tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28504628493142680402024-03-10T00:26:57.325-08:00The Dance of the HippoThe universe doesn't hate you -- at least, not more than it hates most peopleKarlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11654006671545294361noreply@blogger.comBlogger342125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2850462849314268040.post-62734362705445768692022-03-12T11:14:00.003-08:002022-03-12T11:14:45.475-08:00Ukraine: The least-bad result <p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #524e4d; font-family: "Open Sans"; font-size: 16px; margin: 12px 0px 10px;">As negotiations between Ukraine and Russia maybe move past ultimatums, I've seen discussions of what a settlement might ultimately look like.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #524e4d; font-family: "Open Sans"; font-size: 16px; margin: 12px 0px 10px;">One position is that any concession by Ukraine is a complete loss, given that Russia was the aggressor and Putin will have emerged with a victory.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #524e4d; font-family: "Open Sans"; font-size: 16px; margin: 12px 0px 10px;">That's an understandable reaction, but I think it's inaccurate.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #524e4d; font-family: "Open Sans"; font-size: 16px; margin: 12px 0px 10px;">Let’s say the terms are:</p><ul style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #524e4d; font-family: "Open Sans"; font-size: 16px; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-top: 0px;"><li style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px;">Ukraine formally recognizes Russian control of Crimea and Donbas;</li><li style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px;">Ukraine agrees to neutrality.</li></ul><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #524e4d; font-family: "Open Sans"; font-size: 16px; margin: 0px 0px 10px;">Does that suck? Yes. Russia was the aggressor, and this settlement means they got something out of launching an unprovoked war.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #524e4d; font-family: "Open Sans"; font-size: 16px; margin: 24px 0px 10px;">But it’s just not true to say it’s a complete loss.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #524e4d; font-family: "Open Sans"; font-size: 16px; margin: 24px 0px 10px;">Russia controls Crimea and Donbas now. Recognizing those facts on the ground as a concession to end the fighting isn’t good in that it rewards horrific behavior, but it doesn’t change any reality of who controls what.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #524e4d; font-family: "Open Sans"; font-size: 16px; margin: 24px 0px 10px;">Ukraine isn’t in NATO now and wasn’t on track to be for another 5 to 10 years. Saying explicitly, “We’ll be neutral” and thus taking away some freedom of action of the Ukrainian state isn’t good in that it rewards horrific behavior, but for the next 5 or 10 years Ukraine wouldn’t have been in NATO anyway.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #524e4d; font-family: "Open Sans"; font-size: 16px; margin: 24px 0px 10px;">What did Putin want?</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #524e4d; font-family: "Open Sans"; font-size: 16px; margin: 24px 0px 10px;">He wanted Zelenskyy gone.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #524e4d; font-family: "Open Sans"; font-size: 16px; margin: 24px 0px 10px;">He wanted a pluralistic, relatively open system in Ukraine replaced by a government subservient to Russia.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #524e4d; font-family: "Open Sans"; font-size: 16px; margin: 24px 0px 10px;">He wanted to show what a badass Russia was, and its military.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #524e4d; font-family: "Open Sans"; font-size: 16px; margin: 24px 0px 10px;">If Ukraine and Russia end up settling on something like the deal I outlined up top, Putin gets none of that.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #524e4d; font-family: "Open Sans"; font-size: 16px; margin: 24px 0px 10px;">On top of that, he’s revealed his military to be weak and ineffective for its size when up against certain kinds of opposition.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #524e4d; font-family: "Open Sans"; font-size: 16px; margin: 24px 0px 10px;">So he gets formal recognition of things that were already true <em style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px;">de facto</em>, in exchange for thousands of war dead (so far), thousands of pieces of equipment lost (so far), crippling economic sanctions, a spur to Europe to wean themselves from dependence on Russian energy supplies, and the revelation to the world that he is militarily much weaker than everyone assumed.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #524e4d; font-family: "Open Sans"; font-size: 16px; margin: 24px 0px 10px;">That’s not a <em style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px;">total</em> loss for Putin, but it is still a very bad outcome.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #524e4d; font-family: "Open Sans"; font-size: 16px; margin: 24px 0px 10px;">Is it worse for Ukraine?</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #524e4d; font-family: "Open Sans"; font-size: 16px; margin: 24px 0px 10px;">In many ways yes, of course.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #524e4d; font-family: "Open Sans"; font-size: 16px; margin: 24px 0px 10px;">2 million refugees.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #524e4d; font-family: "Open Sans"; font-size: 16px; margin: 24px 0px 10px;">Large numbers of civilian dead (one city reported 1,500, but they know that’s an incomplete count, so maybe we’re at 10,000 already; Putin’s probably not done bombing cities, so the total will likely be in the 10’s of thousands).</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #524e4d; font-family: "Open Sans"; font-size: 16px; margin: 24px 0px 10px;">Apparently fewer military deaths than Russian military deaths, but maybe similar as a share of their army.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #524e4d; font-family: "Open Sans"; font-size: 16px; margin: 24px 0px 10px;">Massive damage to infrastructure.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #524e4d; font-family: "Open Sans"; font-size: 16px; margin: 24px 0px 10px;">But all of that is already true.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #524e4d; font-family: "Open Sans"; font-size: 16px; margin: 24px 0px 10px;">The deal I outlined up top stops those losses from accumulating.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #524e4d; font-family: "Open Sans"; font-size: 16px; margin: 24px 0px 10px;">And at the end of it, Ukraine has the support of much of the rest of the world to rebuild, and likely entree to some kind of economic arrangement with the EU, even while they stay out of NATO.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #524e4d; font-family: "Open Sans"; font-size: 16px; margin: 24px 0px 10px;">Is this outcome unjust?</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #524e4d; font-family: "Open Sans"; font-size: 16px; margin: 24px 0px 10px;">Absolutely.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #524e4d; font-family: "Open Sans"; font-size: 16px; margin: 24px 0px 10px;">Something that approximated justice would have Russia returning control of Crimea and the Donbas, and paying for full reconstruction of physical damage in Ukraine, plus some kind of war indemnity.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #524e4d; font-family: "Open Sans"; font-size: 16px; margin: 24px 0px 10px;">But you only get to impose that kind of deal if you have the military might to force the other party to accept it.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #524e4d; font-family: "Open Sans"; font-size: 16px; margin: 24px 0px 10px;">Ukraine certainly doesn’t have that military might.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #524e4d; font-family: "Open Sans"; font-size: 16px; margin: 24px 0px 10px;">NATO maybe does, but then you have to ask whether something resembling justice for Ukraine is worth the likelihood of World War III.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #524e4d; font-family: "Open Sans"; font-size: 16px; margin: 24px 0px 10px;">Stalin invaded Finland in 1939. The Finns fought back much harder than the Soviets expected, and they used winter to full advantage. But eventually the sheer might of Soviet military power, however clumsily applied, carried the day.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #524e4d; font-family: "Open Sans"; font-size: 16px; margin: 24px 0px 10px;">Finland lost a war that had been unjustly waged against them. And they lost some territory. And as part of the ultimate settlement after World War II, they accepted neutrality.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #524e4d; font-family: "Open Sans"; font-size: 16px; margin: 24px 0px 10px;">Did that suck? In some ways, yes.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #524e4d; font-family: "Open Sans"; font-size: 16px; margin: 24px 0px 10px;">Was it unjust? Sure.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #524e4d; font-family: "Open Sans"; font-size: 16px; margin: 24px 0px 10px;">But they preserved the ability to manage their own affairs at home, and became one of those Nordic social democracies that many of us Americans look at longingly.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #524e4d; font-family: "Open Sans"; font-size: 16px; margin: 24px 0px 10px;">They escaped the fate of their Baltic neighbors who were fully incorporated into the Soviet Union, saw large numbers of their people exiled to other parts of the USSR, saw an influx of Russians, and saw their economies hobbled by 40 years of Soviet-style economic management.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #524e4d; font-family: "Open Sans"; font-size: 16px; margin: 24px 0px 10px;">If Ukraine can fight its way to a Finnish-style settlement, that will be unfair and emotionally unsatisfying.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #524e4d; font-family: "Open Sans"; font-size: 16px; margin: 24px 0px 10px;">But the only likely alternatives I see are:</p><ul style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #524e4d; font-family: "Open Sans"; font-size: 16px; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-top: 0px;"><li style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px;">Complete subjugation to Russia</li><li style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px;">A wider war, possibly World War III</li></ul><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #524e4d; font-family: "Open Sans"; font-size: 16px;">If I’m right about that, then a Finnish solution for Ukraine is the least-bad outcome at this point.</span> </p>Karlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11654006671545294361noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2850462849314268040.post-56637250630752644372021-10-03T19:11:00.001-07:002021-10-04T05:27:11.477-07:00Driving contagion<p> "My health care is none of your business!"</p><p>To an extent, sure.</p><p>Your drinking is also none of my business - under certain circumstances.</p><p>If you drink yourself into a stupor in the privacy of your own home, that's your God-given right. If you do it repeatedly and bring on cirrhosis, I might note the cost you've thereby imposed on the medical system, but people make all sorts of choices that somewhat raise their risks of needing medical care. We don't want to go down the road of routinely policing behaviors where people increase their own risk of medical harm.</p><p>But if you get behind the wheel of a car, then your drinking is very much my business.</p><p>It's not that drunk driving is murder.</p><p>If you take a gun that you believe to be loaded, point it at someone, and pull the trigger, that's attempted murder. If the gun actually <i>is</i> loaded and if your aim is good enough for the distance you're at, then it will be murder in fact.</p><p>You had the intent to kill the person you aimed the gun at.</p><p>Driving drunk isn't like that.</p><p>First, most drunk drivers aren't intending to kill anyone. They simply want to get somewhere, and they tell themselves that they're not <i>that</i> impaired.</p><p>Second, it's pretty common for someone to drive drunk and not kill anybody. With enough luck, you can make it home from the bar with not even a scratch on your car.</p><p>Of course, you do have an elevated risk of having an accident, but maybe you just end up in the ditch with no more than some bruises.</p><p>Then again, you might kill yourself and nobody else - driving solo and smashing your car into a tree.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjF7XRl0QYHmaSJMVR1ErPkWka8J-JU4QDrTNezYOqY-A1psCu-RxKsV47CeDzV69HgoaXPLLWf3lUyGwXlGuEIr-mirV1piYRsZju9RfuqwBb40dJ6Jbs6hey-grmusTlqoRErTQiE9Ws/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="493" data-original-width="876" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjF7XRl0QYHmaSJMVR1ErPkWka8J-JU4QDrTNezYOqY-A1psCu-RxKsV47CeDzV69HgoaXPLLWf3lUyGwXlGuEIr-mirV1piYRsZju9RfuqwBb40dJ6Jbs6hey-grmusTlqoRErTQiE9Ws/" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">From <a href="https://www.koin.com/news/crashes/car-crashes-into-tree-in-serious-injury-crash-in-lake-oswego/">here</a></div><br /><span><a name='more'></a></span>Or you might injure or kill some family members or friends if they're in the car with you when you smash it into a tree.<p></p><p> And of course, you might kill someone who had no connection to you except the dumb luck of crossing your path while you drunkenly drifted across the yellow line.</p><p>All of this lines up remarkably well with choosing to be unvaccinated in the midst of a pandemic.</p><p>It's certainly possible you won't get infected, and if you don't get infected, you won't infect anybody else. That's the drunk making it safely home.</p><p>Depending on your habits, it's possible in principle to get infected but not pass it on to anybody else. That's the drunk emerging from their crashed car (infected, but recovered) or driving solo and smashing into a tree (infected, then died).</p><p>But it's also possible to infect others. The ones most likely to be exposed to you are your family and friends, so that's the people in the car with you, who might emerge shaken up, or injured, or dead.</p><p>And you can infect people you don't know. It's possible to do that directly, as when you breathe your virus-laden breath on the person stocking the shelves in the grocery store. That's like drifting across the yellow line and hitting a stranger's car.</p><p>It's also possible to infect strangers directly, as when you infect your sibling, and your sibling infects their spouse, and their spouse infects a coworker. The drunk-driving analogy actually doesn't have a good counterpart to that, so in that regard, going unvaccinated presents a kind of risk that not even drunk driving creates.</p><p>"This is all bullshit! Because vaccinated people can also get infected and can infect others!"</p><p>It's true that vaccinated people can get infected and can infect others.</p><p>And a sober driver can cause an accident. They can be distracted, can fail to pull over when drowsy, can make a bad judgment call, can go too fast and lose control.</p><p>So it's not like sober drivers are 100% safe and all accidents are caused by drunk driving.</p><p>But drunk driving raises risks a lot, and it's easy to determine if it's happening, so we make rules against it.</p><p>In the presence of the Delta variant, our current vaccines provide imperfect protection, but <a href="https://thedanceofthehippo.blogspot.com/2021/09/lifes-beach-and-then-you-die.html">it is <i>real</i> protection</a>. Going unvaccinated against an epidemic disease raises the risks to you and to your community.</p><p>Your drinking is not, in itself, my business.</p><p>But if you want to drive, then your drinking <i>is</i> my business.</p><p>You get to decide whether to get vaccinated. But just like drinking makes you temporarily lose the right to drive, being unvaccinated should come with limitations on what you're able to do.</p><p>And unless you're planning to stay home until community transmission is negligible, your vaccination status <i>is</i> my business, and everyone else's business as well.</p>Karlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11654006671545294361noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2850462849314268040.post-81797827016753688062021-09-22T08:48:00.001-07:002021-09-22T08:48:44.192-07:00Life's a beach, and then you die<p><i>Alternative title for this post: The Sunshine Charnel House</i></p><p>Last week I put up a post <a href="https://thedanceofthehippo.blogspot.com/2021/09/the-florida-slow-roll.html" target="_blank">illustrating the tremendous lag in Florida's COVID death data</a>.</p><p>Most states take a few days to collect their data and get it posted, but after that point their older data stabilize. They're not continually updating numbers that are 10 or 20 days old.</p><p>Not Florida. They're special. It's now 25 days since I started watching their death numbers, and they're still going back and adding deaths to data that are two months old.</p><p>But they're special in another way as well, and that is simply in the amount of COVID-related death they're producing.</p><p>Along the way to illustrating that, I'll give you some pretty good evidence that VACCINES WORK, and also give a sense of how much better we might be doing with a higher vaccination rate.</p><p>Back in July I posted a comparison of the Delta surge in a collection of nine not-randomly-chosen states. (I wanted places famously having trouble, like Florida and Missouri, and the state with our highest vaccination rate - Vermont - and then through in some others, including New York, where I live, and Massachusetts, where I grew up and where I still have family.)</p><p>Overall, states with higher vaccination rates started their surges later, from a lower level, and weren't rising as fast.</p><p>That's still true, but I wanted a more comprehensive measure, that somehow gathered in both how early you started, how high you started, how high you got, and how much time you spent at a very elevated level.</p><p>What I settled on was to look at cumulative infections in a state from June 1 through August 30. I measured that by taking total infections recorded as of August 31, and subtracting total deaths recorded as of June 1.</p><p>With that "How was your summer?" question as the main effect, I chose as my causal variable a state's level of vaccination on June 1, at the start of the mess. And I went with "fully vaccinated" rather than "at least one shot" - early in the vaccine roll-out, there was evidence that even the first shot of the mRNA vaccines did a good job of preventing infection, but that with Delta it really took both shots to get a good effect.</p><p>So: I'm looking at the relationship between:</p><p></p><ol style="text-align: left;"><li>What was each state's population percentage that was fully vaccinated by June 1st; and</li><li>What portion of each state's population got infected between then and August 31st.</li></ol><div>And that relationship looks like this:</div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_my5jxIkltcNw3MJd5BMu9kr4TeRwJql48I5BqBRDbu752a400GhBAzOexaY9gRG6uz1CD3sSJUywcvyRvnWwpH43XKcXeBmnOPlvH6CTrfdDwvXDGDUhkNclbjXGKB7dRabb3djbMFk/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="659" data-original-width="906" height="233" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_my5jxIkltcNw3MJd5BMu9kr4TeRwJql48I5BqBRDbu752a400GhBAzOexaY9gRG6uz1CD3sSJUywcvyRvnWwpH43XKcXeBmnOPlvH6CTrfdDwvXDGDUhkNclbjXGKB7dRabb3djbMFk/" width="320" /></a></div><br /><br /></div></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">It certainly does appear that states with higher vaccination rates at the beginning of the summer (further to the right on the chart) also had a smaller percentage of their population test positive over the summer (lower down on the chart).</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">And if you fit a power function to the scatter of points, you get an R-squared of 0.627, suggesting that this single factor - how vaccinated was your state on June 1 - can explain about 63% of the variance in how many people tested positive.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEibpp1xVjPame4YiAiBzoEpZiKUhjzEtd05DVmBAYkTGT8MPLZNafHlEt_a6k8icTe_rkX0bs8WRw-Df5wpHzOaydHQfRbtot0JfdW84U-yfDZlhfItKtrn4-qojrwDTm9NO8u846xGBh0/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="659" data-original-width="906" height="233" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEibpp1xVjPame4YiAiBzoEpZiKUhjzEtd05DVmBAYkTGT8MPLZNafHlEt_a6k8icTe_rkX0bs8WRw-Df5wpHzOaydHQfRbtot0JfdW84U-yfDZlhfItKtrn4-qojrwDTm9NO8u846xGBh0/" width="320" /></a></div><br /><br /></div></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">The t-statistic on the vaccination variable is over 9, implying a vanishingly small chance that there is no relationship in the real world, and that the apparent relationship is just random noise falling a certain way.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">And the relationship is not merely statistically significant. Its estimated size is also large enough to be meaningful. The country's overall rate of full vaccination by June 1 was 40.7%. The regression predicts that a state with that level of vaccination would see 1.43% of its population test positive over the summer. For a state with 10,000,000 people (roughly Georgia, or North Carolina, among others), that would mean about 143,000 infections over the summer.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">If the state had 10 percentage points more vaccination (meaning it was at 50.7%), it's predicted positives over the summer would be 0.83% of its population. Our hypothetical state with 10,000,000 people would see only 83,000 infections - 60,000 fewer than with the average vaccination rate.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">As you can see on the figure, the relationship is not linear. The lower your vax rate, the more quickly infections rise. So a state with 10 percentage points less vaccination than average (putting it at 30.7%) would expect an infection rate of 2.89%. In a state with 10,000,000 people, that's 289,000. That's 146,000 more infections than at the average vax rate.</div><div><br /></div>On these charts, you might have noticed one particularly "out there" outlier.</div><div><br /></div><div>In case you didn't, here's the second chart with the outlier highlighted.</div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj3K35Us2YjTELWEF-E1yt587EvqEvUG7FNa4uuLUaXG0rXrkyXnAeoOMNLn3eh_K7KyDpXg-6qlU39PtwDjjNZA97VXwuCVx6S4GO3Qg3erun1bwyUuiByidzzmet_Vc8SYN9XH6ypvFM/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="659" data-original-width="906" height="233" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj3K35Us2YjTELWEF-E1yt587EvqEvUG7FNa4uuLUaXG0rXrkyXnAeoOMNLn3eh_K7KyDpXg-6qlU39PtwDjjNZA97VXwuCVx6S4GO3Qg3erun1bwyUuiByidzzmet_Vc8SYN9XH6ypvFM/" width="320" /></a></div><div><br /></div>It is 3.1 standardized residuals above its "predicted" value. The next-biggest outlier is only 1.9 standard deviations off. So Florida went into the summer with an almost average vaccination rate, but ended up really punching above its weight, with the second-highest rate of infections and an unbelievably high level given is vax status.</div><div><br /></div><div>But that's just infections. Where Florida really excels is in COVID deaths.</div><div><br /></div><div>Here's the chart. The horizontal axis is still percent fully vaccinated by June 1st, but the vertical is now deaths per 100,000 during June-August.</div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8UC0PdWNUGtJNE-ti76B_9Ma4PoL9oeCsHgk25NrFF4Dc7Tiu8tNHwg3QOIFmME7TyU47Ghcr80M_QmJhg3IVlaH29ZzpuKTRadUFAcHcMIegVBTyaYq-GVnzBMBI-ziHTJFmqcDSUeA/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="663" data-original-width="912" height="233" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8UC0PdWNUGtJNE-ti76B_9Ma4PoL9oeCsHgk25NrFF4Dc7Tiu8tNHwg3QOIFmME7TyU47Ghcr80M_QmJhg3IVlaH29ZzpuKTRadUFAcHcMIegVBTyaYq-GVnzBMBI-ziHTJFmqcDSUeA/" width="320" /></a></div><div><br /></div>You probably noticed that outlier, but in case you didn't, I've made it easier to see.</div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZoCU86nClZKUt7m8mIQBaT5NxdDyACMQshTwlLJ8OWp72NL0cLlZCXnGrkdgVzbOpGvb8PobF4r2UOrn_skBdQR6-pgRDxiJIhQvVJNFrPBBbbt3wYN5mR27TPSCqeXdqeX6y92Xr1SA/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="663" data-original-width="912" height="233" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZoCU86nClZKUt7m8mIQBaT5NxdDyACMQshTwlLJ8OWp72NL0cLlZCXnGrkdgVzbOpGvb8PobF4r2UOrn_skBdQR6-pgRDxiJIhQvVJNFrPBBbbt3wYN5mR27TPSCqeXdqeX6y92Xr1SA/" width="320" /></a></div><br />Florida is 3.5 standardized residuals above its predicted value, wile the next largest error is 2.3 standardized residuals.