Post & Comment {06.26.20}
This is a section of posts where I respond in brief comments to something I've seen in the news or online. I've highlighted the headline note or post.
To stay in a city or to leave?
You're a young couple or a couple that's started to have kids or are thinking about kids. Maybe you always thought you'd stay in that large metropolitan city where you've been since perhaps college. You've loved everything about it, the restaurants, nightlife, culture sports etc. How much do you love it now that you've basically been locked up for a few months. How much do you love it if your city burned during the protests? I can't answer that but I'm guessing the suburbs are starting to at least look a bit more attractive to you now then they did at Christmas.
On the increase in Covid cases.
In our last post I talked about the rise in Covid cases. I've scoured data trying to find out any demographic patterns but either that data doesn't exist or I don't know where to find it. Here's my thinking though. What data we're seeing is an increase in cases among younger people, say 18-30. What we're not seeing is how sick that cohort is becoming. If for the most part they're asymptomatic or show slight signs of the disease then maybe we're better off from a social and economic standpoint letting them go out and develop herd immunity to the virus. That's assuming there is immunity to the thing. If they're landing in the ICU then we need a new plan. You won't be able to lock people up again. What I do know is that slowly we're adapting to this new reality and that's going to be reflected in economic numbers going forward.
On the election.
The odds for the President to be reelected have become substantially worse. I believe when the history of this period is written we'll discover that the President likely lost folks in the middle when he pulled that photo op in front of a church, forcibly having security clear a path along the way. Again this isn't a political statement but an observation. I'm bumping up my probability calculation that the President isn't even the Republican nominee to 15-20%. In case folks think that's a huge change it still means 80-85% likelihood he IS the nominee so I'm not sure that's any big deal.
Go read:
Go read "America is Facing Five Epic Crises all at Once".
Back early next week. Posting will be light going forward until after the 4th of July holiday.
On the increase in Covid cases.
In our last post I talked about the rise in Covid cases. I've scoured data trying to find out any demographic patterns but either that data doesn't exist or I don't know where to find it. Here's my thinking though. What data we're seeing is an increase in cases among younger people, say 18-30. What we're not seeing is how sick that cohort is becoming. If for the most part they're asymptomatic or show slight signs of the disease then maybe we're better off from a social and economic standpoint letting them go out and develop herd immunity to the virus. That's assuming there is immunity to the thing. If they're landing in the ICU then we need a new plan. You won't be able to lock people up again. What I do know is that slowly we're adapting to this new reality and that's going to be reflected in economic numbers going forward.
On the election.
The odds for the President to be reelected have become substantially worse. I believe when the history of this period is written we'll discover that the President likely lost folks in the middle when he pulled that photo op in front of a church, forcibly having security clear a path along the way. Again this isn't a political statement but an observation. I'm bumping up my probability calculation that the President isn't even the Republican nominee to 15-20%. In case folks think that's a huge change it still means 80-85% likelihood he IS the nominee so I'm not sure that's any big deal.
Go read:
Go read "America is Facing Five Epic Crises all at Once".
Back early next week. Posting will be light going forward until after the 4th of July holiday.
posted by CR English at 9:04 AM
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