Am I Getting Soft in My Analysis?

John M. emails  (blue highlight in original):

Hello Robert,

I love both of your sites - not yet a member of your Alerts, but likely will be.  At this time of an encroaching 1984 I have turned to your site constantly.

However, this morning (March 19) I got a sense from your site that you may be tempering your view of this "crises"

I first wondered, Why has he not written more about the totalitarians in SF who seem to be leading the charge to total lock down?

Then I noticed that you wrote in your post on R. Epstein:

I do agree with his statement:

    As of March 16, the data from the United States falls short of justifying the draconian measures that are now being implemented.

Your readers should hope so!  The understatement is alarming.

Then you wrote, in another post, about the effects of warming weather:

NOTE: I am not forecasting that the summer sun will cause the virus to subside but it does look like a very strong possibility to me.

Isn't it more than likely? Why so tepid?

The great Ron Paul has come out and called this thing a hoax.  (And it's heartening to think that he is still reaching large numbers of people.)

As a follower and admirer of your work, I for one, would like to see more grit from you.

Thanks for reading.

All the best,

John M.

RW response:

You have to understand that my specialties are economics and societal structure.

I have spent decades studying economics and trading in markets, including many crises. I know the turf. That's why I tend to be much bolder in my economic forecasts---for example, my current warning that price inflation is going to accelerate rapidly on the other side of this crisis.

Indeed, in the EPJ Daily Alert, I have set up specific data points to watch that will tell us how severe things might get as far as the crisis, the future price inflation and when the panic might subside.

I have tried to absorb as much as I can about viruses---for all of three weeks, so my perspective is going to be a lot more tame---there is a lot I don't know.

That is why I spend a lot of time pointing out errors that are pretty obvious, I get them (SEE:A Serious Problem With Richard Epstein's Optimistic Case On the Spread of COVID-19 and Is the Current COVID-19 Testing Designed to Create Panic?, for example). And a lot of time pointing out obvious distortions and lies by news media members and government officials (SEE: CNN's Chris Cuomo: Pandemic Could Flare For 18 Months, for example).

But when it comes to forecasts about the virus, I am going to be much more cautious. Especially when it comes to the virus subsiding early in the summer. It appears that no one knows why this tends to occur. There are several hypotheses but if someone could prove the case, there is a Nobel prize waiting.

And I do mean tends, here is a chart that shows Influenza B in 2012 and 2013, for example, not peaking until July and August.

So while, there does appear to be a tendency for viruses to be peak as soon as warmer weather starts, in some cases, it does take well into the summer.

In other words, there is a good chance that COVID-19 is starting to peak, but I am not going to make that case with bold certainty. There is going to be a cautionary tone since I don't know personally the mechanics of why peaks occur (and apparently no one else does).

As far as the sentence below being an understatement:

 As of March 16, the data from the United States falls short of justifying the draconian measures that are now being implemented.

Calling the measures draconian doesn't sound to me as though I am sugarcoating things and that sentence was taken from a post where around it I call for Chris Cuomo to be quarantined for the duration and I speculate what kind of animal George Orwell would have used to describe this creature  ( Dr. Deborah L. Birx).

It is true I could write more about the totalitarian measures taken by SF government officials but that would just be adding color to something that most who visit TL and EPJ understand. It is a fun thing to do but it is clear from traffic patterns to my site that most readers are concerned about the virus and also the economic consequences so that is how I am currently allocating my writing time.

To paraphrase John Paul Jones, "I have only begun to smash the enemies of liberty."

 -RW