</div><div><br /></div><div>I don't know why Florida excels in death. It could be as simple as having an older population, in which case age-adjusted mortality rates would bring its numbers more in line with the other states.</div><div><br /></div><div>Hypotheses are welcome.<br /><br /><br /><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /><br /></div><br /><br /></div><p></p>Karlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11654006671545294361noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2850462849314268040.post-60350158673991365172021-09-12T20:31:00.003-07:002021-09-12T20:37:55.462-07:00The Florida slow-roll<p>You've probably heard in the news about what a hard time many states are having with the Delta surge, with schools having to close, ICU's overfilled, people denied care for other health problems because there's not hospital capacity, etc.</p><p>Ground Zero of this preventable catastrophe is ... Florida.</p><p>So you go to some data site like Worldometers, and you look at how things are going in Florida and:</p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEij3XvQIJVd4wIlC-mXE9p1AXH6ZVgSQShzzDbfmoTGB79fI7yRgKjupyNPBAMq3Zbhn24Ehf3Okwms2pKJPgC3V6Zi9dWIICS-oihgxpaKH-xy15ZB6K7vehIvZ8mRBSmHSuhmy9gHKlE/s678/Florida+deaths+2021-09-12.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="463" data-original-width="678" height="219" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEij3XvQIJVd4wIlC-mXE9p1AXH6ZVgSQShzzDbfmoTGB79fI7yRgKjupyNPBAMq3Zbhn24Ehf3Okwms2pKJPgC3V6Zi9dWIICS-oihgxpaKH-xy15ZB6K7vehIvZ8mRBSmHSuhmy9gHKlE/s320/Florida+deaths+2021-09-12.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">From <a href="https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/usa/florida" target="_blank">here</a>, downloaded Sep. 12, 2021</td></tr></tbody></table><p>Sure, they recently reached their highest daily death rate in the course of the pandemic, but since the peak on August 24th, things have been improving incredibly fast.</p><p>Here's another screenshot, focusing in on that end of the graph:</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHDKAvIpWdChZGwkSlLJCQnK9JXO0QX5mZc7bxkIvrjngmoGwptGh2DoVNgWyVQYwv0GikPoNF2PM0fKfwpGvd8Fpynm84NXrqpOckTR-myxbchxEUnaIuT6hyphenhyphen4flPnbsPivRGhMndM2s/s285/Florida+deaths+2021-09-12+-+close.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="285" data-original-width="281" height="285" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHDKAvIpWdChZGwkSlLJCQnK9JXO0QX5mZc7bxkIvrjngmoGwptGh2DoVNgWyVQYwv0GikPoNF2PM0fKfwpGvd8Fpynm84NXrqpOckTR-myxbchxEUnaIuT6hyphenhyphen4flPnbsPivRGhMndM2s/s0/Florida+deaths+2021-09-12+-+close.jpg" width="281" /></a></div><div><br /></div>That's fantastic improvement!<div><br /></div><div>Except that it's nothing more than a delay in reporting COVID-19 death data.</div><ol style="text-align: left;"><div style="text-align: left;">I would look in on the Florida page every two to four days, and it also seemed like they had recently peaked, and then things started getting better.</div><div><br /></div><div>So on August 24th (as it happens) I started transcribing the day-by-day death stats for Florida off of Worldometers, checking back every couple of days to transcribe a new batch.</div><div><br /></div><div>I somewhat arbitrarily chose July 30th as my starting point, opened up a new spreadsheet, and typed in the data from July 30th to August 24th.</div><div><br /></div><div>Like on the Worldometers chart, I calculated the 7-day average, and the graph came out like this:</div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjg-tUHbzwEx5x25oWmif5hYpMlGPybIBTsmFxooyGP6AtkmrWaEZYB1ui6ns39BoOUCev-oEzyX3P3cJMM_n4cKsM3pe51MDTGza2TyCFfdr3v3-gbcjjT1ioyX2dJr-3zWldRWWEIDUQ/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="659" data-original-width="906" height="233" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjg-tUHbzwEx5x25oWmif5hYpMlGPybIBTsmFxooyGP6AtkmrWaEZYB1ui6ns39BoOUCev-oEzyX3P3cJMM_n4cKsM3pe51MDTGza2TyCFfdr3v3-gbcjjT1ioyX2dJr-3zWldRWWEIDUQ/" width="320" /></a></div><div><br /></div>You can see the death rate peaking on August 11th, then falling very impressively, from 178 all the way down to 28, in just 13 days. Remarkable progress.</div><div><br /></div><div>But let me re-scale that, so that there will be room for the later curves I'm going to have to add:</div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEib_0glDZjrg_EFwLrXpRzA22itG_ttuhlctfdsLIxFjoZndvxA63GfYWpuNcczYulOD2RsylHq9tabKfsluUTK7yxO52hIw2-eGJdKwgvZAI9k708Yt_tybP1TGNB92cs1F7k_4kwzU24/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="659" data-original-width="906" height="233" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEib_0glDZjrg_EFwLrXpRzA22itG_ttuhlctfdsLIxFjoZndvxA63GfYWpuNcczYulOD2RsylHq9tabKfsluUTK7yxO52hIw2-eGJdKwgvZAI9k708Yt_tybP1TGNB92cs1F7k_4kwzU24/" width="320" /></a></div><br /></div><div>It's the identical data, just with the vertical axis allowed to rise all the way to 350, and the horizontal axis running out through September 9th.</div><div><br /></div><div>I went back on August 27th, and the peak was a little later, and a little higher. That downturn after August 11th turned out not to be true:</div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj8v0QZK42Owv40-lK-KqGEevydpEZSU_8cioVKde1Fmij7TNdY0tTHrZR8q8Lvq5mLwYKc0bP7m4oi7mcNN65kkjJFJGq1pc32shRtCFgEay2UiTrrKq0vPfu2y4HTlCojYns9GV-H6ww/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="659" data-original-width="906" height="233" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj8v0QZK42Owv40-lK-KqGEevydpEZSU_8cioVKde1Fmij7TNdY0tTHrZR8q8Lvq5mLwYKc0bP7m4oi7mcNN65kkjJFJGq1pc32shRtCFgEay2UiTrrKq0vPfu2y4HTlCojYns9GV-H6ww/" width="320" /></a></div><br />That had been a Friday. I went back two days later, on Sunday, and the first two weeks of the death curve were unchanged from Friday, but the last seven days had all been bumped up:</div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMzP32mIv99wIPPxVlE3i3SA9fF-bVjLKbIOWWikQxKoCorKIZTrC9-YtJo_HZsBGIwPHB5q3ko7a7LUV3aVPmbYm8453nQXQ9HksP8xmT9shTGRU3dcTqPgjI9ZdIHxAlh-X4GzEr2Rk/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="659" data-original-width="906" height="233" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMzP32mIv99wIPPxVlE3i3SA9fF-bVjLKbIOWWikQxKoCorKIZTrC9-YtJo_HZsBGIwPHB5q3ko7a7LUV3aVPmbYm8453nQXQ9HksP8xmT9shTGRU3dcTqPgjI9ZdIHxAlh-X4GzEr2Rk/" width="320" /></a></div><div><br /></div>Two days later, the whole peak had been raised. The peak now didn't come until August 16th, at 221 deaths per day.</div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDpAiYYpQlmI0pMzZOS2_-2s-3_7lhBpncZdL_19Hm-Bm4F9Bd_arj2HXNHnEO7YrQMq0H-9tofq-XcHjboiz6spivG4EDfaft5ympGK8e1NhxsaAQ7KkaP1OpxT1sy2u6fuuDTu9tv2Q/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="659" data-original-width="906" height="233" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDpAiYYpQlmI0pMzZOS2_-2s-3_7lhBpncZdL_19Hm-Bm4F9Bd_arj2HXNHnEO7YrQMq0H-9tofq-XcHjboiz6spivG4EDfaft5ympGK8e1NhxsaAQ7KkaP1OpxT1sy2u6fuuDTu9tv2Q/" width="320" /></a></div><br />After that, I missed five days. When I came back, the peak hadn't been pushed any later, but it had been raised, and a lot more deaths had been added to previously recorded days after that peak.</div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg36Ykn-7hDCYgjNDcsM5xLhML4XTUqI34ejtjXbJ8f131l5ckQiueLL73YbYabplYwB-6j2LBTXtuLZ0EM-s2YbR_nZ2HjaW8wb5tjfHeV5W0E0LO-FUiqy7vGnZxor6gvrUy-x6yoQ2U/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="659" data-original-width="906" height="233" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg36Ykn-7hDCYgjNDcsM5xLhML4XTUqI34ejtjXbJ8f131l5ckQiueLL73YbYabplYwB-6j2LBTXtuLZ0EM-s2YbR_nZ2HjaW8wb5tjfHeV5W0E0LO-FUiqy7vGnZxor6gvrUy-x6yoQ2U/" width="320" /></a></div><div><br /></div>When I gathered data on September 8th, the peak had been pushed back to August 21st, and raised somewhat.</div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6rSj4D6bR7I-FRFb2yCqKF1ZHQuCUQnqwkbcrCjkep2e-dBk0k2p5KN1qTm1vgGNAs7oL4NQUz6Me0mR4jInjraKte-JG_JkwKV-XZcgaj9Jc6CKnRnnUuiwJU6FIaQ5DcJCc1RkzlGU/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="659" data-original-width="906" height="233" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6rSj4D6bR7I-FRFb2yCqKF1ZHQuCUQnqwkbcrCjkep2e-dBk0k2p5KN1qTm1vgGNAs7oL4NQUz6Me0mR4jInjraKte-JG_JkwKV-XZcgaj9Jc6CKnRnnUuiwJU6FIaQ5DcJCc1RkzlGU/" width="320" /></a></div><div><br /></div>Friday, September 10th, saw a big jump and the peak not happening until August 24th.</div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgmIWbOtO5IE7SP2x6jau1-eV0w-O_INE_CLsEHdIrigQim0r3YE3mlEeXc_HcCcZLcVCNw1Yw3isXlpmiCKeSeyii2U7S9_h16WHx7xkIEwVx1_kRLiwLIrqmOUXs8xN_52iHoB04POsI/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="659" data-original-width="906" height="233" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgmIWbOtO5IE7SP2x6jau1-eV0w-O_INE_CLsEHdIrigQim0r3YE3mlEeXc_HcCcZLcVCNw1Yw3isXlpmiCKeSeyii2U7S9_h16WHx7xkIEwVx1_kRLiwLIrqmOUXs8xN_52iHoB04POsI/" width="320" /></a></div><br />Today, September 12th, and went and got the numbers again. Like August 27th and 29th I had a Friday-to-Sunday pair. And like that time, most of the curve was left unchanged from Friday to Sunday, with the update only affecting the last seven days of the curve.</div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhmLndjNN0CbQslWmL7E_6-lHPXw09zzYDjMaiTtIWZ421d0rNnlRk4uo9Jg2ZkUuDL4MasiL8iyiOJGcExiHqyXdvBnIOZycovfXfw-PsNTzunKSkFRPw1OHg9LEvMCkSE2pyxPv0T2po/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="659" data-original-width="906" height="233" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhmLndjNN0CbQslWmL7E_6-lHPXw09zzYDjMaiTtIWZ421d0rNnlRk4uo9Jg2ZkUuDL4MasiL8iyiOJGcExiHqyXdvBnIOZycovfXfw-PsNTzunKSkFRPw1OHg9LEvMCkSE2pyxPv0T2po/" width="320" /></a></div><br />I fully expect that if I go back on Tuesday, the entire curve will have been lifted again. The pattern over the last two weeks suggests that, even though the reported data show a decline in deaths, the underlying reality is that they're not done increasing their death rate in Florida.</div><div><br /></div><div>I should take a moment to address one question that will be obvious to some readers: Is this a big deal? Isn't this just a function of data taking time to compile?</div><div><br /></div><div>Maybe.</div><div><br /></div><div>My best argument is that I've been looking at data for many states for a while (particularly for the nine states that featured in my previous post), and none of them have this obvious a rosy scenario. They report their data, and aside from a few small updates, their data don't keep drifting higher.</div><div><br /></div><div>Just today I started the process of a small check on my impression, by gathering today's death data for New York state, starting likewise on July 30th. In a week or so, I should be able to tell if NY is doing something like what Florida has been doing.</div><div><br /></div><div>I doubt it will be that dramatic.</div><div><br /></div><div>In the meantime, we can count up how many deaths Florida had failed do count on August 24th, compared to their report today.</div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiX58yQMGwO2VeiBcpHLiZ3rA-edTIDfQxhyphenhyphen8rF8G9o2xBc1aXg6xxV-bauu2zwvkz-8oWPNgjornDn1EYKyDkmv5TsDTmaEP2Jfpm60r6fflnVh5Ew_sgStPwZi6wVpdcyQYPBXychMgk/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="659" data-original-width="906" height="233" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiX58yQMGwO2VeiBcpHLiZ3rA-edTIDfQxhyphenhyphen8rF8G9o2xBc1aXg6xxV-bauu2zwvkz-8oWPNgjornDn1EYKyDkmv5TsDTmaEP2Jfpm60r6fflnVh5Ew_sgStPwZi6wVpdcyQYPBXychMgk/" width="320" /></a></div><div><br /></div>On August 24th (indicated by vertical, black lines), there were a reported 2,907 COVID-19 deaths in Florida.</div><div><br /></div><div>Today, not quite three weeks later, that total number of reported COVID-19 deaths from July 30th through August 24th has more than doubled, to 6,187.</div><div><br /></div><div>That particular window (through August 24th) might be just about ready to stop getting worse.<br /><br /></div><div>Stay tuned.</div></ol>Karlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11654006671545294361noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2850462849314268040.post-41739646316218651372021-07-22T07:53:00.004-07:002021-07-22T13:01:50.662-07:00FAaFO<p><a href="https://thedanceofthehippo.blogspot.com/2021/07/what-failure-looks-like.html">Yesterday's post</a> compared the surge in the U.S. as a whole to what's going on in the U.K. </p><p><a href="https://www.martinimade.com/">Adrienne Martini</a> quite reasonably noted that this is probably playing out differently in different states, since our vaccination rates are so different: in Vermont it's 75%/67% (at least one dose / fully vaccinated), while in Alabama it's 38%/34%.</p><p>(The data n vaccination are from covidactnow.org.)</p><p>So I assembled a not-totally-random collection of states with varying vaccination rates and looked at their current covid increases.</p><p>The lines are color-shaded, with pure red being the lowest vaccination rate and blue being the highest. Florida's 56% with one dose matches the national average, so it has the central shading of gray.</p><p>The states are also listed in the legend in order of vaccination rate, from worst to best.</p><p>As with yesterday's post, the daily case rates are from Worldometers, 7-day averages, read weekly.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgRlg5NJt_kDq-ebelWcgeFzz5GnG8S7C4VMN9FBzbMUHisI3j23u4JIfQRz-D9aB8nQWmDUIVAcPIou-CYkhh1CK_MT1k4o3oYoWJ-1mxtRaz_9C7h35lUFPorMRkqSv2hbmk8mlnwbNc/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="660" data-original-width="908" height="233" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgRlg5NJt_kDq-ebelWcgeFzz5GnG8S7C4VMN9FBzbMUHisI3j23u4JIfQRz-D9aB8nQWmDUIVAcPIou-CYkhh1CK_MT1k4o3oYoWJ-1mxtRaz_9C7h35lUFPorMRkqSv2hbmk8mlnwbNc/" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Not surprisingly, the redder lines of the unvaccinated states:</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>Start up earlier;</li><li>Didn't get as low before starting up; and</li><li>Are now at significantly higher levels.</li></ul></div>But Florida, with the national average vaccination rate, is doing much worse than Mississippi and Alabama, the two least vaccinated states.<p></p><p>Lining up the starting times of every state's increase, you see again the rough pattern that more vaccinated states reached lower lows of infection rates and haven't been rising for as long - but again: Florida ...</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMms4opyklDpiAjqzFK7C4o8_8cIihI5iV2EuOPb21xgsxBj1N3UVfwd0Mifzkxw7zYcsBKnNc8TLWrCGPgARrJR2uQ_dgC2zI7vOmpu7n86p9F8yTmWHxsDv1J6-O-2e-542_nz8d95s/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="660" data-original-width="908" height="233" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMms4opyklDpiAjqzFK7C4o8_8cIihI5iV2EuOPb21xgsxBj1N3UVfwd0Mifzkxw7zYcsBKnNc8TLWrCGPgARrJR2uQ_dgC2zI7vOmpu7n86p9F8yTmWHxsDv1J6-O-2e-542_nz8d95s/" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">The most troubling news for the blue states with higher vaccination rates is that, although we got our rates lower and held off the increase longer, we're now increasing faster than the redder states were at a comparable point in their increases:</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-MGcY3ydnLqlQhfsusX1XabJ_rLNDntrKf0a_NWIyaRkVrBtlfcL40fibmQFXyvW34ehf9L1It47Lulw6ePJFI3o0-E_ECDQZSEPWt9RTc26SjZVFsHmizi602U_MWrPrb9PZxP7YRMo/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="660" data-original-width="908" height="233" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-MGcY3ydnLqlQhfsusX1XabJ_rLNDntrKf0a_NWIyaRkVrBtlfcL40fibmQFXyvW34ehf9L1It47Lulw6ePJFI3o0-E_ECDQZSEPWt9RTc26SjZVFsHmizi602U_MWrPrb9PZxP7YRMo/" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">(Though note that Vermont is only a little more than two weeks past its low, and with such a small population, it's easy for it to have "noisy" numbers. It will be "interesting" to see how this shakes out in a couple more weeks.)</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Bringing the UK into the mix, we can see that none of these nine states is (yet) as bad off as the UK, though that's not saying much, because the earliest of them is still four weeks behind the UK in terms of how long they've been experiencing an increase. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhzeIsqviM3TkB4hZql4KsPlsx03AX9WMnxjU3AzlSPO3l13aPuBab7T6tAZWXYFYGBELA0uJMu1l10EdLhWfXte9RgD67Wgwe0BqGZZ33Rr81ESbVhwrOXRoSDCg-GGXm1gqFZs2wbRD8/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="660" data-original-width="908" height="233" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhzeIsqviM3TkB4hZql4KsPlsx03AX9WMnxjU3AzlSPO3l13aPuBab7T6tAZWXYFYGBELA0uJMu1l10EdLhWfXte9RgD67Wgwe0BqGZZ33Rr81ESbVhwrOXRoSDCg-GGXm1gqFZs2wbRD8/" width="320" /></a></div><br />Lining up the beginnings of everyone's increase, we can see that almost every US state in the sample is above the UK line, which forms sort of an "envelope" below the US lines. Most states didnt get their cases as low, and it looks like they've been increasing faster.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJFKAYuL4SEH0ti4N9Dhv506ZZC94Vh45GMULlH_9A-SWOKO8WdpF0qqRSnfwHkw-5_70k-1EgTgJrCS4BX1HzdIKwgcdJkmjvopeZiLfWBrghozeq9Vj0J5iFPvCBGziFMnCKrffQsIQ/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="660" data-original-width="908" height="233" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJFKAYuL4SEH0ti4N9Dhv506ZZC94Vh45GMULlH_9A-SWOKO8WdpF0qqRSnfwHkw-5_70k-1EgTgJrCS4BX1HzdIKwgcdJkmjvopeZiLfWBrghozeq9Vj0J5iFPvCBGziFMnCKrffQsIQ/" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div>That is clearer to see when we focus in on just the first seven weeks, the length of the longest US increases.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjObe8gvoRUgJwnO6mcumZP9SBlhhUKSvLAi6J4hz6yA_-U4KWa7jVhOElVlNcdc_VDQy4jDfBPMZfGSTOGzjvIWeArj_ZGMvvKC_cZO_JZn5P3UlhvTkHwIyXw5mZwDa2I95CE8A9ZCE0/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="660" data-original-width="908" height="233" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjObe8gvoRUgJwnO6mcumZP9SBlhhUKSvLAi6J4hz6yA_-U4KWa7jVhOElVlNcdc_VDQy4jDfBPMZfGSTOGzjvIWeArj_ZGMvvKC_cZO_JZn5P3UlhvTkHwIyXw5mZwDa2I95CE8A9ZCE0/" width="320" /></a></div><span style="font-size: x-small;">(In transferring from Excel, this chart is somehow losing two labels from its legend. As in the other charts, the all-blue solid line is Vermont, and the black dashed line is UK.)</span><br /><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div>Adding the UK to the chart of growth, we see the envelope phenomenon more clearly - every US state in the sample has its case rates growing at least as fast as what the UK saw at the comparable point in its surge:</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6etal2gdZgB3aCSYCC7BElUoXgFhq7uFK7aHyqMaZNc3oqcXxUyO7pDRJd-PXfW4Zvug1OJev2q02PLLqA-fPqyqmKoOJONuahKUHw5za3VFouyG32RXQ-cYkfBwrQ6Kgk7uYtNytMGs/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="660" data-original-width="908" height="233" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6etal2gdZgB3aCSYCC7BElUoXgFhq7uFK7aHyqMaZNc3oqcXxUyO7pDRJd-PXfW4Zvug1OJev2q02PLLqA-fPqyqmKoOJONuahKUHw5za3VFouyG32RXQ-cYkfBwrQ6Kgk7uYtNytMGs/" width="320" /></a></div><br /><div style="text-align: left;">Again focusing in on the first eight weeks:</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUoIGV2MOnGRws2eDmHO722bDefotTdHktWRMiREzgIA4o63yGS_a68qBoQiEb5A7hmccDvGT0AE0g78uRqGV6Zd3VG-VfiAJgjumA4kp4VTcpshY9XSCEuBniVgcROLV1_DjdxL6ICpk/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="660" data-original-width="908" height="233" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUoIGV2MOnGRws2eDmHO722bDefotTdHktWRMiREzgIA4o63yGS_a68qBoQiEb5A7hmccDvGT0AE0g78uRqGV6Zd3VG-VfiAJgjumA4kp4VTcpshY9XSCEuBniVgcROLV1_DjdxL6ICpk/" width="320" /></a></div><br /><br /></div></div></div>Missouri is kind of playing footsie with the UK line over the last few weeks, and Texas is pretty close. Everyone else is noticeably above.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">I think it's time for masks back on in stores, etc. I'm wondering if in-person restaurants are a good idea.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Tempering that is the very low rate of serious illness among vaccinated people.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Un-tempering that is the way that increased infection rates increase the rate at which new variants arise, giving us higher odds of encountering a version that really cares very little about your vaccination status.<br /><br /></div>(A note about Texas: it's a little hard to pick the right point for Texas's "low," because they went along a low plateau for several weeks, with transient lows within that. For yesterday's and today's posts I've chosen June 17th, as the last low point before a <i>sustained</i> rise.)<br /><br /></div><br /><br /><p></p>Karlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11654006671545294361noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2850462849314268040.post-50773821355521172692021-07-21T09:01:00.003-07:002021-07-21T09:06:18.455-07:00What failure looks like<p> In case you were wondering (and you know you were), this is what failure looks like:</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCYcyq_SV3qQlvWnmCvfS3Sa8n4xG-1dPKBZgywK9L_XqkC1CLdWgx4vEzvO0U2_a7Wx6jAtsdOnM0Nd7P7AN5Ra71Laq5XntNf7mi0u1xXNt2Dm7l6IxWDGzB1zS1FvqMeS2kwHccK8I/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="660" data-original-width="908" height="233" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCYcyq_SV3qQlvWnmCvfS3Sa8n4xG-1dPKBZgywK9L_XqkC1CLdWgx4vEzvO0U2_a7Wx6jAtsdOnM0Nd7P7AN5Ra71Laq5XntNf7mi0u1xXNt2Dm7l6IxWDGzB1zS1FvqMeS2kwHccK8I/" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Figure 1</div><p></p><p>Allow me to explain.</p><p>The UK reached its low in daily new covid-19 cases back on May 5th. The U.S. reached its low back on June 21st.</p><p>This is what the two countries' experiences have been in the time since each one's low:</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgu8t98ulxJAvmpFEf7Sv6VJkC8cKpBGbBTI73ZoKCWPVHlJk8pOSLbLrnCKlOz18vJ_pJbAHjG50zmnVXpE0IbvVmAUbS8pclOdz_QnHS3j5N_ZKvOnq83lahR7iVU5pCfYL8zoTqsiKc/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="660" data-original-width="908" height="233" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgu8t98ulxJAvmpFEf7Sv6VJkC8cKpBGbBTI73ZoKCWPVHlJk8pOSLbLrnCKlOz18vJ_pJbAHjG50zmnVXpE0IbvVmAUbS8pclOdz_QnHS3j5N_ZKvOnq83lahR7iVU5pCfYL8zoTqsiKc/" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Figure 2</div><br />(As the labeling on the chart indicates, the data are from Worldometers. I don't know if there's a way of downloading their data, so instead I set it to show me the 7-day average of new cases, found each country's low point, and then manually found and typed up the values. To save time, I picked up the values ever week rather than every day.)<br /><div><br /></div><div>This graph has two problems in terms of comparing the countries: the action isn't happening at the same time, and the U.S. is substantially bigger than the UK, so we expect to see higher numbers here, even for an equal severity.<span><a name='more'></a></span><p></p><p>We can align the two countries' timelines by counting weeks since the low, rather than calendar dates:</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDQr6bZzhvmZQlxwkq9-8kJleKyCb3x1d1N8jpzcQaGeSDByfvrnyo-YtevZ8aTmv0C_JnvwkP5OB6X4BDB4yumTa6AlY0oPBhiORHbSgEKWMvS4pcU1jlycmxNx5zDL78gwfEd-i2_HY/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="660" data-original-width="908" height="233" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDQr6bZzhvmZQlxwkq9-8kJleKyCb3x1d1N8jpzcQaGeSDByfvrnyo-YtevZ8aTmv0C_JnvwkP5OB6X4BDB4yumTa6AlY0oPBhiORHbSgEKWMvS4pcU1jlycmxNx5zDL78gwfEd-i2_HY/" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Figure 3</div><br />It doesn't look <i>great</i> for the U.S., but being bigger, it's reasonable that our low is a significantly higher number than the UK's low, and maybe our eyes are doing a poor job of correcting for that.