The Coronavirus, not the beer

msstate7 said:
Italy with back-to-back-to-back-to-back record days in cases. They hadn't been over 7k cases until 4 days ago... they've topped that mark now 4 straight with the last 2 over 10k
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5th straight record day; they top 11k today. Russia also setting new records daily
 
The French health ministry reported 29,837 new confirmed cases of COVID-19 on Sunday after reporting 32,427 on Saturday and 85 new deaths after 90 the previous day. Would be equivalent to ~150K in the US.
 
I read the article, not sure what part of pivoting away from no lockdowns is inaccurate. Literally all I did was replace "moving" with "pivoting".
 
However, unlike in other countries, there will be no fines or legal consequences for people who decide not to follow any new advice. Bitte Brastad, the chief legal officer at Sweden's public health agency, said the rules were "something in between regulations and recommendations."

I'm not sure I'd go "RIP the 'right's' talking points" just yet
 
Says right in the article they have had a worse death rate than their neighboring countries that did lockdowns. I lole the way Sweden is doing it. We need voluntary compliance, fining people and escalating to violence is not the answer to problems like this.
 
In economics, an externality is the cost or benefit that affects a third party who did not choose to incur that cost or benefit.

The idea that people pursuing their self-interest (Adam Smith's invisible hand of self-interest) will produce an efficient outcome depends upon certain conditions holding. One of of those conditions is absence of externalities.

Some externalities (halitosis for example) are trivial. The offense to others is not enough for society to compel tooth brushing.

In the case of infectious diseases, the externalities are far from trivial. In those circumstances, an intellectually serious libertarian would recognize that "individual responsibility" or "voluntary action" or "common sense" is going to produce a bad outcome. Because human beings in their state of imperfection have been shown to be unable to internalize externalities.

Liberty is not an absolute. Its parameters are under constant negotiation from one generation to the next. I saw some people riding their bikes today. Some without helmets. Illegal today, but not a generation ago. I watched some other people walking their dogs. They picked up the dog poop. To not do so would be illegal. That has also changed from a generation ago.

There is nothing absolute about "liberty." Mature people can accept that it is something mutable. Constantly under negotiation and adapted to circumstances. It is not tyranny for the state to impose certain rules during a pandemic. It is public policy geared toward overcoming the fact that in the presence of externalities self-interested behavior will produce a bad outcome.
 
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nsacpi said:
In the case of infectious diseases, the externalities are far from trivial. In those circumstances, an intellectually serious libertarian would recognize that "individual responsibility" or "voluntary action" or "common sense" is going to produce a bad outcome.
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I agree & disagree. The intellectually serious libertarian should acknowledge that in this instance a "free market" will cause externalities, but should also question (with good reason, given its track record) the government's ability to properly price and correct for that externality. A tax on pollution should be priced to eliminate the deadweight loss caused by the free market and get us to the socially optimal level of output...if the tax is set too high, you can easily end up with a level of under consumption resulting in less total social welfare than you would have had in the free market scenario.
 
Deaths reported in the past week:

France 747
Italy 377
Germany 164
UK 821
Spain 716
Canada 147
United States 4,779
 
nsacpi said:
Deaths reported in the past week:

France 747
Italy 377
Germany 164
UK 821
Spain 716
Canada 147
United States 4,779
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Total for the 6 non-American countries 2,872.

Collectively they have a larger population than we do.

Even with the upswing in cases and deaths in Europe and Canada, more Americans are dying per capita than in our peer countries. The gap since May has been yawning. It has narrowed some in recent weeks, but is still quite large.
 
Runnin said:
How about the virus is really contagious, unpredictable and hard to control? Ya know, like in a pandemic.
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LOL... but we aren't doing enough!

I have literally posted the same thing you just posted on one of the first 25 pages. You are just now learning this on the 12k post. Incredible.
 
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