Tag Archives: politics

Erik Loomis points to this AP story on ShotSpotter, a system that police and prosecutors use to identify gunshots, react to potential crimes, and prosecute suspects. The AP story raises serious questions about the accuracy and integrity of the system. You can click through for their story, which is gripping and definitely worth a read. The ShotSpotter story reminded me of an experience I had as a juror several years ago. The charges in the case...

Evonomic’s contributor Jag Bhalla offers his narrative of how the vaccine choices played out in the US and looks to continue along the same lines with the booster shots for Covid 19 in Vaccine Greed: Capitalism Without Competition Isn’t Capitalism, It’s Exploitation. DID GREED JUST save the day? That’s what British Prime Minister Boris Johnson claimed recently. “The reason we have the vaccine success,” he said in a private call to Conservative...

Accountable Care Organizations don’t cut costs. It’s time to stop the managed care experiment, STAT, Kip Sullivan and James G. Kahn August 23, 2021 Kip Sullivan is a member of the advisory board of Health Care for All Minnesota. James G. Kahn is emeritus professor of health policy at the University of California San Francisco. For the last half-century, Congress has endorsed essentially the same approach to cutting health care costs, an...

“Do Your Research” Is it my imagination, or do vax- and mask-hesitant people, reported in news stories about the Covid Divide, almost always say they “have done their research” or something like that?  The medical people and public health advocates that get interviewed rarely seem to use this phrase, at least not in the first person.  More research, more unhinged beliefs—how does that happen? There are many parts to this story, but one is...

Prof. Joel Eissenberg: “Zoonotic origin for SARS-CoV-2 remains the most plausible hypothesis” There’s a saying in research science: extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. Given what we know about the origins of nearly all viral pandemics — that they resulted from a virus jumping from an animal to a human host (zoonotic infection)–the null hypothesis for the origin of the COVID-19 pandemic should be and was zoonotic. The competing...

A lot more intense economic commentary and detail coming by way of blogger and commenter R.J.S. MarketWatch 666 CPI Rose 0.5% in July on Higher Prices for Food, Energy, New Vehicles and Lodging The consumer price index rose 0.5% in July, as higher prices for food, energy, new vehicles, and lodging at hotels and motels and were only slightly offset by lower prices for car and truck rentals, vehicle insurance and health insurance . . ....

Commenter and Blogger Prof. Joel Eissenberg Beginning early in the COVID-19 pandemic, Trump, Fox and the right-wing GOP weaponized the disease to sow doubt about science and responsible behaviors. One of the narratives taking hold was that hydroxychloroquine was a cheap, easy and safe cure that scientists were hiding in order to profit from federal dollars for vaccine research.But in the fog of Trumpian fake news, it is easy to forget that there...

Yesterday Donald Boudreaux published a letter to the Wall Street Journal about the Zywicki lawsuit against George Mason University that I posted about here.  Let’s take a look at classical liberalism in action: Today’s edition contains three letters critical of my colleague Todd Zywicki’s defense, in your pages, of his lawsuit against George Mason University’s vaccination requirement. Each letter-writer, alas, misses a point that’s central to the...

Why the hell would I go back to 2019 and cite a Nancy Altman complaint about Trump’s Executive Order? Some Introduction There were already issues with Medicare Advantage in $billions of over charges as Ms. Altman cites in her commentary. Secondly, Medicare Advantage is not “single payer” like Medicare (even without creating hospital budgets, setting doctor fees, and controlling pharma) is. We should be looking at improving Medicare to true...

I have no special insight on any foreign policy issue, but if you’re interested in a no-nonsense defense of Biden’s policy see this post by Scott Lemieux. His key points are (my interpretation/paraphrase): Long term low-engagement occupation was not a serious option, the only choices on the table were long term escalation or pulling out. (This is an important point to me. If low-engagement occupation could have worked long-term, that would...