincided with a sharp increase in the activity of retail investors.”

via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/3f9d018 Tyler Durden

Additional 1,100 Daily COVID-19 Deaths Predicted Depending On Size Of Floyd Protests

Additional 1,100 Daily COVID-19 Deaths Predicted Depending On Size Of Floyd Protests

Tyler Durden

Tue, 06/09/2020 – 17:05

After liberal leaders and their trusted science community warned of mass COVID-19 deaths without drastic and lasting lockdowns, millions of activists around the world paid exactly zero attention to said warnings – gathering in tightly-packed crowds to protest the killing of George Floyd.

Now, a Seattle researcher behind early genomic analysis of the coronavirus says that daily deaths in the United States could more than double – adding between 200 and 900 deaths per day for each day of protests involving at least 600,000 people, according to Hot Air.

Trevor Bedford is the Seattle researcher who used genomic analysis early on in the pandemic to detect hidden community spread in Seattle, the first big clue that America had a more significant COVID-19 problem than it realized. He’s watching the mass demonstrations against police brutality this week with growing concern, knowing that from an epidemiological standpoint the “mass” part is all that matters. The virus won’t make exceptions in the name of progress. –Hot Air

Meanwhile, as Hot Air‘s Allahpundit notes, from the Floyd protests, to Las Vegas, to the rest of the country reopening, there isn’t a lot of social distancing or mask-wearing going on.

The Vegas clip shocked me more than the protest clips did because of how normally everyone is behaving. Mass demonstrations are many things but “normal” isn’t one; the Vegas footage looks like it came from an alternate dimension in which there’s no coronavirus, though, with a few stray masks being worn by gamblers the only hint of a lurking threat. Most Americans aren’t behaving that recklessly — majorities still say they’d be “somewhat uncomfortable” eating at a restaurant or attending a public gathering — but the backsliding on social distancing has clearly begun. –Hot Air

Read the rest of the report here.

via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2AUgDtf Tyler Durden

Deep State To Powell: Stop Goosing Stocks Higher Or You’ll Re-Elect Trump

Deep State To Powell: Stop Goosing Stocks Higher Or You’ll Re-Elect Trump

Tyler Durden

Tue, 06/09/2020 – 16:45

Authored by Charles Hugh Smith via OfTwoMinds blog,

Come on, Jay, you can always goose stocks back to new highs after the election.

Indulge me for a moment in some backroom speculation. It’s absurdly obvious that the unelected, permanent, ever-expanding National Security State, a.k.a the Deep State, and its Democratic Party allies have been attempting to torpedo Donald Trump since the 2016 election took them by surprise. (Imagine doing everything that worked so well in the past and failing at the last minute. Ouch. Revenge is best served cold, n’est pas?)

The comedy-of-errors RussiaGate collapsed in a foul heap, the impeachment backfired, and so what’s left in the Deep State quiver other than its usual bag of, ahem, accidents?

Some might argue that urban riots and civil unrest might be enough to cause Trump to lose the election in November, but this strategy can backfire just as easily as the previous Deep State strategies.

Assuming Americans will ultimately vote their pocketbook as in the past, the only sure way to sink Trump is to crash the stock market, the jewel in Trump’s crown. This is blinding obvious, but the Deep State’s political allies have been wary of shrinking the bloated wealth of their donors, and wary of a backlash from the wealthy who want to see Trump lose but not if it requires the personal sacrifice of surrendering any of the $548 billion they’ve gained in the recent stock market melt-up.

But with the election just months away, the pressure is now so intense that the Deep State is demanding Powell and the Fed stop the money-printing that’s goosing stocks higher. Hints have been elevated to suggestions which are about to become demands.

Jay, we’re sure you understand the importance of this election for the country, and so you’ll understand why we need to see new lows in the stock market by September, October at the latest. Can you do your duty, or do we need to find someone else willing to serve the national interest at this critical time?

The Deep State has tapped Powell on the shoulder, and Jay has likely hedged his bets, demanding some political-economic cover for stopping the money-printing that’s been goosing stocks to new highs (tech stocks) or gains for 2020 (S&P 500).

