Democrat Presidential nominee Joe Biden gave his first “big” interview since the party’s convention this week, and if we may judge by the way ABC News promoted the interview, the headline-grabber was this: “I would shut it down; I would listen to the scientists.” The candidate of course is referring to the American economy, and the Coronavirus.
“We cannot get the country moving until we control the coronavirus,” Mr. Biden elaborated. He asserts that the Trump administration – which the Democrats have accused of being a dictatorship – should have slammed the economy shut, despite the fact that the President of the United States has no legal authority to do so. No, it was the governors, largely but not exclusively Democrats, who shut down their states and many of whom continue to talk about shutting their states down for another three months (by coincidence, that would take us past election day).
Well, the US unemployment rate, which was 3.5% in February, spiked to 14.7% in April, and since has declined to 10.2% in July. The stock markets, which were near record highs when this crisis began, plunged but have recovered (and in the case of the S&P 500 and NASDAQ) have made up for that loss and are again at record highs. The Dow Jones Industrial Average is nearly back to record territory. There are many bleak indications for the economy, but they are preponderantly in the “Blue” states, whose governors slammed them shut with often arbitrary and capricious rules. The “Flyover” country where the economies never were shut down or were shut down only temporarily, is doing much better and has fueled the beginnings of a recovery. In other words, we most certainly can get the country moving without “controlling the coronavirus,” whatever that means. And the shutdowns happened for a disease with a survival rate in excess of 99% and whose victims (and each victim is a tragic loss) have an average age in excess of the expected US life expectancy.
“Two weeks to flatten the curve” happened back in March – and here we are today, with people, including the Biden campaign, suggesting that we must remain shut down until “science” says “all clear.” Does this mean a vaccine? A treatment? A cure? A preventative? It may be a good long time before any of those transpire. We have no idea how many businesses will be lost forever if Mr. Biden has his way.
But his “leave it to experts” point-of-view raises some other questions: How many things will he “leave to the experts,” and “who are the experts?” for starters. For instance, would Mr. Biden consider the mayors of Seattle, Portland Chicago, and New York to be experts in how their cities are run? Would the advocates of “The Green New Deal” be the experts he listens to on energy policy? Would the “defund the police” movement be the experts he turns to on law enforcement?
A doctor in the United Kingdom has estimated that 30,000 people will die in the next few years due to delayed cancer screenings caused by the coronavirus shutdowns. We hope that is a high estimate, but the UK has about a fifth of America’s population. Suicide rates are spiking under the shutdowns, with CDC Director Robert Redfield stating that suicides and drug overdoses are higher than coronavirus deaths among high school students. There are many other “invisible” costs of the shutdowns, and for Mr. Biden to pretend they are of no consequence is folly. Recall, his own health advisor, Ezekiel Emanuel, is on record as favoring an 18-month shutdown.
And, if we may change the subject, one expert, Dr. Deborah Birx, says this: “in-person voting is as safe as going into Starbucks to pick up my order.” Here is another expert, Dr. Anthony Fauci: “I think if carefully done, according to the guidelines, there’s no reason I can see why [Americans should avoid in-person voting.]” Guess one’s opinion on the subject will depend on whether those two are considered as “experts” or not.