Science, politics and the Coronavirus… 👾

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, I think a million American lives lost from Coronavirus should be the public policy goal, not 100,000 or 200,000 that many politicians are touting. Not because I’m one for sadness or inevitable loss of friends and loved ones but because I think that high number of human death is most compatible with the demands of American democracy, and protecting human freedom, civil liberties and our country’s well being. It’s the level of death the scientists say we need if we want to survive as a society.

Science can tell us likely outcomes of a public policy but not whether or not that policy is right or wrong. Politicians want to hide behind that lower number without considering the costs to our society – the economic losses today and out years or years of life lost by the population at large. Nobody wants to kill a million human lives. But I think should accept a higher death rate that scientists say is necessary to protect our liberties and society’s well being at large.

Now, I get that it’s easier for me to call for a higher cull by Coronavirus – I don’t have much skin in the game. I’m not a front line worker, I’m relatively healthy and unlikely to die from the disease but I could get very sick. But, I’m not immune from the losses of life by any stretch of the imagination – I have elderly relatives and friends of advanced age, poor health and disability that probably won’t survive Coronavirus if it’s hits their bodies.

I just worry a lot about the consequences of the continued shutdown of society. Putting all of today on the credit card not only wastes today’s productive years, it sets us up for severe inflation and even stagflation in the out years. I am particularly alarmed by the crashing oil markets – oil production destroyed today by shut wells may never come back – leaving the world dangerously low on oil all when the money supply has been rapidly expanding and debt at all levels has been exploding. I think we haven’t seen the true ugly truth of the energy and debt crisis we are facing, all while we are filing are cars and pickups for two dollars a gallon.

I get the science and I believe and embrace it. But I also get the science of economics and the grim consequences if we continue to waste the limited time of human lives across the nation. Running up the federal debt to extraordinary levels while printing tons of money and destroying the world’s oil markets potentially for good is just scary – even while the human losses are truly staggering from the virus.