Dr. Bhattacharya, Covid, Sweden, and the Furure

 The nomination of Dr. Jay Bhattacharya to head up NIH reminds me that there was one country, Sweden, that tried to follow the principles outlined in the Great Barrington Declaration. That is, it tried to protect the elderly while allowing most other people to carry out their day to day activities unimpeded.

How did that work out? I think the results were mixed. Early in the pandemic, 2020, Sweden had over 1½ times the number of excess deaths(that is, deaths from all causes, including Covid) proportionate to the population than did other Scandinavia countries (Denmark, Finland, and Norway).  This is to be expected, as few measures were taken in Sweden to reduce the incidence of the disease in the general population.

However in 2022 with the introduction of vaccination, Sweden’s excess death rate was about ½ the rate in the remaining Scandinavian countries. Sweden reduced its excess death rate while the rate in the other Scandinavian countries increased. This is what the Great Barrington Declaration predicted: that lock-downs and other restrictions at the front end of the epidemic would result in additional excess deaths when the epidemic was over. It is too early to judge whether this long tail will continue.

 Finally, Covid deaths in Sweden, as opposed to excess deaths from all causes, over the whole course of the epidemic from 2020 to November 2024 showed Sweden doing badly: over 1½  times as many Covid deaths, proportionate to the population, as in the other Scandinavian countries.

We should note that Scandinavia as a whole, including Sweden, did better than many other European countries and much, much better than the USA where Covid death rates were higher than those in Scandinavia (leaving out Sweden). At the height of the pandemic, states controlled by Republicans had higher excess death rates than those controlled by Democrats.

As the threat of a new pandemic (a bird flu crossover to humans) approaches, we need to decide carefully which restriction over our behavior are necessary and which can be ignored. We must follow the data painfully gained from the recent Covid pandemic.

Trump's Bureaucracy

 This was in Cambridge DAY

Tariffs and Exclusions

 I was angered to read that crony capitalism would soon be returning to the United States (Firms Elbowing to Lobby Trump over his Tariffs, New York Times, November 22, 2024: A1, A22). In the first term, the Trump administration excused some firms from having to pay the tariffs on goods imported from China and other countries around the world.

Exclusions from paying the tariff are usually given to firms if a reduction in the quantity of goods they import would harm Americans. However, the Times reports that one study, of 7000 applications for exclusions, found that firms that increased their donations to Republican political entities had a better chance of receiving an exclusion than firms that increased financial support of Democratic entities.

Of course, large firms with a sophisticated lobby staff or consultants, were better able to put forward requests for exemptions, greatly disadvantaging small businesses. I wonder if firms booking into Trump’s hotels had a better chance of getting an exclusion?

We can expect that in the second term, firms will be even better placed to lobby. They have had four years to build up their capacity. Or can we? Trump has always maintained, that it is the Chinese exporter who will pay the tariff not the importer or the American consumer; so shouldn’t the exporter get the exclusion, rather than the lobbying importer?

Krugman made the same point in today's NYT

Republican Mind-Set

I was just reading Walter Isaacson and Evan Thomas’s The Wise Men, an account of the foreign policy work undertaken by Dean Acheson, Averell Harriman, and their colleagues during and after the Second World War.

According to Isaacson and Thomas (Chapter 19), during Joe McCarthy’s rampage through the State Department looking for Communists and other undersirables, one of Dulles’s subordinates, responsible for internal security, being “vindictive and shrewd, hired 350 zealous but inexperienced investigators who quickly went to work ferreting out Foreign Service officers deemed drunkards, homosexual, incompetent, or ‘incompatible,’ a flexible category. They were replaced by true believers.”

Replacing civil servants seems to be a long standing part of the Republican play-book. This time will it end in another tragedy or in farce? I fear tragedy.

Donald Trump at McDonalds

 Trump being silly again:

At Cambridge Day

Deadlines for Legislators

 Letter in Cambridge Day

At the end of a disappointing legislative session - Cambridge Day

Also in Boston Globe on August 31st.

 One way to reduce the inequality between top management and the median paid employee (Chief Executives, the Sky Is the Limit for Pay, New York Times, Sunday Business, June  9, 2024: 3) is to reconsider the role of bonuses in the compensation package.

In an organization, everyone makes a contribution to the success of the organization. That contribution is of course greater for the CEO than for the janitor, or even for the research scientist at her bench. These differences in contribution can and should be reflected in different salaries: a living wage for the janitor and a good differential for the research scientist, and a large differential for the CEO. But when it comes to the bonus awarded for the firm’s performance, let equity reign. Let every member of the firm get the same percent bonus. Depending on the firm’s success, let everyone get a bonus of 100% of their salary or let everyone get 8% of their salary or let everyone receive no bonus at all. Reward differential contributions with different salary levels, but let the bonuses be an equal percentage of that salary, though of course, the CEO will get a bigger pot of money because the bonus is based on a higher salary.

The government could encourage the adoption of this policy by having a higher corporate tax rate for firms that do not adopt it..