Presto, the bogus jobs reports is issued: good news! OK, Powell responds, that’s good but not enough. So we can anticipate the wheels are busy turning in the appropriate agencies to issue a surprisingly hot inflation number. A sudden spike in inflation would provide the additional cover the Fed needs to withdraw the stock market’s free-money lifeline.

Barring a hot inflation number, the Fed can always fall back on some other pretexts to turn off the money spigot and let the stock market start sliding into late October.

We can also imagine the Deep State tapping on other shoulders in town, reminding them of various skeletons in the closet and suggesting it’s time to take one for the Deep State team. After all, what’s a couple hundred billion dollars between friends?

Come on, Jay, you can always goose stocks back to new highs after the election. If Jay hesitates, fearing for his reputation as the rock-solid guarantor of new all-time highs in stocks, well, pressure can be applied on other players in various ways. Or it might even be suggested that Jay’s health is looking rather iffy, what with the stress and all, and perhaps a resignation for health reasons can be arranged.

The pressure on the Fed to turn off the money-printing that’s goosing stocks ever higher will be increasing as the election draws ever closer. The Deep State has lost every gambit so far in a humiliating string of failures, and killing the soaring stock market is the last best chance to torpedo Trump’s re-election.

This is for all the marbles, kiddies, and the gloves are about to come off. If the tap on the shoulder wasn’t persuasive, a punch in the gut might bring hearts and minds around to the desired perspective. After all, accidents can happen to just about anyone.

*  *  *

My recent books:

Will You Be Richer or Poorer?: Profit, Power, and AI in a Traumatized World ($13)
(Kindle $6.95, print $11.95) Read the first section for free (PDF).

Pathfinding our Destiny: Preventing the Final Fall of Our Democratic Republic ($6.95 (Kindle), $12 (print), $13.08 ( audiobook): Read the first section for free (PDF).

The Adventures of the Consulting Philosopher: The Disappearance of Drake $1.29 (Kindle), $8.95 (print); read the first chapters for free (PDF)

Money and Work Unchained $6.95 (Kindle), $15 (print) Read the first section for free (PDF).

*  *  *

If you found value in this content, please join me in seeking solutions by becoming a $1/month patron of my work via patreon.com.

via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2YhDS8x Tyler Durden

WTI Slides After Surprise Large Build In Crude Inventory

WTI Slides After Surprise Large Build In Crude Inventory

Tyler Durden

Tue, 06/09/2020 – 16:38

Oil prices managed gains today (despite equity market weakness) on various ‘not-terrible’ headlines from BSEE (more gulf rigs still offline due to Cristobal), Nigeria (struggling to sell its crude so less supply hitting market), New Jersey lockdown lifted (more demand), and EIA’s outlook still hoping for a rebound in demand in Q3.

Inventories will once again be the main focus with hopes that the surge in product inventories was a blip due to Cristobal.

API

  • Crude +8.42mm (-1.2mm exp)

  • Cushing -2.285mm

  • Gasoline -2.913mm (-200k exp)

  • Distillates +4.271mm (+2.9mm exp)

US crude inventories were forecast to drop for the second week but API reported a surprising (and large) 8.42mm barrel build…

Source: Bloomberg

WTI was trading back below $39 ahead of the API print and slid modestly after the data…

We will have to wait for confirmation from the official data tomorrow but this is a notable build in the face of hope for a draw.

via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2BRYVab Tyler Durden

‘Defund the Police’ Should Include Federal Cops Too

Protesters demanding policing reforms are understandably focused on increasing accountability and slashing police budgets at the state and local levels.

But the call to “defund the police” should not ignore the large and growing presence (and expense) of federal law enforcement in recent decades—and would-be reformers should be careful not to hand-over more power to federal agencies that will be more difficult to hold accountable than local departments.

Federal police spending has skyrocketed since the 1980s, notes Chris Edwards, director of tax policy studies for the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank. The federal government’s police budget includes includes grants for local and state police departments, though that is a small portion of overall spending. The vast majority funds traditional federal law enforcement offices like the FBI and Drug Enforcement Agency, as well as the Secret Service, Customs and Border Patrol (CBP), and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms.

