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Published on 39 Comments on Why is Denmark removing all COVID-19 restrictions?

Denmark is very different from the United States. It's small; its vaccination rate against COVID-19 is over 80%; and its citizens generally trust the government. That said, I still found it interesting to read a Twitter thread from Michael Bang Petersen, a professor at the University of Aarhus who advises the Danish government on pandemic policy.

The question he addresses is why Denmark has recently removed all pandemic restrictions even though case rates are very high. Petersen notes that there are reasons to think things are better than they look, but beyond that he's forthright about taking public opinion into consideration:

Petersen then makes a fairly conventional argument about the costs and benefits of imposing restrictions:

Should Denmark wait until all concerns have been settled? Maybe. But waiting is not free. It has costs in terms of the economy, well-being and democratic rights. Balancing these is an explicit part of the Danish strategy....Our research shows that these costs generate pandemic fatigue, which fuels distrust.

Should your country also turn the responsibility to people themselves? It depends on the epidemic & public preferences. But this shows how trust & solidarity entails an acceptance of costs, allowing society to act in agreement. Both when closing down & when opening up.

In the US this would have to be done on a state-by-state basis, but otherwise our issues are similar. The difference is that in the US we decide on pandemic policy by yelling and screaming and taking sides in a vast tribal war. In Denmark they do it by polling the citizenry and asking health authorities to take that into account.

The funny thing is that I'll bet both methods come to similar conclusions. In places were people don't want strict COVID rules, they don't have them. In places where they do, they do. The big difference is that Danes prefer a calm, technocratic approach to getting there while we apparently think it's more fun to burst a few national blood vessels on our way to letting the people decide. I guess every country has to be true to its national character.

Despite the fact that Denmark's case rate has skyrocketed far above the US, their high vaccination rate means that they have far fewer serious COVID cases than we do.

Published on 6 Comments on We need to stop blaming our problems on foreign “supply chains”

Over at the American Prospect, Alexander Sammon has a good piece about the problems at our ports. Long story short, we've known this was coming for a while:

In July 2015, the Federal Maritime Commission, a federal agency with little name recognition and even less influence, released a report sounding the alarm about the state of America’s ports. A congestion crisis had been building for years and was fast becoming untenable; even the country’s relatively tepid economic-growth rate was straining against decades of disinvestment at its most critical trading hubs. Chassis weren’t available, trucks couldn’t get in or out, and terminals stayed perpetually clogged.

....Almost five years passed before the coronavirus announced itself on American shores, and another year after that before the disease gave an already fissured supply chain the nudge it needed to fully rupture. And while the circumstances of a global pandemic, its shutdowns and labor shortages, seemed exceptional, it was something as routine as a double-digit import growth, feared specifically by the FMC since at least 2006, that sent shipping container volume skyrocketing and brought the system to a grinding halt. A prophecy that few heard and no one heeded had finally come true.

The entire piece is well worth a read, not least because it confirms something I keep trying to get across: we don't really have a supply chain crisis. Generally speaking, our supply chain is working fine, delivering goods to American shores by the gigaton. The problem is a simpler one: we haven't invested in the capacity to handle ever rising demand for the stuff that consumers want and can afford thanks to the decade-long economic expansion under Obama and Trump.

This is not a supply chain problem, no matter how much we might like to place the blame on others. It's a problem with corporate forecasting. It's a problem with monopoly control of various links in the US transportation network. It's a problem with weak investment in infrastructure.

So let's stop pretending that our problems are the result of "chaos" in our overseas supply chains. The real problem is much closer to home, and it's up to us to fix it.

Published on 9 Comments on Friday Cat Blogging – 4 February 2022

Charlie isn't the only cat who gets to take advantage of my new flash unit. Hilbert is allowed outside where the light is good, but on a sunny day with lots of shadows even a cat can benefit from a bit of fill flash.

Published on 35 Comments on Chart of the day: Net new jobs in January

The American economy gained a whopping 467,000 jobs last month. We need 90,000 new jobs just to keep up with population growth, which means that net job growth clocked in at 377,000 jobs. The headline unemployment rate rose slightly to 4.0%.

This report incorporated the usual annual correction for the beginning of a new year. The revised employment numbers gained about 700,000 jobs in November and December as a result.

Nearly everything is good news this month. In addition to the million new jobs reported (counting both January and the revisions for last year), about 1.4 million people entered the labor force; the number of employed people went up by 1.2 million; and the participation rate went up from 61.9% to 62.2%. The gains were almost entirely in the service sector.

However, earnings were down sharply. Adjusted for inflation, overall wages declined at an annualized rate of about 4% and blue-collar wages declined about 5%. This is good news for inflation hawks, but not for anyone else.

Published on 72 Comments on Amazon Prime now costs 2372 more than when it started

Amazon announced today that they are raising the price of Amazon Prime to $139 per year. But if I've taught you anything, your first question when you heard this was I wonder what that looks like adjusted for inflation?

Here it is:

$139 is about 10% of the US median weekly income. Only you can decide if that's worth it.

Published on 17 Comments on Facebook is suddenly a feeble and dying giant

Conventional wisdom last week: Facebook is a world-spanning monopoly that spreads disinformation, hurts our children, and is answerable to no one but the messianic Mark Zuckerberg. The only answer is for the government to break it up.

Conventional wisdom as of 4 pm yesterday: Facebook is hemorrhaging its most lucrative users, Apple has destroyed its ad business, and its VR business will continue to lose huge amounts of money for at least a decade. It's all but dead.

Things sure do change fast in the metaverse! Sometimes all it takes is one earnings call.

Published on 8 Comments on More raw data: The global price of food is skyrocketing

According to the Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations, the global price of food has increased more than 40% since the middle of 2020:

The biggest gainer by far has been the 108% increase in the cost of vegetable oils:

This is partly due to the COVID-19 pandemic, but it's also due to the effects of climate change as well some plain old bad luck.

Published on 23 Comments on Raw data: Interest on the national debt

The national debt topped $30 trillion this week, "an ominous fiscal milestone that underscores the fragile nature of the country’s long-term economic health," according to the New York Times. However, a more important measure is the amount of interest we pay on that debt:

Interest on the national debt soared under Ronald Reagan and then returned to normal under Bill Clinton. For the past two decades it's been pretty flat at just under 1.5% of GDP. In 2021 it clocked in at 1.53%.

Of course, interest payments could increase if interest rates go up significantly. That doesn't seem likely right now, but the Fed has certainly signaled a modest increase in interest rates later this year. Combined with increased spending, this could add up to higher interest payments in 2022.

Published on 24 Comments on The Pentagon has finally figured out missile defense