<p></p><p>The obvious way of accounting for differences in population is to look at something like cases per 100,000, and that together with looking at weeks since the low gives us:</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjwDSRkQPL8dPC9F1obkpNRFxykes-oKqQ0I-MG7ErGMcRBV0MuVU78VKH5l1tsBspII7mXyAwVCX0yCBeI9pgsxGx3gb87Ch57Yi4ZdVq6svwa_WBo74FSolElqnYYZFGBmKTLqXkuu44/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="660" data-original-width="908" height="233" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjwDSRkQPL8dPC9F1obkpNRFxykes-oKqQ0I-MG7ErGMcRBV0MuVU78VKH5l1tsBspII7mXyAwVCX0yCBeI9pgsxGx3gb87Ch57Yi4ZdVq6svwa_WBo74FSolElqnYYZFGBmKTLqXkuu44/" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Figure 4</div><br />So, again, not looking great for us, but the UK numbers get so big over toward the more recent part of the data that the comparison at the left side of the chart gets squashed.<p></p><p>So let's look at just the four weeks for which we have both countries' data:</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGo5Q5x3LsmaFtM9sty-DS3SlL4DTxl_w59MxtUFKiRhpBDSivLqPPZestqSBKPmWFQpw3256-DnMDl_AGXwQb8VZUtGVq9Ppi4AW3Kbvarj_p76ygOl4h1UFKSbPvaBt1SXlYmdS-Yp0/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="660" data-original-width="908" height="233" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGo5Q5x3LsmaFtM9sty-DS3SlL4DTxl_w59MxtUFKiRhpBDSivLqPPZestqSBKPmWFQpw3256-DnMDl_AGXwQb8VZUtGVq9Ppi4AW3Kbvarj_p76ygOl4h1UFKSbPvaBt1SXlYmdS-Yp0/" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Figure 5</div><br />Oh.<p></p><p>That is not reassuring at all. We reached our low noticeably worse than the UK low, but not <i>a lot</i> worse. We were about 28% higher than them.</p><p>We're now four weeks past our low. We are more than double the rate that the UK had four weeks after <i>their </i>low.</p><p>We're getting worse faster than they were.</p><p>To control for each country's different starting point in case rates, we can normalize each country's rate so that its low equals 100, and compare the data on that basis:</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJOQIclzsX_d90dNy1Bx_hyHJ4WBM7cXfaR5HEOk6m_I-b13Gg5-yHXKaEvEkhEzBY7pYXsCCx7k1-MjbQRY4t6uXx79trukNynJmso6Ski-SPHSshmpg_lTFaw0hElGuka6VBOEbGuNU/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="660" data-original-width="908" height="233" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJOQIclzsX_d90dNy1Bx_hyHJ4WBM7cXfaR5HEOk6m_I-b13Gg5-yHXKaEvEkhEzBY7pYXsCCx7k1-MjbQRY4t6uXx79trukNynJmso6Ski-SPHSshmpg_lTFaw0hElGuka6VBOEbGuNU/" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Figure 6</div><br />One week after our low we were doing trivially better than the UK at their comparable time.<p></p><p>Two weeks after our low, we were a little bit worse off than the UK.</p><p>Three weeks out, and our course was clearly worse than theirs.</p><p>It's now four weeks out. In that time period, the UK had not quite doubled. We've more than tripled.</p><p>Where might this be headed?</p><p>Over its first 28 days of increase, the UK rate grew at 2.2% per day.</p><p>Over our 28 days since our low, we've grown at a rate of 4.0% per day.</p><p>From day 28 to day 56, the UK rate grew at 6.1% per day. Over the remaining 20 days of data, their growth slowed down to "only" 4.7%.</p><p>What is our next 7 weeks have the same growth experience as the UK?</p><p>That looks like this:</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEik_qyGKVv6Ya4ZrT8enWOoVa6oU0K4sJX43RyYkZu30RCTZJ6O6M3Vz96Y4mBx6rBPnHfebi8g1WarIJg2fmxgmexHFImQxq0RB_cB-13ADRu_DW0E3BIhIM7X69tlSOr70qWffqaFsuE/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="660" data-original-width="908" height="233" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEik_qyGKVv6Ya4ZrT8enWOoVa6oU0K4sJX43RyYkZu30RCTZJ6O6M3Vz96Y4mBx6rBPnHfebi8g1WarIJg2fmxgmexHFImQxq0RB_cB-13ADRu_DW0E3BIhIM7X69tlSOr70qWffqaFsuE/" width="320" /></a></div><br /><br /></div>But of course, we're already rising faster than they were. What if our next 4 weeks are faster growth than the UK's comparable time, by that same 1.8 percentage points? Then we miraculously revert to their growth rate over the next 3 weeks?<p></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhF8qT24qstLpz0paJu1b8dGd-TJQ4tcsIc_96Wt-_xuyKqSY3TJoGtJzcMwPZvMl7PhziAp20VSlkrthXkLYlBmqdsz-1v-QD_YkjH5ASRspfPTB6wAcrVW7mtBmA92bBXMwfJgMM1-NM/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="660" data-original-width="908" height="233" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhF8qT24qstLpz0paJu1b8dGd-TJQ4tcsIc_96Wt-_xuyKqSY3TJoGtJzcMwPZvMl7PhziAp20VSlkrthXkLYlBmqdsz-1v-QD_YkjH5ASRspfPTB6wAcrVW7mtBmA92bBXMwfJgMM1-NM/" width="320" /></a></div><br /></div><p>These are both pictures of failure, one worse than the other.</p><p>On your birthday, you get to do things that you consider fun, and I generally enjoy playing with charts, but these are not exactly fun.</p><p></p></div>Karlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11654006671545294361noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2850462849314268040.post-62787136366132784862021-01-11T12:25:00.005-08:002021-01-11T12:43:27.011-08:00Still no word from Salka<div><i>This is a follow-up to a letter I sent on Saturday, reproduced <a href="https://thedanceofthehippo.blogspot.com/2021/01/local-leader-playing-with-fire.html" target="_blank">here</a>.</i></div><div><br /></div>Dear Assemblyman Salka,<br /><br />
I still don't really have an answer to my question as to whether you support insurrection or democratic government. I know you're busy, but the response seems both important and straightforward.<br /><br />
Returning to your thought that the attempted coup may have been the fault of leftists, is [<span style="background-color: #fcff01;">WARNING: Link to Parler</span>] <a href="https://video.parler.com/D2/fo/D2fovQB1v4M2_small.mp4?fbclid=IwAR0AUItVO3GasUUllhDdgxaKj2z-2Q2_VBDzpKK-C4_2Yr9v0gvzTAFyl0Y" target="_blank">this video</a> the work of antifa?<br /><br />For anyone who doesn't want to click on a Parler link, or in case it's no longer visible, the words are excerpts from Donald Trump speaking over the last four years, backed by dramatic videos and written text.<br /><br />
One example: there's a clip of Mr. Trump saying, "The time for empty talk is over. Now arrives the hour of action." The clip appears to be from his inauguration in 2017, in which context it is an entirely appropriate and moving sentiment. Used in the context of this video, following a lost election where Mr. Trump has failed to overturn the result by talking, and just days before the end of his term, the use of Mr. Trump's words can reasonably be interpreted as a call for violence.<br /><br />
Let's take up your contention that anti-Trump forces were behind Wednesday's insurrection, and extend that idea to this video. In other words, let's assume that it was made by "antifa" or someone other than Trump supporters, in order to lure otherwise-well-intentioned Trump supporters into betraying their country by resorting to violence to overturn an election.<br /><br />
I think that's an absurd set of assumptions, but it's the only way to continue your act of deflecting blame for the insurrection away from Trump supporters. And so, for the sake of argument and to be as generous as possible to your position, let's go with it.<br /><br />
Will this provocation work into tricking good Trump supporters into participating in a violent overthrow of the United States government?<br /><br />
Only if they believe the election was stolen from their hero.<br /><br />
And that's where you come in.<br /><br /><a name='more'></a>
You're just one member of one state legislature, so it's not up to you to solve this crisis on your own.<br /><br />
But you can choose whether or not to help.<br /><br />
I've seen your Facebook page, so I know there are many in our community who look up to you.<br /><br />
Statistically, it's reasonable to assume that some of them are laboring under the delusion that the election was stolen.<br /><br />
You could help them break the spell, but you're choosing not to.<br /><br />
Perhaps you're afraid of some of your Trump-supporting constituents, and maybe you're not wrong to be afraid.<br /><br />
The libertarian magazine Reason published an interview with newly elected Republican Representative Peter Meijer, <a href="https://reason.com/2021/01/08/amash-successor-peter-meijer-trumps-deceptions-are-rankly-unfit/" target="_blank">here</a>.<br /><br />
First, as to the nature of Wednesday's events, Meijer says,<br /><blockquote>
[I]n terms of the people who stormed the Capitol, I think coup gives a sense of strategy and intelligence and forethought that none of the people involved deserve. Insurrection in terms of trying to disrupt the functioning of the government, sedition in terms of acting in a way to try to violently overthrow: Those terms fit. When it comes to the president's behavior, again, he certainly bears a share of the responsibility for what happened.</blockquote>
Speaking to the question of intimidation, Meijer says,<br /><blockquote>
And then one of the saddest things is I had colleagues who, when it came time to recognize reality and vote to certify Arizona and Pennsylvania in the Electoral College, they knew in their heart of hearts that they should've voted to certify, but some had legitimate concerns about the safety of their families. They felt that that vote would put their families in danger.</blockquote>
Is that the camp you're in, Mr. Salka? Do you know in your heart of hearts that the election was legitimate, but you fear for the safety of yourself or your loved ones if you say so publicly?<br /><br />
I obviously don't know if that's what's behind your silence, but if it is, it's a short-term solution with no good outcome in the long run.<br /><br />
I'm asking you to find whatever combination of common sense and courage is needed for you to speak out against insurrection, and in defense of the democratic system in which you are privileged to serve.<br /><br />Karlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11654006671545294361noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2850462849314268040.post-62408769775923343792021-01-09T16:39:00.014-08:002021-01-11T12:44:07.451-08:00Local leader playing with fire<i>On Wednesday evening I wrote to Assemblyman John Salka asking whether he supported democratic governance or insurrection.<br /><br />
On Thursday morning I received a reply from Mr. Salka’s Community Relations Director who suggested that because it was such a hefty question and a nuanced topic, it would be best if I spoke with the assemblyman directly.<br /><br />
Although I agree that the question was hefty, I didn’t really see the nuance in the topic. A band of the president’s supporters had swarmed the Capitol to prevent the official confirmation of the legitimate election result. My question was in essence, “Do you think this is OK?” How much nuance was entailed in answering that?<br /><br />
Nonetheless, I appreciated the assemblyman’s willingness to talk with a random constituent, and we set up a time for yesterday afternoon.<br /><br />
My expectation was that Mr. Salka would make a clear and public statement about the legitimacy of President-elect Biden’s election as part of a clear and public denunciation of the insurrection that happened on Wednesday.<br /><br />
The short story is that he was not willing to do that.<br /><br />
He purports to believe that the election was stolen.<br /><br />
Regarding the insurrection, he doesn't want to be hasty with any public remarks before we really know who was involved, because he heard that "antifa" or other leftists may have been involved.<br /><br />
The bulk of my long reply follows.</i><br /><br />
Dear Assemblyman Salka,<br /><br />
I appreciate you taking the time to talk with me yesterday.<br /><br />
I am disturbed, however, by how firmly you cling to hopes of narratives that will exonerate your political faction, in the absence of the least bit of substantive evidence for them.<br /><br />
Regarding your continued devotion to election conspiracies, I note your response in our exchange about affidavits, which you brought up as some of the evidence of wrongdoing. I pointed out that in some cases the affidavits were disregarded because the affiants hadn’t participated in observer-training sessions and therefore didn’t know that the behaviors they saw were absolutely routine.<br /><br />
This seemed like new information for you, but it gave you no pause. You learned that there was no substance in one of the things you thought discredited the election, and you didn’t reflect, you didn’t take a moment to ponder what other pieces of “evidence” might be equally worthless. You weren’t the least bit prepared to defend the position you were arguing. Nor did you care to. You abandoned that point and retreated to the platitude that we have no way of knowing what might be discovered eventually.<br /><br />
In other words, you have no evidence, and you don’t know of any evidence, but you’re still willing to question the integrity of the election.<br /><br />
In our call I mentioned Monday’s press conference by Gabriel Sterling, the elections manager for the state of Georgia, in which he systematically debunked President Trump’s baseless claims about the Georgia election. You can see it <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zLYugNRVLiQ&feature=youtu.be" target="_blank">here</a>. (And I made sure to find a clip with the awesome sign-language interpreter whom I mentioned.)<br /><br />If you’ve got time to question the integrity of the election, you should be able to find 30 minutes to watch this. After you do, you should ask yourself the following questions:
<a name='more'></a><ol style="text-align: left;">
<li>Which statement or statements of Mr. Sterling are wrong?</li>
<li>If you think he made one or more wrong statements, what is your evidence that his is wrong?</li>
<li>Mr. Sterling is the elections manager for the state of Georgia. You are an assemblyman from the state of New York. Why do you think your information about Georgia’s elections is better than his?</li>
<li>Mr. Sterling is a Republican, working for a Republican secretary of state and a Republican governor. All three men say they support President Trump and wish he had won the election. They say the election result was a disappointment to them but that it was legitimate. You question whether it was, which implies that they are lying and covering up fraud that stole the election from their preferred candidate. What is their motivation to cover up this fraud?</li>
<li>If Mr. Sterling is correct and the Georgia election was legitimate, how likely is it that the claims of fraud in other states are similarly baseless?</li></ol>
And I have to reiterate a point I made in our call. Claims of significant election fraud have been rejected by:<br />
<ul style="text-align: left;">
<li>the election managers in all 50 states, Democrats and Republicans alike;</li>
<li>judges around the country, appointed by various presidents, including President Trump (and while some cases have been dismissed for lack of standing, in other cases judges have actually examined the so-called evidence and dismissed it, for reasons ranging from the affiant ignorance of normal election procedure, as discussed above, to the affidavit being hearsay);</li>
<li>Christopher Krebs, the director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (appointed by Mr. Trump into the newly created position, and then fired by President Trump days after Mr. Krebs declared the election had been secure);</li>
<li>William Barr, the Attorney General of the United States (appointed by President Trump, but who resigned not long after announcing the absence of significant fraud).</li></ul>
These are the people whose jobs it is to oversee and investigate these things. Of course it’s possible all of them are wrong, but to challenge them <b><u>without evidence</u></b> is to invite anarchy. If each of us is free to create <b><u>and act upon</u></b> our own reality outside the legitimate channels of authority, judgement, and decision-making, it is impossible for democratic government to function. And as I said on the phone, by lodging evidence-free doubts about the legitimacy of President-elect Biden, you deny the basis of your own legitimacy in office.<br /><br />
Moving on, you entertain the possibility that Wednesday’s attempted coup was instigated by antifa or others opposed to the president, despite the fact that, with numerous individuals having been identified, several of them are well known figures in Q-Anon and one (so far) is a Republican state legislator while not a single person has been identified with any connection to opposition to President Trump.<br /><br />
The man who sat at Speaker Pelosi’s desk has been identified; not anti-Trump.<br /><br />
The woman who was shot and killed forcing her way through a door left a large social-media footprint; not anti-Trump.<br /><br />
When we find out who set up the noose outside the building, or who it was climbing through the Senate chamber with a sidearm and a fist full of zip-tie handcuffs, will you honestly be surprised to learn these were not “antifa,” nor anybody else but people following the president’s call to “be strong” and to give Republican Senators and Representatives their spines?<br /><br />
The FBI now says there’s no evidence of antifa involvement.<br /><br />
In the unlikely case that some anti-Trump instigators are eventually found, how many do you think there will be?<br /><br />
And what is your story about how otherwise well-intentioned supporters of the president got goaded into storming our seat of government, beating a police officer to death with a fire extinguisher, stealing electronic devices, damaging the building, and smearing feces?<br /><br />
Did antifa somehow trick Lonnie Coffman into loading his vehicle with a handgun, an assault rifle, ammunition, and materials to create Molotov cocktails?<br /><br />
Was it antifa that used mind-control to force Cleveland Meredith into making interstate threats against Speaker Pelosi?<br /><br />
Did antifa hijack the social-media accounts of Trump supporters before the coup and make them share their plans for occupying the Capitol?<br /><br />
The day after the insurrection, we’re only exaggerating a little to say that half of Parler was people blaming the coup attempt on leftist infiltrators, while the other half was conservatives celebrating their own participation in the assault.<br /><br />
You say that the attack on the Capitol was abhorrent to you and that the people involved should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law. President Trump, according to his own words, doesn’t seem to agree with you about it being abhorrent. During the insurrection he first called on his supporters to “remain peaceful,” but he didn’t tell them to leave. When he did finally call on them to go home, he also said, “We love you. You’re very special.” How are you better informed about who carried out this assault than the very president of the United States of America?<br /><br />
Your hypothesis seems to be that antifa didn’t stop at planning and leading this coup d’etat staffed by numerous Proud Boys, Q-Anon enthusiasts, and a sprinkling of Republican state legislators. They were so audacious as to maneuver the president himself into praising it.<br /><br />
Did I get that right?<br /><br />
You said you were looking at various sources of news—“not just Fox, of course,” in your own words. I’d like you to watch <a href="https://www.msnbc.com/all-in/watch/chris-99178053752?fbclid=IwAR2isXZAfFfcCiPYvnA48pK5qNrZFvjsAOLNXO2QGQFCEwsOpMkT8bh7gKc" target="_blank">this report</a> by Chris Hayes from MSNBC. After you do, you should ask yourself similar questions as after watching Mr. Sterling:<br />
<ol style="text-align: left;">
<li>Are there specific statements in Mr. Hayes’ report that are inaccurate?</li>
<li>If you think some things that Mr. Hayes says are inaccurate, <b><u>what is your evidence</u></b> that those things are inaccurate?</li></ol>
An obvious question is what right I have to tell you how to spend your time, and here’s the answer to that. You are questioning the legitimacy of an election, without evidence, and now that this doubt-mongering has resulted in a violent insurrection, you’re trying to shift the blame, again without evidence, from supporters of President Trump onto “leftists” or “antifa.” If your allegations about the election are wrong, then you are threatening our continued existence as a democratic republic. An hour of your precious time confronting the evidence against your claims is literally the least I could ask of an elected representative who is thinking of supporting sedition.<br /><br />
Here’s the obvious truth of the situation: the president you support lost a fair election, and it wasn’t close. In the aftermath of that loss, his supporters planned and tried to carry out a violent insurrection to prevent the final certification of the election result, overturning the will of the clear majority. Even before the violence broke out, 140 members of Congress pledged to try overturning that clear majority by means that are non-violent but also anti-democratic. Even after the violence, most of those elected representatives stuck to their rhetorical guns and tried to nullify the results of an election.<br /><br />
We need you to stop adding your bit of kindling to the flame that threatens to engulf us. We need you to step up and speak out in defense of democratic governance.<div><br /></div><div><i>A follow-up letter from Monday, January 11th is <a href="https://thedanceofthehippo.blogspot.com/2021/01/still-no-word-from-salka.html" target="_blank">here</a>.</i></div>Karlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11654006671545294361noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2850462849314268040.post-89644228652056542462020-10-23T07:29:00.000-07:002020-10-23T07:29:37.213-07:00Forged in terror's fire<p><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Like many people, my feelings toward my country are
complicated. My parents raised us with an implicit appreciation for what it
provides to many, but also steered us away from being uncritically patriotic. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">I’ve done enough travel and living in other cultures that I
have an emotional attachment to being from this place, combined with a sense
that, as a society, we’re neither uniquely good nor remarkably bad.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">And still it is possible to experience a bitter shock at
something that I sort of knew, newly brought to my attention.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">I’m just about done reading Eric Foner’s <em>The
second founding</em>, about the three constitutional amendments passed
after the Civil War. We often learn history in layers. First a simple story
about a war to end slavery, leading to changes in the Constitution to codify
that result. Then you learn a more complicated story about the nature of that
war. And new for me in Foner’s book is how much contention there was around the
amendments, and how much they grew out of the evolving political situation <em>after</em>
the war.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Like many works that have been increasingly on people’s
radar—such as <em>Watchmen</em> with its references to the destruction
of Black Tulsa by a White mob—Foner also explains the role of the Klan and
other ways that Blacks and their White supporters were violently attacked.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Part of that was familiar. I already knew the outlines of
what White terrorism had done to Blacks. I already knew that Blacks in the
South attained a significant degree of political and social standing during
Reconstruction. I knew that there had been a big increase in schooling for
Blacks. I knew that Blacks had served in state governments and in Congress. And
I knew that all of that had been undone by the Klan and others using what can
only be called terrorism.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">What was new for me—and it probably shouldn’t have been—was the
realization of just how far the politics of the whole country had been shaped
by that same terrorism.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">The biracial Republican governments in Southern states during
Reconstruction tried to modernize the region, most notably by creating
universal public education. (In most places, those schools were segregated, but
just having them available for everyone was progress not just for Blacks, but
for many Whites as well.)</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Those biracial state governments depended on an almost
monolithic vote from Black people, plus the support of a crucial minority of
White voters. After 1877, White terrorism pushed Blacks out of the political
process until by about 1900 hardly any Blacks in the South could actually
exercise the franchise that the 15<sup><span style="font-size: x-small;">th</span></sup> amendment supposedly gave them.