According to data from the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis, which tracks spending on all government programs, federal police spending averaged about 0.05 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) during the 1980s, and climbed to about 0.1 percent of GDP on average during the 1990s. Over the past decade, however, federal spending on police has averaged 0.26 percent of GDP.

“This spending has risen much faster than state‐​local police spending in recent decades,” writes Edwards. “That is a big concern if you believe in federalism and decentralized government.”

It’s true that state and local governments spend a larger portion of their budgets on policing. It was a member of the Minneapolis Police Department who brutally killed George Floyd last month, and it was local and state police who were responsible for many—but not all—of the subsequent displays of police brutality aimed at protesters. It makes sense that local policing is more in the spotlight at the moment.

But that doesn’t mean federal police forces should be exempt from reforms. Indeed, their growth in recent decades suggests they could be due for some budget-trimming too.

Unfortunately, the opposite seems to be happening. The Justice in Policing Act, which was introduced by House Democrats this week, would expand the role of the federal government in doing police work—and would hike federal police spending by $900 million.

Worse, perhaps, is the fact that the bill’s most high-profile police accountability measure—ending the legal regime of “qualified immunity” that protects officers from being held civilly liable for damage or injuries they cause while on the job—applies only to local law enforcement and not to federal officers that are part of the FBI or CPB, for example.

An expanded, unaccountable role for federal law enforcement is hardly the appropriate response to problems with state and local police forces. As Derek Cohen, the policy director for Right On Crime, a conservative police reform advocacy group based in Texas, explained on Twitter, federal intervention in local policing issues should be a last resort. And a top-down approach is unlikely to encourage reforms.

To put it another way, if you think forcing a citywide police department to change its ways is tough, wait until you’re dealing with the federal government.

Slowing the growth of spending on federal police and shrinking the mandate given to federal law enforcement is, in many ways, a separate project from the one currently underway in cities across the country. But if Congress wants to get involved in fixing what’s wrong with America’s police departments, it should not turn a blind eye to federal law enforcement budgets that are directly under its control.

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How Many COVID-19 Infections and Deaths Did Lockdowns Avert?

“Flatten the curve” was the urgent exhortation of public health officials as the COVID-19 pandemic began to take off in the U.S. in March. The curve to be flattened was the exponential growth rate of COVID-19 cases so that our hospitals would not be overwhelmed by rapidly rising numbers of sick people as was then happening in northern Italy.

American officials sought to flatten the curve using non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) including stay-at-home guidelines, closing schools, and shuttering crowded venues such as theaters, sports arenas, and restaurants. The qualified good news is that the daily tally of new confirmed cases has stabilized at around 20,000 for the past three weeks while COVID-19 deaths are averaging 750 per day. The bad news is that so far nearly 2 million Americans have been diagnosed with the illness and more than 111,000 have died of it.

Now two new studies published in the journal Nature are suggesting that without the implementation of non-pharmaceutical interventions many millions more people would have fallen ill and died of the disease. A group of econometricians have put together the more interesting of the two studies. That first study seeks to “empirically evaluate the effect that these anti-contagion policies have had on the growth rate of infections.” The researchers look at the growth rate of infections before and after more than 1,700 different NPIs were implemented in states, provinces, and cities of six countries including the United States. In their analysis, each locality prior to the imposition of specific lockdown policies serves as the “control” and the days after policy implementation become the “treatment.” They are trying to determine what effect (if any) the policy “treatments” had on the rate of increase in infections in each locality.

“Many of these costs are plainly seen; for example, business restrictions increase unemployment and school closures impact educational outcomes,” the researchers acknowledge. “It is therefore not surprising that some populations have hesitated before implementing such dramatic policies, especially when their costs are visible while their health benefits—infections and deaths that would have occurred but instead were avoided or delayed—are unseen.”

In his brilliant essay, “That Which Is Seen, and That Which Is Not Seen,” French economist Frédéric Bastiat explains the vital importance of discerning the unseen consequences of public policies. Bastiat argues:

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. Now this difference is enormous, for it almost always happens that when the immediate consequence is favourable, the ultimate consequences are fatal, and the converse. Hence it follows that the bad economist pursues a small present good, which will be followed by a great evil to come, while the true economist pursues a great good to come,—at the risk of a small present evil.

