I can be wrong 11/21
Revisiting a blog post from early in the pandemic
 |
I think that this makes it unlikely that President Trump will suffer a political setback because of the coronavirus. Closing the border is his signature issue, and the Democrats have staked out a position as the “resistance” to that. I know that they think they can benefit from this crisis, but I would be surprised if they do.
That turned out to be wrong. But in that same post I also wrote,
I would suggest that instead of monitoring the Fed, one should watch the transportation hubs–especially ports–and manufacturing centers. To the extent that the attempts to contain the virus cause those places to be shut down, patterns of specialization and trade will be broken, and there won’t be anything that the Fed can do about it.
That was not wrong.
Everyone got Covid wrong, but some were more wrong than others. First and foremost, the claims of exponential spread proved to be disastrouly, albeit fortunately wrong. No prediction was more wrong or more ruinous to pandemic policy.
That Trump bought into these hyperbolic Covid models proved to be his Waterloo. Not only did Covid fear rationalize destroying election integrity, but it drove Trump to empower Fauci to crush the economy.
Personally, I was right that the Covid models were wrong and that Trump choosing to extend "2 weeks to flatten the curve" greatly jeopardized his reelection.
What I got wrong: I failed to appreciate how much existing law and the 2020 CARES act created adverse incentives that amplified the pandemic pain and distorted economic priorities.
I found Arnold more wrong than right on virus policy. I still do. It all started at this link (3/17/20) and kinda went downhill from there:
http://www.arnoldkling.com/blog/macroeconomics-of-the-virus-crisis-5/
I was the “reader” mentioned in the link above and my thoughts were nothing more than a poor man’s version of what ultimately became the Great Barrington Declaration several months later.
In hindsight, FL/TX > the other 48. Anyone disagree?
That said, Arnold was very early in being able to identify the inflation issue (since at least 3/28/20). Wow!!!
http://www.arnoldkling.com/blog/virus-policy-and-inflation/
http://www.arnoldkling.com/blog/the-inflation-virus/