Progressive, biracial Republican governments were replaced by White supremacist
19<sup><span style="font-size: x-small;">th</span></sup>-century Democratic governments that re-subjugated Blacks as
much as they could, enshrining “separate and very much unequal.”</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">If we picture an alternative history in which southern
Whites obeyed the law and didn’t use terrorism to get their way, it’s not that
I imagine progressive Republicans holding power indefinitely, nor do I think
that would have been healthy.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">But a southern Democratic party that had to compete in
<em>fair</em> elections, without enforcing its will through
terrorism, would be a very different creature. If it remained devoted to
racism, it would have to give up on getting more than a sliver of Black votes
and so would have to make itself acceptable to progressive Whites.
Alternatively, if it wanted to pursue regressive economic policy, it would have
to drop the racism in order to get enough Black votes for a majority.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">In an alternative history with the southern White terrorism
removed, not only does the South itself experience different policies. The
median Senator or Congressman sent from the region to D.C. would represent a
different constituency and a different set of national coalitions would be
possible.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">The terrorism of the Klan fell far more on Blacks than on
anyone else. It was mostly Blacks who got killed, and it was Blacks who lost
the right to vote, lost the right to a normal public life, while we Whites went
about with our rights intact.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">But still, when we accepted the legitimacy of a regime
installed and maintained by force, we were all scarred to some extent.</span></p>Karlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11654006671545294361noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2850462849314268040.post-52934215825074635542020-03-20T07:31:00.003-07:002020-03-20T07:40:12.715-07:00Spare the hospitals!There’s been a lot of attention – and rightly so – on the idea of "flattening the curve," and specifically on the goal of keeping the rate of serious cases below the capacity of the medical system.<br />
<br />
If we succeed in that, we win in two ways.<br />
<br />
First, critical CoVID-19 patients can get the care they need. At the moment, Italy is the most publicized case of an overwhelmed medical system, and doctors there are having to make awful decisions about which patients get life-saving treatment and which don’t.<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhASHw_ZgjpuW-5_SRewgMjxGmGlmkgItmqVVCICkCT8We6gdl6seq5FTLsRCZTEHlekk4-zhyphenhyphenU0cIUdQlGhwWB0X9ZxrNNoqPDbTiwFVDYJG7YvQxHGIH31sQOR9fom8SSQ5F9WoQetDs/s1600/social-distancing-02-a.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="233" data-original-width="572" height="130" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhASHw_ZgjpuW-5_SRewgMjxGmGlmkgItmqVVCICkCT8We6gdl6seq5FTLsRCZTEHlekk4-zhyphenhyphenU0cIUdQlGhwWB0X9ZxrNNoqPDbTiwFVDYJG7YvQxHGIH31sQOR9fom8SSQ5F9WoQetDs/s320/social-distancing-02-a.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
Second, if the medical system gets overwhelmed, people with all sorts of medical conditions can’t get the treatment they need. Heart attack? Cancer treatment? Accident? Sorry, we’re busy, and the doctors, nurses are exhausted from trying to keep up with the CoVID-19 cases. If we keep the new virus under control, other people can continue to get treatment.<br />
<br />
To reflect this problem, I’ve made two changes to <a href="http://thedanceofthehippo.blogspot.com/2020/03/keep-your-distance.html">the earlier model</a>.<br />
<br />
One of these is that there’s a defined level of hospital capacity.<br />
<br />
For the other, the model makes a distinction between mild cases and severe ones. This is still a pretty big simplification, because there’s a meaningful difference between “severe,” which requires hospitalization, and “critical,” which requires hospitalization plus specialized equipment in limited supply.<br />
<br />
The details of the model are below, or in the “Model Info” tab of the model.<br />
<br />
If you just want to play with it, download the NetLogo Web version of the model from this link: <a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/1CjFPbK9L6wMYTt9Ern_eb3cHLoA1JV-3/view?usp=sharing">https://drive.google.com/file/d/1CjFPbK9L6wMYTt9Ern_eb3cHLoA1JV-3/view?usp=sharing</a>.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiFi7ymFHrWRRzTfWjv6tm7W4T-rUSE3Bte7DYSoOwHRe815CxDf5g6QdtWDvLPbir-OIhq7Z4vBQ29PUiwSiiGhYobDL-AKGUBcm6rEJKSwC38vNoOZLsXYIvYHvRUDdV8XRB0keFnEpQ/s1600/Social-distancing-02-h.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="1280" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiFi7ymFHrWRRzTfWjv6tm7W4T-rUSE3Bte7DYSoOwHRe815CxDf5g6QdtWDvLPbir-OIhq7Z4vBQ29PUiwSiiGhYobDL-AKGUBcm6rEJKSwC38vNoOZLsXYIvYHvRUDdV8XRB0keFnEpQ/s320/Social-distancing-02-h.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
Save it to a useful place on your computer and open it up, and you should see the model.<br />
<br />
<a name='more'></a>You can set “hospital-capacity” to values of 4, 8, 12, ..., 60.<br />
<br />
As in the first model, you can set “speed” to 1.0, reflecting business-as-usual, or you can set it to a lower number to reflect some degree of social distancing.<br />
<br />
The “low-lethal” variable shows what percentage of the infected population will die when the medical system is able to stay on top of the situation. The further the number of severe cases goes above the hospital capacity, the more the lethality rises toward the level indicated by the “high-lethal” variable.<br />
<br />
You can track the number of severe cases in the lower left of the six graphs that are to the right of the main “world” diagram. The red line shows hospital capacity, so you can whether the number of severe cases is below or above hospital capacity.<br />
<br />
The case fatality rate (bottom-right graph) shows the number of fatalities divided by the number of people who’ve ever contracted the infection.<br />
<br />
Because of the way the model runs together both “severe” and “critical” into a single “severe” category, it’s a bit tricky to know what a “realistic” number is for the hospital capacity. Community hospitals in the U.S. have about 924,000 staffed beds, which for a population of 330,000,000 is the same rate as a “hospital capacity” of 14 for a population of 5,000 in the model. <br />
<br />
The country has about 98,000 intensive-care beds, which is like a “hospital capacity” of 1.5 for a population of 5,000 in the model. <br />
<br />
(For numbers of hospital beds, see <a href="https://www.aha.org/statistics/fast-facts-us-hospitals">here</a>.)<br />
<br />
On a similar point of realism, you shouldn’t put too much confidence in this model’s specific predictions of lethality, overall infection, or overall rates of fatalities. What you <em>can</em> learn from it is the interaction among the low- and high-lethal variables, the hospital capacity, and the degree of social distancing.<br />
<br />
You can download the model as described above and play with it on your own. I’ve also produced some charts based on the larger model that runs on a laptop (see the bottom of this post for that model, and for information about downloading NetLogo if you want to run the bigger model yourself).<br />
<br />
The big model has 10,000 people rather than 5,000. I looked at values of “speed” from 0.2 (very strong social distancing) to 1.0 (no special measures at all). I also looked at values of hospital-capacity from 4 to 60.<br />
<br />
As with the simpler model from the first post, I used an “infectiousness” of 65% and a “duration” of 20 (if you get sick, you’re sick for 20 days – that is apparently an overestimate of how long you’re sick with a mild case, but an underestimate of how long you’re sick if you have to be hospitalized).<br />
<br />
With the average lethality, you can see something like a crease where the degree of social distancing ceases being enough to keep the virus within the medical system’s capacity. With no social distancing, lethality is high, and then falls away faster and faster to a “plane” of low lethality. With a very small hospital capacity (at the back of the diagram below), you don’t quite make it to the plane, even at maximum social distancing of 0.2. At the front of the diagram, where hospital capacity is high, you can control lethality with a speed of 0.5.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUgMcF_jL4Hm1W_gctchHfFQ0jrLsELJ8GN7akW39OyK2Dsp6keaveNlEw1kh-xCXP_W9JlL8ODNqOwQeIDnUb148EETdwHrspOzml8K7gbAsV2bXy1dsBA815RMeFjUl_kMucJskI6Ho/s1600/social-distancing-02-b.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="653" data-original-width="833" height="250" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUgMcF_jL4Hm1W_gctchHfFQ0jrLsELJ8GN7akW39OyK2Dsp6keaveNlEw1kh-xCXP_W9JlL8ODNqOwQeIDnUb148EETdwHrspOzml8K7gbAsV2bXy1dsBA815RMeFjUl_kMucJskI6Ho/s320/social-distancing-02-b.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
(You may notice the lumpiness of the plane, which is basically a small-numbers problem. With strong social distancing, there are under 100 infections out of 10,000 people. When you apply a 1% lethality rate to a number under 100, you get relatively large swings in outcomes from one run to another. If I had run 50 times at each set of parameters rather than 20, I expect the shape would be smoother.)<br />
<br />
But of course we care not only about lethality (what portion of infected people will die) but also about society-wide death rates, and those are a combination of the rate at which people get infected and the lethality among those who <em>are</em> infected.<br />
<br />
Not surprisingly given the structure of the model, the infection rate doesn’t depend on the hospital capacity. Increased social distancing brings down the overall rate of infection along a shape like a backwards “S”. And that shape is the same from the front of the graph to the back.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXoBffGphGBwnHnd3OL4pvGZjX7hTmc4iy-sO7beAoGmwYWSDYrUMlGObKT8ZXcYUnT8Ve6YLEq5MGXpBsEQVqGKvQyNrljDKGMbcl8zsdwEr97eXMdYXI_svzq1reAlSyin39W1AuBwc/s1600/social-distancing-02-c.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="657" data-original-width="719" height="292" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXoBffGphGBwnHnd3OL4pvGZjX7hTmc4iy-sO7beAoGmwYWSDYrUMlGObKT8ZXcYUnT8Ve6YLEq5MGXpBsEQVqGKvQyNrljDKGMbcl8zsdwEr97eXMdYXI_svzq1reAlSyin39W1AuBwc/s320/social-distancing-02-c.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
If we look at the back of the lethality diagram above, we see that when the hospital capacity is very small, lethality stays high even as we bring “speed” from 1.0 down to 0.6; at 0.5 there’s a meaningful drop, and then it falls quickly.<br />
<br />
But if we look at society-wide death rates, they’re noticeably falling already when speed is at 0.7, and then rapidly after that through speed values of 0.6 and 0.5.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJ_xKPEwRNVcrcwqqFVwwAazMZD_xeMMDFaqr3964WVt_irlJ2niJjdeZP0RCCYX8CUAINWXkc_DcRfwbN0UJ1VrY2IebKITG-Z7NPbNMJRdwsKR6mlmkgUFMGALJn5OgbaxyQtBH73P0/s1600/social-distancing-02-d.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="655" data-original-width="829" height="252" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJ_xKPEwRNVcrcwqqFVwwAazMZD_xeMMDFaqr3964WVt_irlJ2niJjdeZP0RCCYX8CUAINWXkc_DcRfwbN0UJ1VrY2IebKITG-Z7NPbNMJRdwsKR6mlmkgUFMGALJn5OgbaxyQtBH73P0/s320/social-distancing-02-d.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
And at the bottom of the charts, you see on the lethality graph that lethality never goes below 1%. This virus is apparently a nasty piece of work, and if you get it there’s about a 1% chance it’ll kill you, even if good care is available. (This version of the lethality diagram is rotated a little, so you can see the space between the bottom of the curve and the floor of the diagram.)<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjeAEDUPXbM3ucesT199u1Y0PdgsXMFjxZ9wafLnkNSYSVuGx3-84tuXu2AFcYqYQC9Kr7SYhT7aOUebTSpQyqn3H02vOG6V7aZQ6WZENrEmvQqv4fOHRpiFVEYAaYfummNOkeMqXXoal0/s1600/Social-distancing-02-e.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="655" data-original-width="839" height="249" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjeAEDUPXbM3ucesT199u1Y0PdgsXMFjxZ9wafLnkNSYSVuGx3-84tuXu2AFcYqYQC9Kr7SYhT7aOUebTSpQyqn3H02vOG6V7aZQ6WZENrEmvQqv4fOHRpiFVEYAaYfummNOkeMqXXoal0/s320/Social-distancing-02-e.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
But strong social distancing can keep the society-wide death rate down to practically zero, because so few people are infected: 1% of a small number is going to be almost nobody.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj3eP4FrzZHVRSMNU71rZIeIwmyGw70b1p4_hBLlmVf6vRarzV72nvPW5TYy_mQbt6PXbhSik9xxQES2piEqybhyV0hEIhIc7ApCp0RXQxd78Ayf9oMpnrnwtYytk6nzL2ToGZtanOw1fE/s1600/Social-distancing-02-f.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="657" data-original-width="843" height="249" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj3eP4FrzZHVRSMNU71rZIeIwmyGw70b1p4_hBLlmVf6vRarzV72nvPW5TYy_mQbt6PXbhSik9xxQES2piEqybhyV0hEIhIc7ApCp0RXQxd78Ayf9oMpnrnwtYytk6nzL2ToGZtanOw1fE/s320/Social-distancing-02-f.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">With strong social distancing (right edge of the graph), almost nobody gets sick ...</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5tesiggEAZzbouCbl78qg1qczz-tfUghFj6nfcFOO5sKB7fdEzNxZ0BjF8dXRKT7eUzIYrpkeqcJTqG83lM4nBqEV42Chc6IpO6U3E6JUVOwy9q1l3CCU99MKgKMHztgb5ZyhjihMSMc/s1600/Social-distancing-02-g.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="655" data-original-width="841" height="249" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5tesiggEAZzbouCbl78qg1qczz-tfUghFj6nfcFOO5sKB7fdEzNxZ0BjF8dXRKT7eUzIYrpkeqcJTqG83lM4nBqEV42Chc6IpO6U3E6JUVOwy9q1l3CCU99MKgKMHztgb5ZyhjihMSMc/s320/Social-distancing-02-g.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">... so almost nobody dies.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
On the other hand, the tighter the hospital capacity, the harder we have to work at social distancing to keep the overall death rate down to something less than atrocious.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<strong>Some model details</strong><br />
<br />
The mechanism of infection remains the same here as in the first model.<br />
<br />
But now an infected person has a 19% chance of developing a “severe” case requiring hospitalization. (This number and the range of lethality rates are taken from Tomas Pueyo, <a href="https://medium.com/@tomaspueyo/coronavirus-act-today-or-people-will-die-f4d3d9cd99ca">Coronavirus: Why you must act now</a>.)<br />
<br />
The chance of severity is not evenly distributed across the population. People under age 20 are assumed never to have a severe case.<br />
<br />
From age 20 to age 90 (the oldest the model lets anyone be), there’s a linear increase in the chance of developing a severe case. The rate at which that probability goes up is chosen to produce a 19% chance of a severe case, given the age structure of the model’s population before the virus strikes. In concrete terms, a 30-year-old who contracts an infection has a 9% chance of their infection being severe. For a 50-year-old it’s 27%, while for an 80-year-old it’s 54%.<br />
<br />
The best case for the lethality of the disease seems to be 1% -- that is, if you develop the disease, there’s a 1% chance you’ll die. In countries where the medical system is overwhelmed, the lethality is more like 3% or 4%.<br />
<br />
The model reflects that with the two terms “low-lethal” and “high-lethal”. As long as the number of severe cases remains below the hospital capacity, then the overall lethality of the disease is at the level defined by “low-lethal.” If the number of severe cases exceeds the hospital capacity, then the model calculates the number of these “excess” severe cases, and the higher the ratio of the “excess” to the total number of severe cases, the more the lethality of the disease approaches the level defined by “high-lethal.”<br />
<br />
Because it is only severe cases that have an actual chance of dying, and because the severe cases in principle constitute 19% of all cases, the chance of dying is divided by 0.19 before being applied to individual severe cases to see whether they actually die.<br />
<br />
<em><u>A note on NetLogo</u></em><br />
<em>NetLogo is a relatively accessible platform for doing agent-based modeling, where you set up a world in a computer by defining the behaviors of the many individual "agents" operating in the world, then you turn it on and see what happens. You tweak the rules of behavior for your individual agents, and you see how that changes the behavior of the world as a whole.</em><br />
<em></em><br />
<em>The program is a free download (though they request registration) from their home page at </em><a href="http://www.ccl.sesp.northwestern.edu/netlogo/">http://www.ccl.sesp.northwestern.edu/netlogo/</a>.<br />
<br />
<em>If you've done coding in other languages, you'll probably find it not too hard to learn NetLogo's code.</em><br />
<em></em><br />
<em>Even if you're new to coding, you can open up the program, choose a model from the "Models Library", and play around with it (look under the "File" tab).</em><br />
<em></em><br />
<em>Or you can download a model, like the one used to produce these data, available at <a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/17a5l1T801mN24PamiBiuINbdBhSyXVno/view?usp=sharing">https://drive.google.com/file/d/17a5l1T801mN24PamiBiuINbdBhSyXVno/view?usp=sharing</a>.</em><br />
<em></em><br />
<em>Once you have NetLogo on your computer, if you double-click a NetLogo file, it will automatically open the software and the particular program as well.</em><br />
<em></em><br />
<em>In most models, you can click "setup" and then click "go" and just see what happens.</em><br />
<em><br />Then you can read the "Info" tab to see what you're doing.</em><br />
<em></em><br />
<em>As you get more adventuresome, you can turn to the "Code" tab and see the guts of the thing.</em><br />
<em></em><br />
<em>Enjoy!</em>Karlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11654006671545294361noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2850462849314268040.post-3482726036999305882020-03-17T06:32:00.000-07:002020-03-17T06:32:07.261-07:00Pandemic economy“How are we going to pay for it?”<br />
<br />
In all the understandable worry about how the CoVID-19 pandemic will play out, a common component is people’s concern about how this will affect the economy: people’s jobs, savings, access to health insurance.<br />
<br />
And when people lose their jobs, or even just see reductions in working hours, there are very real problems with how people are going to even maintain access to food, or pay their utilities.<br />
<br />
More generally, there’s the question of, “How are we going to pay for the country’s response to the coronavirus?”<br />
<br />
The first thing to realize is that that is definitely the <em>wrong</em> question to be asking first.<br />
<br />
At the same time, it is <em>definitely</em> a question that needs to be asked.<br />
<br />
The upfront right questions are:<br />
<ol>
<li>What things need to be done?</li>
<li>Are those things physically, logistically possible?</li>
</ol>
My understanding of the expert advice is that we need people to:<br />
<ol>
<li>Massively reduce their physical interaction with other people.</li>
<li>Get tested (I’ve seen differing advice on who exactly should get tested. In a situation with insufficient numbers of test kits, there will be some sort of prioritization based on the nature and severity of symptoms, and the extent to which someone is necessarily going to be interacting with wider circles of people, e.g., health professionals.).</li>