So question is, was the COVID-19 lockdown a small present good or a small present evil with respect to the currently unseen great health and economic consequences of the pandemic?

The econometricians estimate that early on the number of COVID-19 infections were growing exponentially by roughly 38 percent per day—that is, infections were doubling about every two days. This estimate is in line with Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and Princeton University calculations reported back in March.

Once the researchers have spun through their calculations, they estimate across the six countries they evaluate that the anti-contagion interventions globally “prevented or delayed on the order of 62 million confirmed cases, corresponding to averting roughly 530 million total infections” between March 3 and April 6. Their estimate for the United States is that social distancing policies and shelter-in-place guidelines prevented 4.8 million more confirmed cases and 60 million total infections by the beginning of April.

On April 6, there were nearly 340,000 confirmed cases and an estimated 5.8 million Americans infected by COVID-19. The researchers do not estimate the effects of the intervention policies on hospitalization or death rates, but a rough proportional scale up would suggest that there could have been 575,000 patients hospitalized in the U.S. along with 133,000 COVID-19 deaths by early April.

The researchers do offer a big caveat: If people change their behavior in response to new information unrelated to government anti-contagion policies, this could reduce infection growth rates as well, thus causing the researchers to overstate the effectiveness of anti-contagion policies. Of course, the infection rate would slow if individuals were socially distancing in response to either new information or lockdown policies.

How many lives did implementing pandemic lockdowns in 11 European countries save is the question that a team of researchers associated with the Imperial College in London sought to answer in a second study published in Nature. The period they examine stretches from the onset of the pandemic on that continent through May 4 when the lockdowns began to lift. The researchers vary the parameters of their epidemiological model to construct what they call “simplistic counterfactuals” to probe how the unseen future might have turned out had European governments not imposed lockdowns.

The European researchers estimate that the basic reproduction number of the coronavirus at the beginning of the pandemic was about 3.8, that is, each infected person would eventually transmit it to an average 3.8 other people. They calculate that lockdown policies cut the virus’ reproduction rate down to 0.66, a reduction of 82 percent from the initial 3.8 reproduction number. If the reproduction number had not been so steeply reduced by lockdown policies, they calculate in their simplistic counterfactual, the actual toll of 130,000 deaths by May 4 might instead have been 3.1 million people in the 11 countries evaluated.

The researchers estimate by May 4 that between 12 and 15 million people in the 11 countries had been infected, representing between 3.2 and 4.0 percent of their combined populations. If this is approximately correct that would suggest that the COVID-19 infection fatality rate is between 0.87 and 1.08 percent.

In addition, a viral basic reproduction number of 3.8 unconstrained by lockdowns implies a herd immunity threshold of around 70 percent. Herd immunity is the resistance to the spread of a contagious disease that results if a sufficiently high proportion of a population is immune to the illness. Some people are still susceptible, but they are surrounded by immune individuals, who serve as a barrier preventing the microbes from reaching them. You can achieve this through either mass infection or mass vaccination. “Our estimates imply that the populations in Europe are not close to herd immunity of around 70 percent,” note the researchers.

“In all countries in this study we find that these interventions have reduced the reproduction number below one and have contained their epidemics at the current time,” observe the researchers. “We cannot say for certain that the current measures will continue to control the epidemic in Europe; however, if current trends continue, there is reason for optimism.”

Have these two research teams revealed the unseen great good of pandemic catastrophes averted by lockdowns or have they concocted contagion mirages to justify the present great evil of economic devastation? Time will tell.

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Recruitment of Bad Cops Shows How Misconduct is Deeper Than a Few Bad Apples

The Brevard, Florida, chapter of the Fraternal Order of Police extended an invitation of employment over the weekend to various officers who have been charged with using excessive force amid the national protests sparked by the police killing of George Floyd. The chapter’s president, Bert Gamin, is a veteran of the Melbourne Police Department and the Brevard County Sheriff’s Office.

