1. Bernie Sanders says (repeatedly) that he wants the United States to be more like Sweden. Bring it on! No estate or inheritance taxes, no minimum wage, a much higher ratio of consumption taxes to income taxes, an income tax system that is by some reasonable standards far less progressive, school choice, high deductibles and copays for medical care, lighter regulatory burdens and free trade. And a government that has shrunk by a third over the last few decades, ever since the Swedes got fed up with the economic stagnation that went hand-in-hand with the old-style Swedish socialism of Sanders’s fantasies. Farad Zakaria says all this and more in a spectacularly good op-ed at the Washington Post.
2. The ever-thoughtful Robin Hanson observes that if a whole lot of us are going to be struck by COVID-19, it would be a whole lot better for us not to all get sick at once. If I were pretty sure (maybe a bit surer than I am now) that I was destined to get sick eventually, I’d much rather have it be now than a few months later when 70% of my neighbors — including 70% of medical personnel, 70% of food providers, etc. — are all sick too. So maybe it’s time to start incentivizing people to expose themselves, get their illnesses over with, and be immune when the rest of us need them. Robin points out there’s plenty of precedent — parents used to be (and for all I know, still are) routinely advised that when one kid gets chicken pox, it’s a good idea to expose the others, because it’s easier to treat three at once then three in succession. (Of course the parents are aiming to bunch while Robin is aiming to minimize bunching, but the point in both cases is to think about how much bunching is optimal and then aim for it.) More here, with, as usual in a Hanson post, much worth pondering.
Parents are not so longer advised, no, because now there is an extremely effective chickenpox vaccine. If one of your kids gets it and the others aren’t vaccinated, the advice is to keep them away and get them vaccinated right away, since it’s effective even several days after exposure.
Not really relevant to the point of your post, just an FYI.
Uh … no, quite relevant.
Why would we not want people to rush out and expose themselves? Because with each passing day, we (presumably) get closer to getting a vaccine.
At best, we could have a vaccine to reduce the impact of a recurrence of the Wuhan virus next winter.
I agree Zarad Zakaria’s piece is a good one, but I want to correct a common misconception about Denmark’s minimum wage. It is true that there is no universal minimum wage, but that does not mean there is no minimum wage. Wage rates are negotiated between the unions and work-places, and once agreed upon, the rates are observed by the work-places country-wide. All government work-places and all large companies participate in these agreements. Although in theory, there might be positions not governed by the agreements, in practice it is not possible to find one. This is not just from first-hand experience, but also from the experience of any job-seeker I’ve ever known, any friend I’ve spoken to about openings, any newspaper article I’ve ever read about the subject, etc, etc. You can see the current rates here: https://www.dagens.dk/mindsteloen – exchange rate is about 6kr to 1 USD.
SL: “Bernie Sanders says (repeatedly) that he wants the United States to be more like Sweden. Bring it on!”
When Milton Friedman was told something similar – “The Swedes seem
to do all right in socialist Sweden” – he replied, “How are Swedes doing in Minnesota?”
Adding to Henri Heins comment above:
Approximately 70% of all swedish workers are union members. The rate was higher in the past, but still is quite impressive. Their wages get set by collective bargaining, whose negotiating position is stronger against the capital side. That again makes it easier to distribute taxes more equally, because taxable assessment basis is distributed more equally in society. In a setup like that, you can do all the good stuff Zakaria points to.
#3 “the Wuhan virus”
It is not the Wuhan virus. It is Covid-19. There are good reasons why the reported origins of these viruses are not now used for the names.
The impact is likely to be much less in Summer – due to slower transmission and less strain on the healthcare system from seasonal flu. If we want to spread the load, the best way at the moment is to prevent the spread as long as possible, not to encourage some “early adopters.” There would be a risk that isolation may fail the more people we deliberately expose to it, so this is an inherently risky approach. I would like to see some epidemiological models of trying this, though.
