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- I wish politicians would stop pretending that there is no cost to the Coronavirus shutdown to the economy and that all human life is indefinitely valuable
- The costs of the Coronavirus shutdown are being born both today and tomorrow through immediate job losses and human suffering due to reductions in community events and services, borrowing from future generations, cuts to future government programs
- Many of the costs of Coronavirus shutdown are unknown, and may lead to spill over effects such as deferred bridge and highway maintenance leading to emergency closures and bridge collapses in the out years or reduced performance in college due to High Schoolers loosing out on educational programs – just because people aren’t dying today doesn’t mean that won’t die tomorrow from loosely related effects
- For sure, we should do everything that is possible but reasonable to slow the Coronavirus to help our hospital keep up with those who inevitably will get incredibly sick, but the key is reasonableness – it has weighted against economic and job losses causing human suffering – and losses of tax revenues leading to future government programs being cut
- A fair evaluation of the pros and cons must be undertaken, we can’t only listen to the advice of the public health professionals and doctors but also compare and contrast it to advice given by both private sector and government economists
- I am not endorsing President Trump’s position, but I think we can’t go blindly forward without seriously considering the spill over effects of the Coronavirus shutdown to civil society