“We are hiring in Florida,” the invitation said. “Plus…we got your back!”

The invitation was extended to the six Atlanta police officers who were charged with aggravated assault, battery, and criminal damage after brutalizing Messiah Young and Taniyah Pilgrim, two college students who were stuck in traffic during a recent protest in that city. Video (content warning) from the incident captured the moment that the officers attempted to grab the students from the car and arrest them.

Not only did the Atlanta officers cause extensive damage to Pilgrim’s vehicle, but they also tased Young and threw both Young and Pilgrim to the ground. At a press conference, Fulton County District Attorney Paul Howard said that the officers initially claimed that Young put the car in reverse and tried to run them over. One officer also claimed that Young and Pilgrim pulled a gun.

Video from the incident, however, told a very different story. In fact, District Attorney Howard used the officers’ own body cameras to conclude that Young and Pilgrim had done nothing wrong. “They were so innocent almost to the point of being naive,” Howard told the press.

The invitation to join the Brevard Fraternal Order of Police was also extended to the 57 officers who quit the Buffalo Police Department’s Emergency Response Team—though not the department itself—after two fellow officers were suspended for pushing a 75-year-old protester to the ground, causing him to sustain a severe head injury. The two officers were later charged with assault.

What all of these incidents reveal is that the problem of police misconduct extends well beyond “a few bad apples.”

In fact, outfits like the Brevard Fraternal Order of Police regularly pave the way for bad officers to return to work. In San Antonio, Texas, for example, the police union’s contract with the city has resulted in the reinstatement of two-thirds of the officers fired for bad behavior over a 10-year period. A similar story is playing out in Opa Locka, Florida, where the police department has tried at least six times to fire a problematic officer protected by the union.

The fact that video existed of the Atlanta incident made it possible for the district attorney to charge the officers. Had the video not existed, prosecutors would have been forced to rely on the testimony of the officers on the scene who, as previously noted, falsely stated that the college students tried to run them over and had a weapon.

Video of the Buffalo incident, meanwhile, contradicted the police department’s initial claim that the 75-year-old protester tripped and fell. As the footage makes clear, the police shoved the elderly man to the ground.

Thankfully, at least one police officer has stepped up to be an example of accountability in recent days.

During the recent George Floyd protests in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, Officer Krystal Smith immediately jumped in to reprimand her colleague, Officer Steven Pohorence, after he shoved a kneeling protester. Pohorence was later suspended, pending an investigation into the incident.

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How Many COVID-19 Infections and Deaths Did Lockdowns Avert?

“Flatten the curve” was the urgent exhortation of public health officials as the COVID-19 pandemic began to take off in the U.S. in March. The curve to be flattened was the exponential growth rate of COVID-19 cases so that our hospitals would not be overwhelmed by rapidly rising numbers of sick people as was then happening in northern Italy.

American officials sought to flatten the curve using non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) including stay-at-home guidelines, closing schools, and shuttering crowded venues such as theaters, sports arenas, and restaurants. The qualified good news is that the daily tally of new confirmed cases has stabilized at around 20,000 for the past three weeks while COVID-19 deaths are averaging 750 per day. The bad news is that so far nearly 2 million Americans have been diagnosed with the illness and more than 111,000 have died of it.

Now two new studies published in the journal Nature are suggesting that without the implementation of non-pharmaceutical interventions many millions more people would have fallen ill and died of the disease. A group of econometricians have put together the more interesting of the two studies. That first study seeks to “empirically evaluate the effect that these anti-contagion policies have had on the growth rate of infections.” The researchers look at the growth rate of infections before and after more than 1,700 different NPIs were implemented in states, provinces, and cities of six countries including the United States. In their analysis, each locality prior to the imposition of specific lockdown policies serves as the “control” and the days after policy implementation become the “treatment.” They are trying to determine what effect (if any) the policy “treatments” had on the rate of increase in infections in each locality.

“Many of these costs are plainly seen; for example, business restrictions increase unemployment and school closures impact educational outcomes,” the researchers acknowledge. “It is therefore not surprising that some populations have hesitated before implementing such dramatic policies, especially when their costs are visible while their health benefits—infections and deaths that would have occurred but instead were avoided or delayed—are unseen.”