<li>Get treatment if they develop a severe case.</li>
</ol>
For right now, that’s it.<br />
<br />
If that’s our program, then a few things absolutely need to keep running:<br />
<ol>
<li>Food production and distribution.</li>
<li>Medical services, from hospitals through the manufacture and distribution of pharmaceuticals and medical supplies.</li>
<li>Utilities (electricity, natural gas, water, sewer).</li>
<li>Public safety (there will still be heart attacks needing transportation to hospitals; buildings will still catch fire; and even with reduced traffic on the roads, there will still be accidents).</li>
</ol>
Some additional things need to keep going to some extent to support those “must have” activities, for example:<br />
<ol start="5">
<li>Production of metal and plastic for food packaging.</li>
<li>Production of motor fuel for necessary commuting and shipping.</li>
</ol>
Other things absolutely need to <em>not</em> happen, most prominently:<br />
<ol type="A">
<li>Pretty much the whole nexus of culture / entertainment / leisure / tourism: restaurants, theaters, museums, theme parks, etc.</li>
<li>Other retail besides food and medicine.</li>
</ol>
That’s a lot of people who won’t be working, and for most of them, not working means not having an income, and any sort of income replacement from the government will be less than 100%, so “optional” purchases go right out the window. Manufacturing activities like the car industry should probably be limiting their operations in the interest of social distancing, but with so many people losing income, it’s going to be an atrocious time to be selling cars, so there’s very limited need to be making them at the moment.<br />
<br />
This has short-term and long-term consequences, but the those two things are very different from each other. The short-term consequences are physical and unavoidable. The long-term consequences are social and financial, and in principle, <em>they don’t have to happen</em>.<br />
<a name='more'></a><br />
<br />
<strong><u>Short term</u></strong><br />
As a rough approximation, the Gross Domestic Product (that holy grail of the economy) is the market value of the work done in any given economy.<br />
<br />
I’ve just described a situation where a whole lot less work is being done. It stands to reason that the GDP will go down.<br />
<br />
I did a back-of-the-envelope for the effects on employment and GDP. Some sectors I assumed were shut down entirely. Others would see a reduction of 20% or 50%. I tried to be conservative in my guesses, and I came up with a reduction of 30% in employment, and 27% in GDP.<br />
<br />
On the one hand, those drops are about the same size as what we saw in the Great Depression.<br />
<br />
On the other hand, the Great Depression dragged on for 10 years, where we’re looking at something like several months.<br />
<br />
On the <em>other </em>other hand, the Great Depression took four years to reach its nadir, while we’re heading to ours in a matter of weeks.<br />
<br />
<div>
Hopefully the disruption is relatively short, but I wouldn’t be surprised if unemployment reached 20% at some point, and if the reduction in GDP, averaged over the year, were something on the order of 5% to 10%.<br />
<br />
<br />
<strong><u>Long term</u></strong><br />
Look ahead to roughly a year from now. I’ve seen estimates that a vaccine could be available at scale by January, 2021. And so let’s say that by March, 2021, enough people have been vaccinated for some herd immunity to be in effect and we can be making our way back toward something resembling normal economic activity.</div>
<div>
<em><em>
</em></em> </div>
<div>
<em>
</em>What will the economy be like?</div>
<div>
</div>
<div>
In terms of our ability to do things—make cars, serve meals at restaurants, produce movies, refine petroleum, etc., etc., etc.—it’s possible that very little will have changed.</div>
<div>
</div>
<div>
If we handle social distancing well, the overall fatality rate will be comparable to a bad flu season. (To be clear, this statement is not minimizing coronavirus. We can limit the loss of life to something like a bad flu <em>if we shut down large parts of the U.S. economy for a few months</em>. We’re definitely not warranted in treating the larger phenomenon as “just a bad flu.”)</div>
<div>
</div>
<div>
With a little basic maintenance, all of our buildings are intact, our restaurant kitchens are still there, our airports are no worse than we left them, and so on.</div>
<div>
</div>
<div>
Physically, the economy should be fine.</div>
<div>
</div>
<div>
But in financial terms, we could be looking at a moonscape.</div>
<div>
</div>
<div>
Households affected by the unemployment spike will have reduced or wiped out their savings—if they’re lucky. A lot of people in food service, tourism, hospitality, and the like, earn fairly low wages and have little or no savings, so there will be a spike in whatever borrowing people have access to, just to keep body and soul together.</div>
<div>
</div>
<div>
There are broad-minded business owners who want to do right by their employees and do something for their communities in this crisis. In my town, many restaurants have offered free lunches for kids who need them in the midst of this disruption, and I imagine that’s true all over. But with no customers coming through the door, there’s only so much they can do.</div>
<div>
</div>
<div>
Even if a business makes the hard-nosed accounting decision to simply lay off most or all of their employees, they still have rent or property taxes, some utilities to keep the property in good shape, invoices coming in from other companies that are equally strapped for cash, and loan payments on any debt the business may have taken on.</div>
<div>
</div>
<div>
No year-round business budgets for two to four months of zero revenue.</div>
<div>
</div>
<div>
So in this post-CoVID world of March, 2021, our physical ability to do work is untouched, but many businesses have gone under and many households are financially wiped out, which means they’re not good customers for whatever businesses have straggled through or are thinking of opening up.</div>
<div>
</div>
<div>
If we look back at the CoVID shutdown from the other side, in physical terms the lost output shouldn’t matter. Sure, we didn’t make many cars in June, 2020, nor did we serve many restaurant meals. But in March, 2021, we’re still able to do those things and benefit from them, just as before CoVID. The response to the disease doesn’t have to have any long-term effect on the economy.</div>
<div>
</div>
<div>
But if we let our society’s finances become completely disordered, it will.</div>
<div>
</div>
<div>
What’s needed is the financial equivalent of a medically-induced coma.</div>
<div>
</div>
<div>
We need some way of slowing down the flow of bill collection before the process of financial contagion can do too much long-term damage.</div>
<div>
</div>
<div>
And it needs to be systemic.</div>
<div>
</div>
<div>
The business owner can’t keep paying their employees, because there are no customers and the landlord is still asking for rent.</div>
<div>
</div>
<div>
The landlord doesn’t necessarily want to drive their tenants out of business, but they’ve got their own bills to pay.</div>
<div>
</div>
<div>
I don’t know what this “financial coma” looks like in detail, but right in line after shoring up the medical system and making sure there’s food and utilities, I think it’s next in line as something that needs to be addressed.<br />
<br />
That’s the sense in which we need to figure out, “How are we going to pay for it?”</div>
<div>
</div>
Karlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11654006671545294361noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2850462849314268040.post-54801819119364089672020-03-15T19:50:00.001-07:002020-03-15T19:50:32.248-07:00Distance in picturesYesterday I posted a Web-enabled version of <a href="https://thedanceofthehippo.blogspot.com/2020/03/keep-your-distance.html">a model to simulate the spread of a virus under different levels of social distancing</a>.<br />
<br />
I realize not everyone has the time or opportunity to download the model and run it themselves.<br />
<br />
Also, the version of NetLogo that runs on your laptop has some functions that the Web version can't do. Among those things is that the laptop version can take a particular set of parameter values, run the model a bunch of times, save the results each time, then take a different set of parameter values and again run the model several times.<br />
<br />
That allows each run to be random, while still enabling you to see the larger patterns associated with particular parameter values.<br />
<br />
In case you didn't get a chance to read yesterday's post, social distancing is captured by reductions in the variable SPEED, which controls how quickly people move around in the world of the model. At lower speeds, people make fewer contacts with other people, which in a crude way mimics the effect of social distancing.<br />
<br />
For the graphs below, I set the value for SPEED at 0.2, then 0.3, 0.4, 0.5, 0.6, 0.7, 0.8, 0.9, and 1.0.<br />
<br />
That is, I went from very strong levels of social distancing (speed = 0.2) to no social distancing (speed = 1.0).<br />
<br />
At each level of social distancing, I ran the model 20 times.<br />
<br />
Each time, I stopped the model after 400 days, or when the virus burned itself out, whichever came sooner.<br />
<br />
The model starts with a population of 10,000 people. (The Web version only has 5,000, but the laptop version runs faster, so it's viable to have twice as large an area with twice as many people.)<br />
<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgf8abztBnInE2Kn4W6sJAuN6gO082LDWKTlUr9ASOofy8cik4DHGR4dQ80CgGHCvEcXfdeHLDeFV2MWCcHsGM9jO0a3im-MQw3KFQst-MOVI9vc_k8z0wbdmAO39wByiF9-zodmq5EtVs/s1600/social-distancing-02-a.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="657" data-original-width="921" height="228" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgf8abztBnInE2Kn4W6sJAuN6gO082LDWKTlUr9ASOofy8cik4DHGR4dQ80CgGHCvEcXfdeHLDeFV2MWCcHsGM9jO0a3im-MQw3KFQst-MOVI9vc_k8z0wbdmAO39wByiF9-zodmq5EtVs/s320/social-distancing-02-a.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
With new cases per day, the base model (speed = 1.0) sees a peak of almost 90 new cases per day, just shy of 90 days into the spread of the disease.<br />
<br />
Out of a population of 10,000, that's almost 1% of the population getting infected in a single day.<br />
<br />
If we adopt social distancing down to speed = 0.7, the new cases peak at about 40 per day.<br />
<br />
With speed = 0.5, we barely break 10 cases per day (0.1% of the population).<br />
<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgRhQcCtSruINCJx7UxhQbVHack7l-tFffdqdsvUwunDOwuEk9jSr82B01lFrnCjUV-K3CnLhLW7ffyCRuXw4uyWItd7iX7oNuy_8JbFC5-7hjLtmsPklIyGlPbpISsV-4u3OC_3SBcPEA/s1600/social-distancing-02-b.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="661" data-original-width="929" height="227" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgRhQcCtSruINCJx7UxhQbVHack7l-tFffdqdsvUwunDOwuEk9jSr82B01lFrnCjUV-K3CnLhLW7ffyCRuXw4uyWItd7iX7oNuy_8JbFC5-7hjLtmsPklIyGlPbpISsV-4u3OC_3SBcPEA/s320/social-distancing-02-b.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
Not surprisingly, this variation in rates of new cases per day translates into vastly different numbers of people sick at any one time.<br />
<br />
In the base case (speed = 1.0), the sick population reaches almost 1,800 -- which is almost 18% of the whole population sick at one time.<br />
<br />
With speed = 0.7, we keep that to "only" 800.<br />
<br />
At speed = 0.5, we hover around 200 for a while before slowly making our way down.<br />
<br />
Both of these diagrams illustrate the idea of "flattening the curve."<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYWQ68T_ZDGafofjdd-wHfiAOJTBjsi7u7qyO4w8RTDWYL_qRTXdDAuv1wzAhEA4p6sCHJt5Noe-PYm4oZfDZ-ryhGyY-A__u1IR37gMT6Z68LwMuukFp93DC6kfh2JjQ09xx1XrDJW8o/s1600/social-distancing-02-c.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="655" data-original-width="951" height="220" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYWQ68T_ZDGafofjdd-wHfiAOJTBjsi7u7qyO4w8RTDWYL_qRTXdDAuv1wzAhEA4p6sCHJt5Noe-PYm4oZfDZ-ryhGyY-A__u1IR37gMT6Z68LwMuukFp93DC6kfh2JjQ09xx1XrDJW8o/s320/social-distancing-02-c.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
The third graph shows the total number of people who die from the virus, as that number mounts day by day. With no social distancing, the death toll settles in at around 180 (or 1.8% of the population; see the explanation of the final graph below as to why it settles out).<br />
<br />
Increasing levels of social distancing lead to modestly decreasing final death tallies. With speed = 0.6 or 0.5, it's clear the model would have to run for longer than 400 days to see where the total would settle out. But with <em>very</em> stringent measures, the deaths are apparently kept to about 20, or even in the single digits.<br />
<br />
<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZ6Y_ZeFukA3ZOZXb4IiF1FzjEq-vfb1ylMZiQEMeoS2vn7bJeouYeOt6Yx7zF_xTv0BIQVlFYFA8kJsO_3nuAnYMD2vgQHSFWNai6wLNRIoZxhY-zUkctTVxzl68PUFHM6iYJbKcpNQI/s1600/social-distancing-02-d.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="645" data-original-width="951" height="217" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZ6Y_ZeFukA3ZOZXb4IiF1FzjEq-vfb1ylMZiQEMeoS2vn7bJeouYeOt6Yx7zF_xTv0BIQVlFYFA8kJsO_3nuAnYMD2vgQHSFWNai6wLNRIoZxhY-zUkctTVxzl68PUFHM6iYJbKcpNQI/s320/social-distancing-02-d.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
The fourth and final graph shows the cumulative number of people who get infected.<br />
<br />
With no social distancing, that number levels off at around 8,500, or 85% of the population. The remaining 15% escape because the virus burns itself out: there are so few susceptible individuals around that, even without social distancing, it can't find them in time to keep perpetuating itself. That's why the death toll settles out at about 1.8% of the population, even though in these model runs the virus is assumed to carry with it a 2% chance of death. Less than 2% of the population dies, because the virus itself dies out before it can infect everyone.<br />
<br />
The same dynamic is at work with speed = 0.9, 0.8, and 0.7.<br />
<br />
For moderately strong social distancing (speed = 0.6, or 0.5), the model needs to run longer than 400 days to see where it will settle out.<br />
<br />
At speed = 0.4, the total infected seems to be stabilizing around 1,000 (or 10% of the population.<br />
<br />
At very stringent social distancing (speed = 0.3, or 0.2), the virus dies out with no more than a few percent ever having become infected.<br />
<br />
On the one hand, it's great that strong social distancing measures can bring about such effective containment of the virus.<br />
<br />
On the other, that containment means that the great majority of people are still susceptible. And that in turn means that if you let up on your containment, the virus is still primed to take off.<br />
<br />
I'll explore that further in a couple of days, but tomorrow's model will go in a different direction.<br />
<br />
One of the observations of CoVID-19 is that its lethality has been between 0.5% and 1% in countries that have kept it contained (e.g., South Korea), while settling in at more like 3% or 4% in places where the spread got away from the authorities (Wuhan, Italy, Iran).<br />
<br />
Tomorrow's model adds some detail to show the interaction between the speed with the viral wave hits and the capacity of the medical system to treat people.<br />
<br />
<em><u>A note on NetLogo</u></em><br />
<em>NetLogo is a relatively accessible platform for doing agent-based modeling, where you set up a world in a computer by defining the behaviors of the many individual "agents" operating in the world, then you turn it on and see what happens. You tweak the rules of behavior for your individual agents, and you see how that changes the behavior of the world as a whole.</em><br />
<em></em><br />
<em>The program is a free download (though they request registration) from their home page at </em><a href="http://www.ccl.sesp.northwestern.edu/netlogo/">http://www.ccl.sesp.northwestern.edu/netlogo/</a>.<br />
<br />
<em>If you've done coding in other languages, you'll probably find it not too hard to learn NetLogo's code.</em><br />
<em></em><br />
<em>Even if you're new to coding, you can open up the program, choose a model from the "Models Library", and play around with it (look under the "File" tab).</em><br />
<em></em><br />
<em>Or you can download a model, like the one used to produce these data, available at <a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/1tfbuGOe4IrscMcQgV93aw1y83yi4TvPq/view?usp=sharing">https://drive.google.com/file/d/1tfbuGOe4IrscMcQgV93aw1y83yi4TvPq/view?usp=sharing</a>.</em><br />
<em></em><br />
<em>Once you have NetLogo on your computer, if you double-click a NetLogo file, it will automatically open the software and the particular program as well.</em><br />
<em></em><br />
<em>In most models, you can click "setup" and then click "go" and just see what happens.</em><br />
<em><br />Then you can read the "Info" tab to see what you're doing.</em><br />
<em></em><br />
<em>As you get more adventuresome, you can turn to the "Code" tab and see the guts of the thing.</em><br />
<em></em><br />
<em>Enjoy!</em>Karlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11654006671545294361noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2850462849314268040.post-5865730182605315942020-03-14T14:38:00.003-07:002020-03-16T06:31:02.909-07:00Keep your distance!I haven't written anything on this blog for ... quite a while.<br />
<br />
I'm coming back to it to share a model that may help you visualize the effect of social distancing. Instructions on making it work are below.<br />
<br />
When you run the model, you can observe how quickly the virus spreads, how many people in total get infected, and how many people die.<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjehS4RNv7fXWFLIrKuizeprm5xUmRUPoyoKT6WUJ0riP9xhyphenhyphen-6jGkLRHkfZSiGHD_RPybrxtNdXFVmuqZg-fY9XkRGLLIrhBmarusJPL8cE9ypnC9c_9zU_S0uCm2RHDU6ojBI1rEedCE/s1600/NetLogo-social-distance-1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="1280" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjehS4RNv7fXWFLIrKuizeprm5xUmRUPoyoKT6WUJ0riP9xhyphenhyphen-6jGkLRHkfZSiGHD_RPybrxtNdXFVmuqZg-fY9XkRGLLIrhBmarusJPL8cE9ypnC9c_9zU_S0uCm2RHDU6ojBI1rEedCE/s320/NetLogo-social-distance-1.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">What your screen might look like after 54 days of the model</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
When you change the degree of social distancing, you can observe changes in all of those factors.<br />
<br />
The model is a modification of a pre-existing model of virus transmission. In that model, a small number of people start off infected. People move around randomly, and any time an infected person shares a space with a susceptible person, there's a chance that infection will occur. After a certain amount of time, the disease runs its course: the person either recovers and has acquired immunity, or they die.<br />
<br />
The modification I made was to allow the user to change the speed with which people move around the world. Of course this is far from being a perfect representation of social distancing, but it does capture one essential element of that practice: reducing the speed of people's movement in the model reduces the frequency with which people make new contacts.<br />
<br />
The default speed of movement is 1. The user can choose any value between 0 and 1, in increments of 0.1. If you choose a lower value, you're choosing a more thoroughgoing implementation of social distancing.<br />
<br />