I seem to have used up my free Wapo articles this month. Reading post here I was struck by how we often lump Scandinavian countries together. I don’t know if the op-ed talks of Denmark, but the post here only mentions Sweden. Finland has a strongly regulated education sector very different from Sweden’s, with higher rankings for the results.
Harold, #7: The op-ed did call out the countries specifically, including Denmark. I also get a little annoyed at the lumping sometimes (obviously), but Zakaria was precise.
Richard D #5 – exactly…I’ve wondered for a long time why with all the international comparisons which can often seem like apples and lingonberries, I never see say Scandivanian countries compared with northern states
#8 -Thank you for clearing that up. But in the subject of mixing things up, five thirty eight has an article on quarantine. They point out that quarantine and isolation are often mixed up. Quarantine is restricting the movement of anyone who has been potentially exposed- sick and healthy alike. Isolation is separating the sick (or infected). The quarantine of a cruise liner where the sick and healthy were kept together did not go very well. Quarantine is nearly always leaky and can end up with more people affected.
The proposal by Hanson would be more like isolation. The people to be infected would have to be volunteers. I suggest it would not work for city blocks or the like, but the volunteers would need to be taken somewhere for the duration of the isolation – an army base or similar. It could possibly work, say for healthcare workers only, rather than the entire population. There are 18 million healthcare workers in the USA. If we wanted to take say 10% to provide a core of immune workers for the epidemic and expose them deliberately that would be about 2 million people. That would be for say 2-3 weeks in isolation and a risk of dying. It has to be done early enough that the risk of getting infected is uncertain, otherwise it would be too late to do any good. Volunteers would be taking on a significant risk. Compensation would need to be quite high, say $50,000. We are talking of healthcare workers, not the destitute.
The cost of the isolation at a total guess, but incarceration costs about $1000 / week. Given the medical treatment, need to keep people happy and isolation requirements I think we could multiply this by 10. That gives a cost of $9,000 per person, giving a total of about $60k per person. Multiply by 2 million we get $100 billion. Large, but potentially do-able in theory. In practice, I doubt it could be appropriated quickly enough. This would provide 10% of healthcare workers who would be able to carry on working during the worst of the epidemic.
Not sure I get this:
” If I were pretty sure (maybe a bit surer than I am now) that I was destined to get sick eventually, I’d much rather have it be now than a few months later when 70% of my neighbors — including 70% of medical personnel, 70% of food providers, etc. — are all sick too. So maybe it’s time to start incentivizing people to expose themselves. . .”
If getting the disease early is a rational thing to do based on future concerns for oneself, then why should people need extra incentive to do it?
Steven J Reilly:
If getting the disease early is a rational thing to do based on future concerns for oneself, then why should people need extra incentive to do it?
Because not all people share me preferences. Some people like to grow food and give it away, but we still need to incentivize farmers.
This is essentially offering you a what you see as a personal benefit – the chance to get your infection when there are plenty of medical staff to treat you rather than later when medical staff will be in short supply. If you have enough money you would still be able to get staff, but the price will have risen spectacularly. Your choice is to get medical attention now when it is cheap rather than later when it will be very expensive.
Off-setting this cost is the requirement for isolation, which may not be so much of an issue later. If you think the cost of isolation is less than the cost of medical attention later, then I don’t see why such a thing should not be offered. You could pay for exposure and 2-3 weeks of isolation. I don’t know what that would cost – maybe $10,000. I do not see why you should not be able to choose this if you want. I do not think such an offer would be permitted currently.
The problem occurs if we try to factor in any external benefits from you getting your infection out of the way, so leading to subsidy of your choice. To be of much benefit, you have to choose to dos o before it is clear that eventual infection is almost inevitable.
I don’t think Robin Hanson will share that view now, if he’s read this latest article – https://medium.com/@tomaspueyo/coronavirus-act-today-or-people-will-die-f4d3d9cd99ca