In his brilliant essay, “That Which Is Seen, and That Which Is Not Seen,” French economist Frédéric Bastiat explains the vital importance of discerning the unseen consequences of public policies. Bastiat argues:

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. Now this difference is enormous, for it almost always happens that when the immediate consequence is favourable, the ultimate consequences are fatal, and the converse. Hence it follows that the bad economist pursues a small present good, which will be followed by a great evil to come, while the true economist pursues a great good to come,—at the risk of a small present evil.

So question is, was the COVID-19 lockdown a small present good or a small present evil with respect to the currently unseen great health and economic consequences of the pandemic?

The econometricians estimate that early on the number of COVID-19 infections were growing exponentially by roughly 38 percent per day—that is, infections were doubling about every two days. This estimate is in line with Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and Princeton University calculations reported back in March.

Once the researchers have spun through their calculations, they estimate across the six countries they evaluate that the anti-contagion interventions globally “prevented or delayed on the order of 62 million confirmed cases, corresponding to averting roughly 530 million total infections” between March 3 and April 6. Their estimate for the United States is that social distancing policies and shelter-in-place guidelines prevented 4.8 million more confirmed cases and 60 million total infections by the beginning of April.

On April 6, there were nearly 340,000 confirmed cases and an estimated 5.8 million Americans infected by COVID-19. The researchers do not estimate the effects of the intervention policies on hospitalization or death rates, but a rough proportional scale up would suggest that there could have been 575,000 patients hospitalized in the U.S. along with 133,000 COVID-19 deaths by early April.

The researchers do offer a big caveat: If people change their behavior in response to new information unrelated to government anti-contagion policies, this could reduce infection growth rates as well, thus causing the researchers to overstate the effectiveness of anti-contagion policies. Of course, the infection rate would slow if individuals were socially distancing in response to either new information or lockdown policies.

How many lives did implementing pandemic lockdowns in 11 European countries save is the question that a team of researchers associated with the Imperial College in London sought to answer in a second study published in Nature. The period they examine stretches from the onset of the pandemic on that continent through May 4 when the lockdowns began to lift. The researchers vary the parameters of their epidemiological model to construct what they call “simplistic counterfactuals” to probe how the unseen future might have turned out had European governments not imposed lockdowns.

The European researchers estimate that the basic reproduction number of the coronavirus at the beginning of the pandemic was about 3.8, that is, each infected person would eventually transmit it to an average 3.8 other people. They calculate that lockdown policies cut the virus’ reproduction rate down to 0.66, a reduction of 82 percent from the initial 3.8 reproduction number. If the reproduction number had not been so steeply reduced by lockdown policies, they calculate in their simplistic counterfactual, the actual toll of 130,000 deaths by May 4 might instead have been 3.1 million people in the 11 countries evaluated.

The researchers estimate by May 4 that between 12 and 15 million people in the 11 countries had been infected, representing between 3.2 and 4.0 percent of their combined populations. If this is approximately correct that would suggest that the COVID-19 infection fatality rate is between 0.87 and 1.08 percent.

In addition, a viral basic reproduction number of 3.8 unconstrained by lockdowns implies a herd immunity threshold of around 70 percent. Herd immunity is the resistance to the spread of a contagious disease that results if a sufficiently high proportion of a population is immune to the illness. Some people are still susceptible, but they are surrounded by immune individuals, who serve as a barrier preventing the microbes from reaching them. You can achieve this through either mass infection or mass vaccination. “Our estimates imply that the populations in Europe are not close to herd immunity of around 70 percent,” note the researchers.

“In all countries in this study we find that these interventions have reduced the reproduction number below one and have contained their epidemics at the current time,” observe the researchers. “We cannot say for certain that the current measures will continue to control the epidemic in Europe; however, if current trends continue, there is reason for optimism.”

Have these two research teams revealed the unseen great good of pandemic catastrophes averted by lockdowns or have they concocted contagion mirages to justify the present great evil of economic devastation? Time will tell.

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