If you scroll down on your screen, you'll see tabs you can open up for the "Command Center", for "NetLogo Code", and for "Model Info". The first two of those aren't much use to you unless you know NetLogo, but if you click on "Model Info" you'll get a bunch of information about how to use the model.<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-djcTk-MqIPkNnB4JrDaMOsIi8nbMry3gUnj8lDMUS2bBKYM29ONK5ZijYg2Mm449aeUdEG9mi-m4k-YWsxCxGACGHeXmHiAQn-7087Ecspqe2J_jEHQHe7ep4jj-xoWFeW0SHc6i5e8/s1600/NetLogo-social-distance-3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="1280" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-djcTk-MqIPkNnB4JrDaMOsIi8nbMry3gUnj8lDMUS2bBKYM29ONK5ZijYg2Mm449aeUdEG9mi-m4k-YWsxCxGACGHeXmHiAQn-7087Ecspqe2J_jEHQHe7ep4jj-xoWFeW0SHc6i5e8/s320/NetLogo-social-distance-3.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Click on "Model Info" to learn much more</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
Some results from the fancier laptop version of the model are in <a href="https://thedanceofthehippo.blogspot.com/2020/03/distance-in-pictures.html">the follow-up post</a>.<br />
<br />
<strong><u>Getting and using the model</u></strong><br />
Click or right-click the link below to download the file to a convenient place on your computer. When you open the file, it should automatically open the web page for NetLogo Web and allow you to run the program.<br />
<a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/1KtoYSCMvExdN_xaNBBM1tiWuZhF6SD3O/view?usp=sharing">https://drive.google.com/file/d/1KtoYSCMvExdN_xaNBBM1tiWuZhF6SD3O/view?usp=sharing</a><br />
<br />
<br />Karlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11654006671545294361noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2850462849314268040.post-30285302923742412182019-01-27T11:22:00.004-08:002019-01-29T18:21:08.496-08:00Putting down the chalice<em>Remarks delivered at the community conversation on renewable energy and economic development in the 21st century, held January 17th, 2019, in Oneonta, NY</em><br />
<br />
<em>The video is at the jump, with my face holding a weird grimace in the still.</em><br />
<em></em><br />
<em>And here's the text, more or less verbatim what's on the video:</em><br />
<br />
I get it.<br />
<br />
I get why people love fossil fuels.<br />
<br />
They’re these really powerful, concentrated, flexible sources of energy that allow us to accomplish things our ancestors couldn’t even have dreamed of.<br />
<br />
They’re like a surprise inheritance from an eccentric relative you didn’t even know you had.<br />
<br />
The executor reads out the will, and it turns out that there’s all this valuable stuff in the ground, and it’s yours to use.<br />
<br />
Sure, you have to do the work of digging it out of the ground and figuring out how to use it, but as you start doing that, you realize that this stuff is gold. Actually, it’s so powerful that it makes gold look silly.<br />
<br />
You’ve been handed a pile of stuff that will help you achieve quadrillions of dollars worth of wealth, and it’s yours to spend.<br />
<br />
About a hundred years after you come into the stuff, the executor pulls out a small, scribbled note that says that there might be unexpected consequences of spending this inheritance.<br />
<br />
But you’re busy fighting a world war, dealing with a Great Depression, fighting another world war, and then getting locked into an existential struggle against communism (or, from another perspective, an existential struggle against capitalism).<br />
<br />
While you’re engaged in that existential struggle, you start getting more notes from the executor. It turns out that if you spend too much of this inheritance, at some point in the future there may be some warming.<br />
<br />
But this is rather vague.<br />
<br />
How much is “too much”?<br />
<br />
When is “at some point in the future”?<br />
<br />
And warming? Why is that a problem?<br />
<br />
Besides, that existential struggle against communism is over, and you won—congratulations!—but now you’re dealing with the threat of global terrorism. (Or, from the other side of the fence, Struggle against capitalism is over. Congratulations—you lost. You are now capitalist. Sort of.)<br />
<br />
But you keep getting more notes from the executor, and the writing is getting clearer.<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<br />
<a name='more'></a>“Too much” might be only 50% more than what you’ve already spent. Or 25%. Or 15%.<br />
<br />
“Some point in the future” is coming closer, and not just because time has passed since the earlier notes, but because the consequences they’re talking about are happening sooner than they originally thought.<br />
<br />
An ice-free Arctic by 2100? Maybe ice-free in the summer by 2030. Troubling events are coming towards us, even as we’re moving towards them.<br />
<br />
You start to realize that you could destabilize enough of the world’s living systems to endanger your civilization. You begin to wonder about that eccentric benefactor who left you all this stuff. It’s an odd sort of inheritance, that makes you rich enough to destroy your current home, but not near rich enough to build yourself a new one.<br />
<br />
<hr style="border: 1px solid blue;" />
<br />
Or maybe fossil fuels are an enchanted chalice, and drinking from it makes you big and strong (and beautiful!). But the funny thing about this chalice is that it never slakes your thirst. The stronger you get, the stronger you want to be, which means you have to keep drinking more.<br />
<br />
But you’re starting to notice that you’re getting too big for your living-room furniture. Now you’re big enough that you’re pressing against the walls of your living room, and if you keep drinking from the chalice, you’ll get so big that you’ll burst your whole house asunder and have nowhere to live.<br />
<br />
There are people telling you, people writing to the local papers, that if you put down the chalice, you’ll die!<br />
<br />
But you’re starting to realize that if you don’t put down the chalice, you’ll die.<br />
<br />
<hr style="border: 1px solid blue;" />
<br />
I get why people in our area would look longingly at the chalice and hope to drink more from it. Walk down Main St. and look at all the empty storefronts, and you can tell we’re not thriving.<br />
<br />
A hundred fifty years ago, the nation was using coal to build and operate a railroad network spanning the continent. This network created a flood of wealth by making it simple to move things from where they were easy to grow and produce, to where people were who wanted them. And the network needed a range of services to keep it working, and—for partially arbitrary reasons—Oneonta was chosen to provide some of those services, with the roundhouse, railyard, and car barns. That meant that a disproportionate share of the wealth produced by the railroad flowed into Oneonta and spilled over into the surrounding communities.<br />
<br />
And it wasn’t just the railroad workers. Since we were an important node on the transportation network, this was an advantageous place for small manufacturers, who could get supplies in and send goods out. And farmers had it good, with easy access to feed grain from the Midwest to raise cows on land that was far enough from New York City to be inexpensive, but close enough that the milk could get there fresh.<br />
<br />
All because we were special. We played an outsized role in this network that was helping to turn the nation’s fossil inheritance into wealth, and so we prospered.<br />
<br />
But the chalice giveth, and the chalice taketh away. The country shifted from railroads to highways, and train technology changed, and people figured out how to move milk from herds of 10,000 cows in California, so there was no longer as much need for herds of 100 or 200 cows in the Catskills.<br />
<br />
As fossil fuels continued changing the ways that wealth was created, we no longer had anything particularly important to offer. And so, compared to the country as a whole, we stagnate and look for solutions.<br />
<br />
<hr style="border: 1px solid blue;" />
<br />
When people talk about “investment,” they usually mean “making money”—buying stocks, bonds, real estate, things you think will pay dividends or go up in price so you can sell them at a profit.<br />
<br />
But to an economist, “investment” means “spending money to build stuff.” Some of that is private, like factories, stores, and machinery. Some of it is the government, like roads and schools. And some of it is related to energy, paid for by a mix of private and public sources: oil wells, pipelines, photovoltaic arrays, transmission grids.<br />
<br />
Investment is how we shape our future.<br />
<br />
The dominant fact about our future is climate change, human-driven climate change. If we’re not taking that into account when we plan our future, we’re not making our decisions intelligently.<br />
<br />
And what the science is telling us about the future, is that most of the fossil fuel inheritance that we haven’t spent yet—has to stay in the ground.<br />
<br />
That doesn’t mean that we’re going to drop to zero carbon emissions in five years, or in ten, so we still have to maintain the fossil-fuel infrastructure that we have.<br />
<br />
But if we do what the science tells us is necessary, we do need to start now shifting to a path of decreasing carbon emissions.<br />
<br />
If we stake our region’s future on easier access to fossil fuels, there are only two ways that plays out.<br />
<br />
One is that our society gets serious about carbon emissions and in some way or other makes fossil-fuel use more expensive. When that happens, any new infrastructure based on expanded fossil-fuel use becomes a stranded asset, infrastructure that can never pay back the money we spent to create it.<br />
<br />
The other possible outcome is that the investment pays off, but that can only happen if the broader society has decided to do nothing substantive about climate change. Our region would then enjoy abundant natural gas, while conditions in the world around us deteriorated.<br />
<br />
If you build new fossil-fuel infrastructure, you’re placing a bet. You’re betting that our country will continue to do nothing substantive about the changes bearing down on us.<br />
<br />
And you’re not just placing a bet. You’re making yourself an interested party, you’re giving yourself a profit-based reason to keep our country on the sidelines.<br />
<br />
<hr style="border: 1px solid blue;" />
<br />
From a narrow economic perspective, easier access to fossil fuels is a no-brainer. We have plenty of things working against us in this area, and cheaper fossil fuels would be one less disadvantage. But there are other places with cheap energy, so having that wouldn’t make us stand out in any way.<br />
<br />
So what’s the alternative?<br />
<br />
If you’re not going to expand your fossil-fuel use, and eventually you’re going to start decreasing it, then you’re unavoidably going to do a combination of two things: using more renewables, and using less energy overall.<br />
<br />
We don’t ultimately care about energy itself. We care about what we can do with energy: keep our houses warm, move around, make stuff. If we can get those things done at a reasonable cost, then it doesn’t matter economically whether we do it by using lots of cheap fossil fuel, or smaller amounts of renewables.<br />
<br />
“But renewables aren’t any good for manufacturing!”<br />
<br />
There’s some truth to that, at least in the short and medium term, but even there, efficiency and renewables can still help with manufacturing. If we insulate our homes, shift them to heat pumps and pellet stoves, and get some of our hot water from the sun, we free up the gas that we had been using for those purposes, and we can use some of that for manufacturing instead.<br />
<br />
This is no magic bullet or panacea. It’s not going to give us back the special status we had when the railroad was king and we made it run.<br />
<br />
But it is putting us on the right side of the future.<br />
<br />
And what is it that we have to offer in that future?<br />
<br />
A reasonably well educated population.<br />
<br />
A reasonable climate. Plenty of fresh water. Areas of good soil, and plenty of cheap land, at a reasonable distance from the country’s largest city.<br />
<br />
Depending on how things play out with society’s response to climate change, and with climate change itself, our region may turn out to be blessed with valuable assets.<br />
<br />
<hr style="border: 1px solid blue;" />
<br />
I don’t know the details of what our future here looks like.<br />
<br />
But the baseline reality is that our society needs to be working on using less fossil fuel. We have to be planning to simply take the vast majority of our remaining inheritance and leave it in the ground.<br />
<br />
If we’re planning intelligently for the future, we need to be figuring out how we’re going to put the chalice down, not buying new straws to drink more from it.<br />
<br />Karlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11654006671545294361noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2850462849314268040.post-87818670545924758792018-10-05T06:56:00.003-07:002021-01-12T18:53:07.051-08:00The altar of Donald Trump's needDear Senator Flake,<br />
<br />
I am grateful you used your leverage to get some sort of FBI inquiry into the allegations made against Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, but I’m wondering what follow-up you have in mind.<br />
<br />
You’ve said that if the FBI finds that Judge Kavanaugh lied to the Senate Judiciary Committee, his nomination is over. But you didn’t need the FBI to know that he was lying. Not necessarily about what did or didn’t happen in 1983, but numerous statements the judge made in his September 27th testimony are documentably false, down to whether he watched Dr. Blasey Ford’s testimony (a Republican aide says he did watch it; Judge Kavanaugh stated in the hearing that he did not).<br />
<br />
The FBI investigation itself indirectly raises other questions. Your colleague Sen. Collins said she found the investigation to have been complete, but that’s transparently false. The Bureau didn’t interview the witnesses proposed by Deborah Ramirez. They didn’t interview numerous college classmates of the judge who came forward to offer their eyewitness testimony about his drinking behavior during college (and thus speak to whether he was truthful with the Senate Judiciary Committee).<br />
<br />
Most damningly, they interviewed neither Dr. Blasey Ford nor Judge Kavanaugh. During the most recent testimony, the judge was not only combative, but notably evasive in responding to questions from Democratic senators. In an FBI inquiry, belligerence and evasion don’t work, and so the failure to interview Judge Kavanaugh looks very much like an intentional measure to avoid making him answer difficult questions.<br />
<br />
The background issue here is what purpose you had in mind for an FBI investigation. If you wanted to be able to point and say, “The FBI looked, they didn’t find anything, so my conscience is clear in voting ‘Yes,’” then you got what you wanted, what you needed.<br />
<a name='more'></a><br />
If the purpose was to shed light on what may have happened in 1983, or at Yale during Judge Kavanaugh’s freshman year, or on his truthfulness about his relationship to alcohol, then the FBI investigation was designed to be a failure.<br />
<br />
For that portion of the public that doesn’t follow politics closely, you undoubtedly have adequate political cover. But this was too constrained an investigation to provide cover for your conscience.<br />
<br />
You yourself have all but said that the judge is temperamentally unfit for a seat on the nation’s highest court, and numerous conservative voices agree with you on that, including retired Justice John Paul Stevens. I understand you want a conservative justice on the court, but are there <em>no</em> conservative judges with appropriate judicial temperament? Surely that can’t be true, so why are you considering granting a lifetime seat to one who has shown himself manifestly unfit?<br />
<br />
The defense of Judge Kavanaugh is split between those who say, “There’s no evidence he did it,” and those who say, “Sexual assault is a natural rite of passage for teenage boys.”<br />
<br />
That second group is advocating crime and normalizing the treatment of women as objects.<br />
<br />
They’re also implying some doubt as to the judge’s innocence—after all, if you were confident that he didn’t assault Dr. Blasey Ford, why would you advocate crime against women as part of his defense?<br />
<br />
If you vote “yes,” this is part of the company you’re keeping.<br />
<br />
Lastly, you have rightly condemned the president’s attacks on Dr. Blasey Ford. The question is whether you mean it.<br />
<br />
It reminds me of when a child says, “Sorry I hit my sister,” then goes right back to hitting her as soon as the parent’s back is turned. Apologies are worse than useless if the words aren’t backed up by deeds.<br />
<br />
Your condemnation of the president’s attacks is equally hollow if you don’t back those words with consequences.<br />
<br />
And the only relevant consequence in this situation is a “no” vote on Judge Kavanaugh’s confirmation.<br />
<br />
I live in New York, so I am not your constituent, but let’s be honest—you have broader political horizons. In legal terms, you represent only the people of Arizona, but politically, you are speaking to the entire country, and so it behooves you to listen when the country speaks back to you.<br />
<br />
And there’s your conscience.<br />
<br />
You give every sign of thinking this is a man who is unqualified for the Court, <em>except</em> by his ideological agreement with you.<br />
<br />
It seems you found Dr. Blasey Ford’s testimony credible—not necessarily true, but credible. And yet you may vote to confirm the nominee of a man who mocks her to crowds, encourages them to hate her.<br />
<br />
The ultimate question here is how much of your self-respect you’re willing to lay on the altar of Donald Trump’s insatiable need.<br />
<br />
Karl Seeley<br />
Oneonta, NYKarlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11654006671545294361noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2850462849314268040.post-84629881336535103722018-08-25T06:54:00.002-07:002018-08-25T06:54:47.135-07:00Welcome to the world of InstaChatFor the second time in about four days, I've been in a stall in a public bathroom when someone else has come in and started narrating their inner world.<br />
<br />
Today's running commentary:<br />
<br />
"It smells like, Oh my god.<br />
<br />
It smells like, a god, who's pissed at the world, because it shits dicks."<br />
<br />
I hear a dog barking in the hall outside the the bathroom.<br />
<br />
"I know that dog."<br />
<br />
A-a-a-and, we're out.<a name='more'></a><br />
<br />
A few days ago, it was a different bathroom on campus. I heard a man and a woman talking outside the bathroom, then the man entered and tugged on the door of the stall I was in.<br />
<br />
"Hmm," I responded.<br />
<br />
The man walked away, and then started talking. The level was so low that it sounded like he'd walked back out of the bathroom.<br />
<br />
"I didn't know he was in there. I heard him say 'hmm'."<br />
<br />
Then it became clear that he hadn't left the bathroom, but was merely speaking fairly softly - at the urinal.<br />
<br />
Then he made his way to the sink (points for that!), where it took him a moment (filled with verbal astonishment) to figure out how to get water out of the automatic faucet. He did figure it out, and got some soap, which prompted, "This soap smells amazing."<br />
<br />
Is this now a thing?<br />
<br />
When for whatever reason we're temporarily unable to post to Instagram or whatever other cry of the heart we're using these days, are we supposed to verbally broadcast the minutiae of our transit through the cosmos? <br />
<br />
I can’t keep up.
Karlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11654006671545294361noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2850462849314268040.post-46954376800921670542018-07-26T08:47:00.002-07:002018-07-26T08:53:41.366-07:00Day 38: Apparently, dictatorship is fineMy Congressman supports Trump being a dictator.<br />
<br />
Well, he hasn’t said that in so many words, but I’ve been asking for a while whether he would vote for impeachment if Trump were to murder someone who was investigating him.<br />
<br />
He hasn’t answered.<br />
<br />
And when I say “a while,” I mean <a href="http://thedanceofthehippo.blogspot.com/2018/06/not-going-to-get-answer.html">since June 4th</a>.<br />
<br />
That’s seven-and-a-half weeks ago. 52 calendar days. Or Day 38 if we take June 4th as Day 1 and count only work days.<br />
<br />
Here’s today’s conversation (earlier ones are linked at the end of the post).<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Last week Mr. Faso issued a statement criticizing the president’s handling of the press conference after the Helsinki summit.</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Since then, we’ve heard hints from the Russian side about what was agreed to in the summit itself, and sometimes we get confirmation from the White House, sometimes we get silence.</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
And the president apparently agreed to some very dangerous things, like ratifying the Russian seizure of Crimea and potentially ratifying the occupation of eastern Ukraine.</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
In dealing with this, we have no coherent report from the American side, and no coherent response within the U.S. government, because the president ignored everyone’s advice beforehand and went in one-on-one—the only other American in the room was his translator. </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
This is not mishandling a press conference. This is, at best, massive incompetence in the conduct of foreign policy. But it also looks like subservience to a foreign dictator.</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Is Mr. Faso doing anything about this threat to our country?</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<em>What you like him to do?</em></blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Is he doing anything other than criticizing a press conference?</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
I want to know, first, what he thinks of the deeper, more serious issues about the summit itself.</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
And he could perhaps have hearings, ask to talk to the Secretary of State or others involved in foreign policy.</blockquote>
[Takes name and contact info, promises to pass along my concerns.]<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
While I have you, I just need to follow up on another question that I’ve been trying to get an answer on since June 4th. That’s seven-and-a-half weeks ago. If I’ve spoken to you before, you probably know what it is.</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
The president’s lawyer says he could kill James Comey and it would still be illegal to indict him, because the only remedy for a president is impeachment. So I want to know: If the president were to kill someone who was investigating him, would Representative Faso vote to impeach him?</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<em>I have not spoken to the Congressman as to whether he would vote to impeach if the president were to murder someone investigating him.</em></blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Well, as I said, I’ve been asking this question for seven-and-a-half weeks, and everyone I’ve spoken to about it has said that they would see that the Congressman got the question, so presumably <em>someone</em> has spoken with him about it, but I guess it wasn’t you.</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<em>This is the first I’ve heard of it.</em></blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
And this is not some bizarre hypothetical. The president’s own lawyer brought it up.</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
This is an absurdly easy question. If you don’t support impeachment for a president who murders investigators, then you support dictatorship.</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
It’s beyond pathetic that Mr. Faso can’t answer this question.</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
The question is basically, Can the president murder his opponents without being impeached? Can the president murder his opponents without being impeached?</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Why is that even a question?</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
You should be able to say, “Of course Mr. Faso doesn’t believe the president should be able to murder his opponents without being impeached.”</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
But you can’t say that, because Mr. Faso hasn’t seen fit to answer the question.</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
And that is simply absurd.</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<em>I will certainly see that he gets asked this question.</em></blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Do you personally interact with the Congressman?</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<em>Yes</em>.</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Do you think you personally could put this question to him?</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<em>Yes, I can do that.</em></blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
And can you convey to him how absurd it is that he can’t answer it?</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<em>Yes, I will do that.</em></blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
And perhaps at some point in, oh, the next two years, I might get an answer, but by now I fully expect not to get one. Though I will keep asking.</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<em>Mm-hm.</em></blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
What kind of world is this, where a congressman can’t answer this question?</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<em>I don’t know.</em></blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<em>You have a good day sir.</em></blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
I would have a better day if my elected representative believed in democracy. You have a good day, too.</blockquote>
In case you're in John Faso's district, the number for his D.C. office is (202) 225-5614. He'd love to hear from you!<br />
<br />
Earlier calls:<br />
<ul>
<li><a href="http://thedanceofthehippo.blogspot.com/2018/06/not-going-to-get-answer.html">Monday, June 4</a></li>
<li><a href="http://thedanceofthehippo.blogspot.com/2018/06/day-2-still-no-position.html">Tuesday, June 5</a></li>
<li><a href="http://thedanceofthehippo.blogspot.com/2018/06/day-3-would-faso-impeach-for-murder.html">Wednesday, June 6</a></li>
<li><a href="http://thedanceofthehippo.blogspot.com/2018/06/day-5-no-day-4-chipper-but-no-answer.html">Friday, June 8</a></li>
<li><a href="http://thedanceofthehippo.blogspot.com/2018/06/day-6-dont-got-no-opinion-about-that.html">Monday, June 11</a></li>
<li><a href="http://thedanceofthehippo.blogspot.com/2018/06/day-9-not-telling-vs-not-knowing.html">Thursday, June 14</a></li>
<li><a href="http://thedanceofthehippo.blogspot.com/2018/06/day-11-absurd-things-staff-cant-tell-you.html">Monday, June 18</a></li>
<li><a href="http://thedanceofthehippo.blogspot.com/2018/06/day-13-some-daylight.html">Wednesday, June 20</a></li>
<li><a href="http://thedanceofthehippo.blogspot.com/2018/06/day-16-would-faso-support-hearing.html">Monday, June 25</a></li>
<li><a href="http://thedanceofthehippo.blogspot.com/2018/06/day-19-talk-one-way-vote-another.html">Thursday, June 28</a></li>
<li><a href="http://thedanceofthehippo.blogspot.com/2018/07/day-24-no-limits.html">Friday, July 6th</a></li>
<li><a href="http://thedanceofthehippo.blogspot.com/2018/07/day-30-non-answer-answer.html">Monday, July 16th</a></li>
<li><a href="http://thedanceofthehippo.blogspot.com/2018/07/day-32-dont-expect-action.html">Wednesday, July 18th</a></li>
</ul>
Karlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11654006671545294361noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2850462849314268040.post-8933525479019483782018-07-19T04:34:00.003-07:002018-07-19T05:16:07.949-07:00How to ruin small-talkEverybody knows that feeling when you walk away from a conversation, then five minutes later think “<em>That’s</em> what I should have said.”<br />
<br />
You know that feeling, right?<br />
<br />
I still don’t have that feeling.<br />
<br />
It’s been half a day, and I’m still at, “<em>What</em> should I have said? Should I have said <em>something</em>?”<br />
<br />
I was in the grocery store and I almost collided with another customer. His physical type was one you encounter pretty often here in upstate New York: 60-ish, a rough, full beard, and a weathered face.<br />
<br />
Oh, and on his chest, in something like a baby carrier, he was wearing a Chihuahua.<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img src="https://usak9outfitters.com/images/petPouch1big.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">It was basically this model. Now replace the woman wearing it with a gristled 60-year-old man in a rural New York Price Chopper.<br />
Image from <a href="https://usak9outfitters.com/STCRPP.htm">https://usak9outfitters.com/STCRPP.htm</a></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<a name='more'></a>Our near-collision happened as he was coming out of an aisle where I’d been unable to see him, and he courteously let me pass.<br />
<br />
A few minutes later, I found myself in line behind him at checkout, and now I saw that the dog-carrier had a very official-looking tag that identified the animal as a therapy pet for PTSD. And that the man was wearing a t-shirt with the text, “Freedom is never free.”<br />
<br />
I said something to the effect of it being a great rig for the dog, and the man turned and engaged in pleasant conversation.<br />
<br />
He mentioned that the dog was cold, and I asked if it was a Chihuahua.<br />
<br />
“Yeah, he’s Mexican. He came up here for all the free social stuff.”<br />
<br />
Ugh.<br />
<br />
I just wanted to have a light, humane interaction with a stranger who shares my corner of the world, and who is wearing an adorable Dog Bjorn, and who has probably seen horrors I can only imagine.<br />
<br />
But that’s not where we are today, so of course a comment has to be dropped into the conversation, portraying Hispanic immigrants as lazy moochers coming to take our stuff.<br />
<br />
My face had been smiley and engaging, and I could feel it fall, but I couldn’t think of what to say. So I said nothing.<br />
<br />
Maybe I should have said something like, “Immigrants come here to work,” just as a marker that his casual bigotry is not universally shared, but I was blindsided by his comment. The dark turn in the conversation was so sudden that it took me a while to reorient myself.<br />
<br />
Should I start dropping Trump digs into random settings? Say I were walking my cat (bear with me here) and got chatting with a stranger who was complimenting his regal appearance. I could say, “Yes, and his strange, yellow hair means he’s a traitor.”<br />
<br />
I’ve only been back in the country for nine days, and already I miss America.Karlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11654006671545294361noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2850462849314268040.post-28581879280014412542018-07-18T19:47:00.003-07:002018-07-18T19:49:18.837-07:00Day 32: Don't expect actionOn Monday <a href="http://thedanceofthehippo.blogspot.com/2018/07/day-30-non-answer-answer.html">I called the office of John Faso</a> (NY-19), expecting that he wouldn’t have yet figured out what to say about Trump’s Surrender Summit in Suomi.<br />
<br />
To my surprise, the staffer had a statement there to read to me (which I later learned was also on Faso’s website). I was so surprised, that I said I agreed 100%, but I think it was more that seeing my congressman criticize Trump as much as he did was a bit like seeing a dog talk. On reflection, the dog was only making a little sense. (Still, yay dog for talking at all, right?)<br />
<br />
Since my call on Monday, Trump had sort of walked back his dis of U.S. intelligence in favor of Putin’s view of what happened in 2016, but not really, and then had gone ahead and full-on ignored the intelligence community’s assessment of risks for 2018.<br />
<br />
So I thought I’d check in with Faso.<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
I’m calling to find out what Congressman Faso is doing to follow up on his statement from Monday regarding the president’s summit with Vladimir Putin.</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<em>I haven’t had a chance to speak with him about that. Is there a message you’d like to pass along?</em></blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
There are two very specific actions that Congressman Faso should take.</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
First, he should work with his colleagues on closing the loophole in the Defense Authorization Act that allows the president to waive sanctions on the Russian military.</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<em>And the second?</em></blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
He should vote with the rest of the House to release the president’s tax returns. Every other presidential nominee for the last 45 years has released his or her tax returns. Trump said he would do it if he was elected. We’re now 20 months past the election, and we still haven’t seen them.<br />
<a name='more'></a><br /></blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
The president’s behavior is consistent with someone who has financial obligations to Russia. His tax returns would help figure out whether that was true. Mr. Faso needs to vote to have them released.</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<em>I will pass that along.</em></blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
And I hope he’s not falling for the retraction from yesterday, that he meant to say “wouldn’t” rather than “would,” but two things on that.</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
First, taken in the context of the rest of the press conference and a week in which he had just undercut long-time allies Germany and Britain, that’s simply not credible.</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Second, in that same statement he finished up by reopening doubt about whether it was Russia. He said he accepted the findings of the intelligence community, and then he said something that contradicted those findings.</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
And today he contradicted the intelligence community on the question of whether Russia is meddling in the 2018 elections. They say Russia is, he says Russia isn’t.</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Those are the actions of someone covering for Russia, not someone standing up for the U.S.</blockquote>
Pleasantries, and we’re done.<br />
<br />
As always, I encourage you to call Faso’s office. If his staffers are going to accept employment with an enabler of fascism, at make them work for their blood money. The number is (202) 225-5614.<br />
<br />
Earlier calls:<br />
<ul>
<li><a href="http://thedanceofthehippo.blogspot.com/2018/06/not-going-to-get-answer.html">Monday, June 4</a></li>
<li><a href="http://thedanceofthehippo.blogspot.com/2018/06/day-2-still-no-position.html">Tuesday, June 5</a></li>
<li><a href="http://thedanceofthehippo.blogspot.com/2018/06/day-3-would-faso-impeach-for-murder.html">Wednesday, June 6</a></li>
<li><a href="http://thedanceofthehippo.blogspot.com/2018/06/day-5-no-day-4-chipper-but-no-answer.html">Friday, June 8</a></li>
<li><a href="http://thedanceofthehippo.blogspot.com/2018/06/day-6-dont-got-no-opinion-about-that.html">Monday, June 11</a></li>
<li><a href="http://thedanceofthehippo.blogspot.com/2018/06/day-9-not-telling-vs-not-knowing.html">Thursday, June 14</a></li>
<li><a href="http://thedanceofthehippo.blogspot.com/2018/06/day-11-absurd-things-staff-cant-tell-you.html">Monday, June 18</a></li>
<li><a href="http://thedanceofthehippo.blogspot.com/2018/06/day-13-some-daylight.html">Wednesday, June 20</a></li>
<li><a href="http://thedanceofthehippo.blogspot.com/2018/06/day-16-would-faso-support-hearing.html">Monday, June 25</a></li>
<li><a href="http://thedanceofthehippo.blogspot.com/2018/06/day-19-talk-one-way-vote-another.html">Thursday, June 28</a></li>
<li><a href="http://thedanceofthehippo.blogspot.com/2018/07/day-24-no-limits.html">Friday, July 6th</a></li>
<li><a href="http://thedanceofthehippo.blogspot.com/2018/07/day-30-non-answer-answer.html">Monday, July 16th</a></li>
</ul>
Karlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11654006671545294361noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2850462849314268040.post-42235511758771874152018-07-17T08:12:00.000-07:002018-07-17T08:12:09.986-07:00Taking out the garbage (statistics)Have you ever encountered a list of claims about how great the economy is doing under Trump, and wondered how much substance there was behind it?<br />
<br />
As a public service, here’s a list I encountered this morning, set in the context of data.<br />
<br />
Enjoy.<br />
<br />
And reuse, link, etc.<br />
<br />
<em><strong>“Lowest unemployment rate amongst African Americans and the Spanish community since it's been tracked.”</strong></em><br />
<br />
Those numbers are continuations of trends that were running for the last 5 years of Obama’s presidency.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img height="160" src="https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/fredgraph.png?g=kwnF" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="400" /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/fredgraph.png?g=kwnF">https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/fredgraph.png?g=kwnF</a></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img height="160" src="https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/fredgraph.png?g=kwnO" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="400" /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/fredgraph.png?g=kwnO">https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/fredgraph.png?g=kwnO</a></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
And the employment-population ratio for both groups is still below what it was in 2007, and <em>far </em>below what it was in 2009.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img height="160" src="https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/fredgraph.png?g=kwnV" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="400" /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/fredgraph.png?g=kwnV">https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/fredgraph.png?g=kwnV</a></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
The situation for Latinos (I assume that’s what you meant by “the Spanish community”) is actually still pretty far below the 2007 level.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img height="160" src="https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/fredgraph.png?g=kwod" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="400" /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/fredgraph.png?g=kwod">https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/fredgraph.png?g=kwod</a></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<em><strong>“Lowest unemployment rate for woman in 66 years.”</strong></em><br />
<br />
I assume you mean “women,” and not some one individual “woman” who’s got her best numbers in 66 years.<br />
<a name='more'></a><br />
Again, it’s the continuation of a trend that has been in place since November, 2010.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img height="160" src="https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/fredgraph.png?g=kwoZ" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="400" /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/fredgraph.png?g=kwoZ">https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/fredgraph.png?g=kwoZ</a></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
And as with Latinos, the employment-population ratio for women is still far below what it was in 2007.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img height="160" src="https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/fredgraph.png?g=kwp8" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="400" /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/fredgraph.png?g=kwp8">https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/fredgraph.png?g=kwp8</a></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<em><strong>“Over 260 records on both U.S. exchanges adding in excess of 1.4 Trillion dollars. The public and investor corps finally seeing a return on investment which directly affects retirees and those with 401k's, who are finally seeing a return after a decade.”</strong></em><br />
<br />
Source?<br />
<br />
And what do you mean “both” U.S. exchanges? There are <em><u>three</u></em> major ones: NYSE, Nasdaq, and AMEX. Perhaps you meant the two major indexes: Dow Jones and S&P 500. At any rate, a source would be real helpful to help us understand what you mean here.<br />
<br />
And to the underlying data, the thing about stock markets is that they usually go up. If you set a record on one day, and then have 9 more good days, that’s 10 records right there. Nothing remarkable about it.<br />
<br />
Looking at the S&P as an example, during Trump’s administration, the S&P has hit a record on 75 days out of 539 that he’s been in office. The same index hit a new record on 258 days out of the 2,922 that Obama was in office. If we start counting from the market bottom on March 9, 2009, then Obama had 258 S&P highs over 2,874 days.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img height="160" src="https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/fredgraph.png?g=kws6" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="400" /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/fredgraph.png?g=kws6</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
By that count, Trump has an edge: a new high every 7.2 days, compared to every 11.1 for Obama since the trough.<br />
<br />
But if you look at overall gains, from March 9, 2009, to the end of Obama’s term, the S&P gained at an annualized rate of 16.6%. Since Trump took over, the S&P has gained at an annualized rate of 15.4%.<br />
<br />
<em><strong>“Consumer confidence index highest it's been in 17 years.”</strong></em><br />
<br />
Which index are you talking about? The University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment numbers?<br />
<br />
In March, that index did indeed reach its highest level since January, 2004 (which is a little more than 14 years, not 17). The April and May numbers were off a bit, but that’s probably not meaningful, as there’s a lot of “noise” month to month. The underlying trend is still upward.<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img height="160" src="https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/fredgraph.png?g=kjZi" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="400" /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/fredgraph.png?g=kjZi</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
As it has been since August, 2011. You really are fond of pointing to continuation of trends that started long before Obama left office and pointing to them as Trump’s accomplishments.<br />
<br />
<em><strong>“Income inceases for the first time in 30 years.”</strong></em><br />
<br />
You’re <em>really</em> going to have to clarify this. “Income” can refer to a lot of things in economics.<br />
<br />
Do you mean “Real median household income”? That’s a pretty useful measure of how the typical household is doing. The data are annual and the 2017 numbers haven’t yet been released, but the 2016 number was a new high, and the trend was upward after 2012.<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img height="160" src="https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/fredgraph.png?g=g0Yv" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="400" /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/fredgraph.png?g=g0Yv</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Do you mean “National income”? Again, continuation of trend, this time since 2009.<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img height="160" src="https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/fredgraph.png?g=kwsf" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="400" /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/fredgraph.png?g=kwsf</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Just because other people are better informed than you are, doesn’t mean we’re mind-readers. Please identify what you mean by “income.”
<br />
<br />
<strong><em>“Home ownership up after 9 years.”</em></strong><br />
<br />
Again, it would be helpful if you were more specific about the statistic to which you’re referring. The home ownership <em>rate</em> fell for 12 years, from Q2 2004 to Q2 2016. Note that Obama inherited a downward trend that continued almost all the way through his presidency, before turning around just before he left office.<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img height="160" src="https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/fredgraph.png?g=jCht" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="400" /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/fredgraph.png?g=jCht</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Once again, claiming credit for a trend that started under Obama, though this one is a little problematic.<br />
<br />
Home ownership is good, all else being equal. But if it’s being pumped up by bubble finance, it’s unsustainable. What happened in the second half of GW Bush’s presidency and most of Obama’s was arguably a return to a level that better fits with people’s incomes. That correction burned itself out, and now you want to give Trump credit for the U.S. maybe having a normal housing market again.
<br />
<br />
<strong><em>“Workforce participation is DIRECTLY related to choice. Sorry, but the Millennials choose to live of their parents.”</em></strong><br />
<br />
Obviously workforce participation is a choice, but it’s a choice made under particular conditions. If it’s hard to find work that pays well enough to cover childcare, then “choosing” not to participate is rational.<br />
<br />
Besides, do you have any evidence for your explanation that the low rate is Millennials choosing to live off their parents?<br />
<br />
Here’s the participation rate for ages 25-54:<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img height="160" src="https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/fredgraph.png?g=kwtJ" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="400" /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/fredgraph.png?g=kwtJ</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Note first that the rate isn’t close to getting back to where it was before the recession.<br />
<br />
Second, it stabilized in late 2013 and has been improving since early 2016. The definition of “Millennials” is vague, but by any definition, they’re playing a more and more prominent role in the 25-54 group as time goes on. If the problem is really Millennials choosing to mooch off their parents, why is this statistic continuing to (modestly) improve as Millennials come to constitute a greater part of the pool?<br />
<br />
<em><strong>“Illegal border crossing down 30%”</strong></em><br />
<br />
Source?<br />
<br />
Apprehensions on the southwestern border do seem to be <a href="http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2017/apr/25/donald-trump/illegal-immigration-lowest-17-years-trump-said/">down to their lowest level in 17 years</a>, but again, this is a trend that has been in place since 2001, and it was accelerated by the recession in 2008-09: why take the risk of crossing into the U.S. illegally if the employment prospects are no longer as good as they used to be?<br />
<br />
There does seem to be an additional decline, due to a mix of Trump’s rhetoric and his policies, but again, you stand on the shoulders of a long trend and claim that your guy did it. Pathetically predictable.<br />
<br />
<strong><em>“Food stamps usage down for the first time in 40 years.”</em></strong><br />
<br />
Source?<br />
<br />
Do you mean the number of people on food stamps? That seems to have fallen from 1994 to 2000, then again from 2013 to today.<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjVIOgU3rmJYoEQrMqbU_d7vhfUur_8nuf_t9HMnL04XkN9exUGo-3GycEtfx53wbSj1iAzcLC87f7BQ8wqVsp_YG8t7Mh10t7QESXjdP7pB_aA-aiKUR1gThQrbdW9rEYV2dK6aybRBE/s1600/Food-Stamps-Yearly.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="584" data-original-width="778" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjVIOgU3rmJYoEQrMqbU_d7vhfUur_8nuf_t9HMnL04XkN9exUGo-3GycEtfx53wbSj1iAzcLC87f7BQ8wqVsp_YG8t7Mh10t7QESXjdP7pB_aA-aiKUR1gThQrbdW9rEYV2dK6aybRBE/s320/Food-Stamps-Yearly.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.trivisonno.com/food-stamps-charts">http://www.trivisonno.com/food-stamps-charts</a>, based on USDA data</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
Do you mean the percentage of the population using food stamps? That seems to have fallen from 1995 to 2001, then again from 2013 to today.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLuKGR5fOqBdhWmoTXTq48e2lJUEyzR__QJiwCGxqs651JUF3ZZmG6UXMgVlqdq-3zzgYodP6nGMpEVFBhBnnfIl1IqHZ9a1um2Z6u4R00tg2r80VWXuEE1BSW20um8sHPcymRIkU-uHM/s1600/Food-Stamps-Percent.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="544" data-original-width="837" height="207" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLuKGR5fOqBdhWmoTXTq48e2lJUEyzR__QJiwCGxqs651JUF3ZZmG6UXMgVlqdq-3zzgYodP6nGMpEVFBhBnnfIl1IqHZ9a1um2Z6u4R00tg2r80VWXuEE1BSW20um8sHPcymRIkU-uHM/s320/Food-Stamps-Percent.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.trivisonno.com/food-stamps-charts">http://www.trivisonno.com/food-stamps-charts</a>, based on USDA data</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
In short, not much to the list of claims.<br />
<br />Karlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11654006671545294361noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2850462849314268040.post-11463514149233978792018-07-16T18:29:00.001-07:002018-07-18T19:48:42.820-07:00Day 30: The non-answer answerBack on <em>June</em> 4th <a href="http://thedanceofthehippo.blogspot.com/2018/06/not-going-to-get-answer.html">I called the office of my congressman</a>, John Faso (NY-19). The thing that got me to pick up the phone was Rudy Giuliani’s statement about the president being above any law except impeachment. I kept calling (see the roster at the bottom of the post), and a couple of other issues crept in.<br />
<br />
On <em>July</em> 7th, I finally got a response (see the JPEG at the end of this post). I choose the word advisedly, because I didn’t get an <em>answer</em>.<br />
<br />
So I called again.<br />
<br />
(Note: The “Day 30” in the title is the count in terms of business days. In calendar time we’re already at Day 48 since my first call on June 4th.)<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
I’ve been asking questions on three areas:</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
1. Tariffs </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
2. Family separations </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
3. Limits of presidential power</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
I got a letter dated July 7th that says nothing in particular. The Congressman says that he doesn’t agree with President Trump on everything (though he declines to mention anything specific on which he disagrees), and he says he’s working with the Problem Solvers Caucus to find solutions.</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
I asked <em>specifically</em> whether there would be legislation to prevent further destructive use of tariffs. The letter says nothing about that.</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
I asked <em>specifically</em> whether there would be hearings on the family-separation question, and also how the congressman reconciles, on the one hand, his stated opposition to detaining children with, on the other, his vote for a bill that would have authorized the continued detention of children. The letter says nothing about any of that.</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
When I started these calls back on <em>June</em> 4th, my very first question was, if the president did indeed kill someone investigating him, would Mr. Faso vote to impeach. It’s a very specific question, and a very reasonable one, because the president’s own lawyer said the president is immune from indictment, even if he were to have killed James Comey. That leaves impeachment as the only remedy should the president blatantly break the law, and I want to know if the congressman would use it.</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
It’s a very specific, relevant question, and I expect a grown man to be able to actually answer it, particularly if he thinks he deserves to represent us in Congress.</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Is there a chance I can get <em>answers</em> to those questions?</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<em>Absolutely</em>. (Takes name and contact info)<br />
<a name='more'></a><br /></blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Now there’s today’s press conference with Vladimir Putin. Donald Trump says he believes the president of Russia more than he believes the law enforcement and intelligence community of the United States.</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Did you hear about that?</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<em>I didn’t hear the press conference myself, but the congressman does have a statement about that if you’d like to hear it.</em></blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
I would, thank you.</blockquote>
The staffer read me the statement, which I later found <a href="https://faso.house.gov/news/documentsingle.aspx?DocumentID=1171">on Faso’s web site</a>:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
I do not agree with the approach taken by President Trump at today’s press conference with Russian President Vladimir Putin. Putin is no friend to the United States. There is no credibility to Putin’s denials especially in light of the public evidence and our own U.S. intelligence reports. We know the Russians meddled in our elections and we must continue our sanctions and diplomatic pressure against Putin’s actions.</blockquote>
I told the staffer that I agreed 100% with the statement and was glad the congressman had put it together. My next question was whether he was going to actually <em>do</em> anything.<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Because Mr. Faso has powers that go beyond words. He’s a member of the majority party. They can have hearings. They can conduct investigations that actually <em>investigate</em>.</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Does he plan to go beyond merely <em>saying</em> the right things?</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<em>I don’t know, I will pass along that you’d like him to do that.</em></blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Yes, please do. We didn’t send him to Washington merely to talk pretty. He should also be overseeing the government.</blockquote>
Exchange of pleasantries, and we’re out.<br />
<br />
Remember, Faso’s DC office is at (202) 225-5614. The staffers are polite (the one today sounded a little beleaguered). If you call about Trump selling the country to Russia, go in knowing that Faso’s put together an entirely reasonable statement, so you might ask about what action he has in mind to back up his nice words.<br />
<br />
It may also be worth noting that Faso’s opposition to child separation on our border never made it to his web site. He was pleased to go on NPR and other outlets that Republican base voters are less likely to frequent and say that the situation was a humanitarian disaster, but I never found anything on his own website that might be visited by any of his constituents, regardless of ideological leaning.<br />
<br />
In contrast, his modest concern on the Sellout Press Conference is something he’s willing for his constituents to know about more broadly.<br />
<br />
Next call: <a href="http://thedanceofthehippo.blogspot.com/2018/07/day-32-dont-expect-action.html">Wednesday, July 18th</a><br />
<br />
Earlier calls:<br />
<ul>
<li><a href="http://thedanceofthehippo.blogspot.com/2018/06/not-going-to-get-answer.html">Monday, June 4</a></li>
<li><a href="http://thedanceofthehippo.blogspot.com/2018/06/day-2-still-no-position.html">Tuesday, June 5</a></li>
<li><a href="http://thedanceofthehippo.blogspot.com/2018/06/day-3-would-faso-impeach-for-murder.html">Wednesday, June 6</a></li>
<li><a href="http://thedanceofthehippo.blogspot.com/2018/06/day-5-no-day-4-chipper-but-no-answer.html">Friday, June 8</a></li>
<li><a href="http://thedanceofthehippo.blogspot.com/2018/06/day-6-dont-got-no-opinion-about-that.html">Monday, June 11</a></li>
<li><a href="http://thedanceofthehippo.blogspot.com/2018/06/day-9-not-telling-vs-not-knowing.html">Thursday, June 14</a></li>
<li><a href="http://thedanceofthehippo.blogspot.com/2018/06/day-11-absurd-things-staff-cant-tell-you.html">Monday, June 18</a></li>
<li><a href="http://thedanceofthehippo.blogspot.com/2018/06/day-13-some-daylight.html">Wednesday, June 20</a></li>
<li><a href="http://thedanceofthehippo.blogspot.com/2018/06/day-16-would-faso-support-hearing.html">Monday, June 25</a></li>
<li><a href="http://thedanceofthehippo.blogspot.com/2018/06/day-19-talk-one-way-vote-another.html">Thursday, June 28</a></li>
<li><a href="http://thedanceofthehippo.blogspot.com/2018/07/day-24-no-limits.html">Friday, July 6th</a></li>
</ul>
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<br />Karlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11654006671545294361noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2850462849314268040.post-37887234904842434542018-07-06T12:33:00.001-07:002018-07-16T18:30:48.640-07:00Day 24: No limits!Early last month, in response to an insane comment by Rudy Giuliani, I started a series of somewhat regular calls to the DC office of my congressman, John Faso (NY-19). I wanted to know whether he believed in limits on presidential power.<br />
<br />
I’ve kept it up (see the complete list of calls at the bottom of this post), sometimes asking other issues, such as the trade-war question included here, or the congressman’s response to the government’s kidnapping of children on the southern border.<br />
<br />
And at times I’ve left the original presidential-powers question aside, to give the congressman adequate time to come up with an answer.<br />
<br />
By today, I thought it was time to come back to my original question.<br />
<br />
The short story: Mr. Faso seems unconcerned with any limits on presidential power.<br />
<br />
(Note: This is Day 24 going by regular work days starting with June 4th as Day 1—it would have been Day 25, but there was July 4th in there. Going by calendar days, this is Day 33.)<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Good morning, I’m following up on a couple of old questions of mine. Mr. Faso has made statements that he is opposed to the trade war the president has unleashed. I would like to know what action Congressman Faso is taking to actually rein that in.</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<em>I don’t specifically handle that, I will be sure to get it to the congressman’s desk. Do you have a specific suggestion?</em></blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Yes, he should work with his colleagues in Congress to craft legislation to limit the president’s ability to damage the country through pointless trade wars.</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<em>I will be sure to pass that along.</em></blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
OK, I first asked that question on June 11th, three-and-a-half weeks ago. Everyone in the office there is very polite, and everyone says they’ll get my question to the congressman, but I still haven’t gotten an answer. Meanwhile, the damage is being done <em>now</em>. Events aren’t waiting for the congressman and his colleagues to get their act together.</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<em>I’m sorry nobody’s gotten back to you, but I will be sure to get the question to his desk.</em></blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
I have another question: if the president were to kill someone who was investigating him, would Mr. Faso vote for impeachment?<br />
<a name='more'></a><br /></blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<em>I haven’t spoken to the congressman about that.</em></blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
The background of course is the claim by Rudy Giuliani, speaking as the president’s lawyer, that the president is not subject to indictment, even for this specific action of killing someone investigating him. According to the president’s lawyer, the <em>only</em> remedy is impeachment by the House and conviction by the Senate. So my question is really whether Mr. Faso believes the president should have unchecked power.</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
I first asked this question on <em>June</em> 4th, over a month ago. Again, everyone in the office has been unfailingly polite and has said they’ll see that Mr. Faso gets my question, and yet I haven’t heard anything back. It’s been over a moth and Mr. Faso hasn’t deigned to answer. So I take it he does in fact favor unlimited presidential power.</blockquote>
The aide hemmed and hawed a bit, but I reiterated that I had asked the question <em>several</em> times, starting June 4th, and still hadn’t received an answer. I explained how the logical conclusion was that Mr. Faso did in fact favor unlimited presidential power.<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
It may be that Mr. Faso is simply afraid to answer. Perhaps he’s worried that some of his constituents are such fans of the president that they’ll be angry with him if he says he’d impeach, even for murder. But what it <em>looks</em> like is that he favors unlimited presidential power.</blockquote>
The staffer again apologized for the failure to get back to me.<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
I have one last question. During his summit with Vladimir Putin later this month, the president is planning a meeting between himself and Mr. Putin at which the only other parties will be a pair of translators, one from each side. While we might like to have better relations with Russia, they are not currently an ally the way our partners in NATO or the G-7 are, so there’s good reason for the standard protocol that there be others in the room, such as the Secretary of State or some other foreign-policy aide.</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Is Mr. Faso interested in why the president insists on having no other American officials in the room?</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<em>I haven’t spoken with him about that. I’ll be happy to pass along your question.</em></blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Congress has a say in foreign policy. I would urge the congressman to work with his colleagues to make use of that.</blockquote>
I wished him a good day, and he returned the pleasantry.<br />
<br />
If you’re in NY-19, there’s no harm in calling. The staff are very pleasant—even if their boss has rendered them thoroughly unable to answer most questions, even with a month’s practice. And I can’t help but think there’s some value in Faso being reminded that multiple people are watching him on this.<br />
<br />
The number for Faso's DC office is (202) 225-5614.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://thedanceofthehippo.blogspot.com/2018/07/day-30-non-answer-answer.html">Next call (July 16th)</a><br />
<br />
Earlier calls:<br />
<ul>
<li><a href="http://thedanceofthehippo.blogspot.com/2018/06/not-going-to-get-answer.html">Monday, June 4</a></li>
<li><a href="http://thedanceofthehippo.blogspot.com/2018/06/day-2-still-no-position.html">Tuesday, June 5</a></li>
<li><a href="http://thedanceofthehippo.blogspot.com/2018/06/day-3-would-faso-impeach-for-murder.html">Wednesday, June 6</a></li>
<li><a href="http://thedanceofthehippo.blogspot.com/2018/06/day-5-no-day-4-chipper-but-no-answer.html">Friday, June 8</a></li>
<li><a href="http://thedanceofthehippo.blogspot.com/2018/06/day-6-dont-got-no-opinion-about-that.html">Monday, June 11</a></li>
<li><a href="http://thedanceofthehippo.blogspot.com/2018/06/day-9-not-telling-vs-not-knowing.html">Thursday, June 14</a></li>
<li><a href="http://thedanceofthehippo.blogspot.com/2018/06/day-11-absurd-things-staff-cant-tell-you.html">Monday, June 18</a></li>
<li><a href="http://thedanceofthehippo.blogspot.com/2018/06/day-13-some-daylight.html">Wednesday, June 20</a></li>
<li><a href="http://thedanceofthehippo.blogspot.com/2018/06/day-16-would-faso-support-hearing.html">Monday, June 25</a></li>
<li><a href="http://thedanceofthehippo.blogspot.com/2018/06/day-19-talk-one-way-vote-another.html">Thursday, June 28</a></li>
</ul>
Karlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11654006671545294361noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2850462849314268040.post-92074843312110571642018-07-03T23:04:00.001-07:002018-07-03T23:04:20.784-07:00A complicated FourthI’m out of the country, so there’s no July 4th Celebration nearby for me to go to. If, like yesterday, the rain forecast keeps getting pushed back later into the day, we’ll go for a bike ride, but there won’t be hotdogs, grilling out, fireworks, parades—none of that.<br />
<br />
My Congressman, John Faso (NY-19), presumably <em>will</em> be at a July 4th event—after all, it would be political malpractice for an elected official not to be back in his district showing up at as many places as possible where he can associate himself with people’s nonpartisan love of their country.<br />
<br />
But see, about that...<br />
<br />
Right now our country is holding something north of 2000 children who have been separated from their parents when the families crossed the border. And <a href="https://eu.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2018/06/27/judge-orders-families-separated-border-reunited-within-30-days/737194002/">as a judge wrote last week</a>, “The unfortunate reality is that under the present system migrant children are not accounted for with the same efficiency and accuracy as property.” <br />
<br />
That is the context in which <a href="https://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/ice-tells-parents-separated-from-kids-to-choose-leave-with-them-or-without-them">detained parents are now being asked to sign a form</a> that gives them two options:<br />
<ol>
<li>I willingly leave without my child(ren)</li>
<li>I willingly leave with my child(ren)</li>
</ol>
The ACLU says that in some case, the people being asked to sign the form have already passed the first step of the asylum process, adding an extra layer of illegality to a policy that was already barbarically cruel.<br />
<br />
But remember, we aren’t tracking those children as well as we track prisoners’ property, so how can ICE even meet its end of the bargain if the parent says they’ll leave with their children?<br />
<br />
Meanwhile, month-old news by now, but the president’s lawyer says the president could murder the people investigating him, and the only remedy would be impeachment by the House and conviction by the Senate—a president, in Rudy Giuliani’s view—cannot be indicted.<br />
<a name='more'></a><br />
<a href="http://thedanceofthehippo.blogspot.com/2018/06/day-11-absurd-things-staff-cant-tell-you.html">I’ve been trying</a> for <a href="http://thedanceofthehippo.blogspot.com/2018/06/not-going-to-get-answer.html">a month now</a> to get an answer out of Mr. Faso’s office, but he still won’t say whether he would vote to impeach if the president were to murder those investigating him.<br />
<br />
In other words, my congressman is fine with a president who is above the law (at least, if the president is of Faso’s own party). And yet he will be going to July 4th events to celebrate our independence from a king.<br />
<br />
And meanwhile meanwhile, Trump apparently told Emmanuel Macron that <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/trump-emmanuel-macron-france-leave-eu-trade-deal-brexit-a8423381.html">France could have a better trade deal with the US if it left the EU</a>. Macron won’t confirm it, but he won’t deny it either.<br />
<br />
<a href="https://en.portal.santandertrade.com/analyse-markets/france/foreign-trade-in-figures#classification_by_country">France sells 7.4% of its exports to the U.S.</a>, while selling 53.7% of its exports to its European partners (46.7% if we take out the UK).<br />
<br />
As for imports, they get 7.1% of their imports from us, while 48.8% of their imports come from Europe (45% without the UK). It is beyond stupid to think that France would destroy the European Union for the sake of a better trade deal with the U.S.<br />
<br />
Of course, Trump seems to do <em>many</em> things that are beyond stupid. But I doubt it’s merely coincidence when they line up so perfectly with what Russia would like while harming us.<br />
<br />
What is the proper way to celebrate Independence Day when your country is reviving the worst elements of its past, the president wants to be king, and the Congress is standing by and watching while he carries out the will of a foreign power?<br />
<br />
Asking for a friend.<br />
<br />Karlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11654006671545294361noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2850462849314268040.post-87939589360858758322018-06-28T13:16:00.002-07:002018-07-06T12:35:35.413-07:00Day 19: Talk one way, vote another.This is Part X of a series of calls to the DC office of my Congressional representative, John Faso (NY-19). The nine previous calls (sorry, the IX previous calls) are linked below.<br />
<br />
I'm still interested in my long-term questions about doing diddly with regards to tariffs, and whether Faso would vote for impeachment in the case that Trump were to literally murder someone. I last brought those up on June 18, so maybe I'll check in with them again next Monday, which will be two weeks since the last time I asked.<br />
<br />
In the meantime, I've turned my attention to the humanitarian disaster Trump created on the southern border.
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Good afternoon.
I’m calling in regards to HR 6136, the immigration bill the House voted on yesterday.</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<em>Yes</em>.</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
I see that Congressman Faso voted in favor of the bill.</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<em>I haven’t looked that up.</em></blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
I checked on the website of the House clerk, and <a href="http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2018/roll297.xml">he’s in the “Ayes” column</a>.</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<em>OK.</em><br />
<a name='more'></a><br /></blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<a href="http://thedanceofthehippo.blogspot.com/2018/06/day-16-would-faso-support-hearing.html">When I called this office on Monday</a>, I was told that the congressman opposes the detention of children and supports reunification.</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<em>Yes, that’s right, he does.</em></blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Yet it seems that <a href="https://www.congress.gov/bill/115th-congress/house-bill/6136/text#toc-H0405157ECCB74C6AB988B4B6F3CE04C8">Sec. 3102</a> provides explicitly for detention of children. It reads, in part, “There exists no presumption that an alien child who is not an unaccompanied alien child should not be detained, and all such determinations shall be in the discretion of the Secretary of Homeland Security.”</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
If the congressman opposes the detention of children, why did he vote in favor of a bill that explicitly opens the door to that?</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<em>I’ll let him know about the discrepancy.</em></blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
It’s a rather glaring one.</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Another passage in the same section preempts states from imposing licensing requirements on facilities that are designated for detention of minors.</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Now, I can understand why the administration might want that provision. They’re probably worried about states using their powers under federalism to interfere with cruel policies that the state governments don’t like.</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
But if states are preempted from imposing licensing requirements, then approval of these facilities falls exclusively to some combination of ICE, HHS, and DHS.</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
This is the same constellation of entities that separated the children from their parents and did a worse job on record-keeping than if they were dealing with physical inventory.</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Yet Mr. Faso voted to make them the final arbiters of what is a fit place to detain children.</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<em>I will be sure he hears about your concerns.</em></blockquote>
The usual exchange of pleasantries, and we’re done.<br />
<br />
Remember, Faso’s DC office number is (202 225-5614). His staff are polite, and they enjoy talking with Mr. Faso’s constituents!<br />
<br />
My next call was <a href="http://thedanceofthehippo.blogspot.com/2018/07/day-24-no-limits.html">Friday, July 6th</a>.<br />
<br />
Earlier calls:<br />
<ul>
<li><a href="http://thedanceofthehippo.blogspot.com/2018/06/not-going-to-get-answer.html">Monday, June 4</a></li>
<li><a href="http://thedanceofthehippo.blogspot.com/2018/06/day-2-still-no-position.html">Tuesday, June 5</a></li>
<li><a href="http://thedanceofthehippo.blogspot.com/2018/06/day-3-would-faso-impeach-for-murder.html">Wednesday, June 6</a></li>
<li><a href="http://thedanceofthehippo.blogspot.com/2018/06/day-5-no-day-4-chipper-but-no-answer.html">Friday, June 8</a></li>
<li><a href="http://thedanceofthehippo.blogspot.com/2018/06/day-6-dont-got-no-opinion-about-that.html">Monday, June 11</a></li>
<li><a href="http://thedanceofthehippo.blogspot.com/2018/06/day-9-not-telling-vs-not-knowing.html">Thursday, June 14</a></li>
<li><a href="http://thedanceofthehippo.blogspot.com/2018/06/day-11-absurd-things-staff-cant-tell-you.html">Monday, June 18</a></li>
<li><a href="http://thedanceofthehippo.blogspot.com/2018/06/day-13-some-daylight.html">Wednesday, June 20</a></li>
<li><a href="http://thedanceofthehippo.blogspot.com/2018/06/day-16-would-faso-support-hearing.html">Monday, June 25</a></li>
</ul>
Karlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11654006671545294361noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2850462849314268040.post-67458389729095677092018-06-27T08:20:00.002-07:002018-06-27T08:39:33.577-07:00Demanding the impossibleReading up on yesterday’s primary in my home district of NY-19, I was struck by <a href="http://wamc.org/post/antonio-delgado-declares-victory-ny-19-democratic-primary">this remark</a>:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Green Party candidate Steve Greenfield also congratulated Delgado, but said, quote, “In all ways, the Delgado victory illustrates the vacating of Democratic Party responsibility for offering experienced, locally sourced, politically progressive candidates to voters in New York's 19th District.”</blockquote>
I’ve been out of the country for the year, so I haven’t been following the Democratic primary race all that closely. My main lens on the race was the group “Sustainable Otsego,” and in that circle, Mr. Delgado was ranked at or near the bottom. There are concerns about his support for gas pipelines, and his lack of support for thorough reform in health insurance, such as a single-payer system.<br />
<br />
Regarding the alternatives, it seems like three or four of the candidates had passionate support from people who consider themselves progressives and have better claim to being “locally sourced” and having political experience. So Mr. Greenfield would presumably have preferred one of them to have come out on top.<br />
<br />
But I’m having trouble understanding what Mr. Greenfield thinks the Democratic Party should have done.<br />
<a name='more'></a><br />
There were seven candidates in the field, ranging from “establishment” Democratic to various flavors that can credibly be called “progressive.” Mr. Delgado won with 21.9% of the vote.<br />
<br />
Depending how you count “progressive,” you could argue that the other 78.1% of the votes went to people with some flavor of progressive cred. Even under a narrower definition of the term, progressive candidates still got 50%.<br />
<br />
So how exactly did the Party “vacate” its responsibility to “offer” the kind of candidate Mr. Greenfield says he wants?<br />
<br />
Was their sin in backing Mr. Delgado? The <em>New York Times</em> endorsed Gareth Rhodes, suggesting a degree of establishment support for the candidate who came in second, but who also had backing from some progressives.<br />
<br />
And even if Mr. Delgado was their favored candidate, the results suggest their support wouldn’t have been enough in a less-crowded field: had there been only one or two progressive candidates on the ballot, the progressive energy so visible in the race wouldn’t have been split four or five ways, and Mr. Delgado wouldn’t have won.<br />
<br />
So if the problem wasn’t the party’s backing of Delgado, what <em>should</em> it have done?<br />
<br />
Should the Democratic Party have told some of the progressive candidates they couldn’t run, in order to give one of the remaining progressives a better chance to win? Then of course the complaint would be that the party was excluding the <em>true</em> progressives, tipping the balance toward a figure who could more easily be beaten by their chosen candidate.<br />
<br />
Should the Party have told Delgado he couldn’t run? On what basis?<br />
<br />
And what does Mr. Greenfield mean by the party having a responsibility to “offer” candidate? Don’t candidates offer themselves?<br />
<br />
As I said, I’ve been out of town for a while, so it’s easy to think that there are dynamics here that I’m missing.<br />
<br />
But I’m having trouble seeing the useful meaning in Mr. Greenfield’s complaint.Karlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11654006671545294361noreply@blogger.com2