The View from Right Field

Arsenal of Democracy Then. Vaccine Maker of the World Now.

Demand for vaccines is dropping around the United States.  States are telling the federal government they don’t need their full share.  If we don’t have more vaccines than we need now, we will soon.  So here is an idea of what to do with the extra doses we will have: Send them around the world to the people and countries that need them.

Instead of making a show of supporting a waiver of patent rights in vaccines, something that will take months to negotiate with other countries and months more before companies can start manufacturing vaccines they have never made before, why don’t we make them for the world ourselves?  We can allow American companies to export vaccines.  And for poor countries, we can buy them from American manufacturers and give them to those who can’t afford them.

Inflation – Or Not

Both the Federal Reserve and the Biden administration, Jerome Powell and Janet Yellin, among others, respectively, want more inflation.  The Fed has changed its inflation target from a top of 2% to an average, over a period of time, of 2%.  Also, the Fed has indicated that, instead of reacting in advance of inflation exceeding 2%, it will now wait to act until after inflation has exceeded its 2% target.

For 40 years, inflation has not been a big deal.¹  The question is whether that will continue to be true in the future.  It may be that inflation is gone.  Or it may be, now that we have forgotten how bad inflation can be, that we won’t be careful about keeping inflation under control in the future, and that it will come back – good and hard.

Waiving IP for Vaccines – Or Actually Doing Good

The Biden administration has, perhaps not surprisingly, agreed to support a temporary waiver of intellectual property rights for Covid-19 vaccines.  It sounds good on the surface, but I can’t help but wonder if the better solution might be to just pay Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna to make as many doses as they can as quickly as they can.  They know how to make these vaccines.  They have the best idea on how to ramp up production.  Instead of giving away IP to people and companies who may or may not know how to make these vaccines, why not just buy more doses from the people who do know how to make them. 

The United States could volunteer to pay the costs.¹  The total cost would probably disappear in the rounding with all of the programs the Biden administration is already proposing.  And giving away vaccines would be a great foreign policy move.  Russia can’t afford to do it, and China doesn’t have vaccines that work as well as these.  But we do can it.  We can help the world.  And that’s something you do when you can.

The Sad Sale of the Thompson Center

Monday was a sad, but all-too-predictable, day in Illinois: The state officially announced the Thompson Center in downtown Chicago is for sale.  The building was designed by Helmut Jahn, and it opened in 1985.  While the building had issues when it opened, they were resolved.  The building is a gem of post-modern design, and it could have been a destination in downtown Chicago for architecture buffs and regular people – if it had not been owned by the State of Illinois. 

Instead of a go-to place in the center of Chicago, the Thompson Center has, under the State of Illinois, become a bit of a dump.  But it didn’t have to happen.  It isn’t the fault of the building or the design. 

Communist. Fascist. Racist. What’s Next?

From what I read in the newspaper and hear on the radio, apparently I am a racist because I am not in favor of changing the name of Lake Shore Drive to Jean Baptiste Point DuSable Drive.¹  The fact that “Lake Shore Drive” is a classic Chicago street name, known pretty much around the world, right up there with “State Street, that great street,” and “Michigan Drive, the Magnificent Mile,” doesn’t matter.  Jean Baptiste Point DuSable was a Black Haitian and not wanting to name Lake Shore Drive after him is racist.²  It’s sort of like Humpty Dumpty:

“‘When I use a word,’ Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, ‘it means just what I choose it to mean – neither more nor less.’
‘The question is,’ said Alice, ‘whether you can make words mean so many different things.’
‘The question is,’ said Humpty Dumpty, ‘which is to be master – that's all.’”

“How Do You Solve a Problem Like Korea” (to tune of “Maria” from “The Sound of Music”)

Except, of course, I am referring just to North Korea, not all of Korea; and except that, while North Korea is a problem, it is not Maria.  There was a solution for Maria: sending her to be governess at Captain von Trapp’s house.  As for North Korea, consider the situation.

1.  North Korea is an economic disaster. Earlier this month, Kim Jong Un compared the country’s worsening economic situation to the 1990s famine that resulted in hundreds of thousands of deaths. Floods last summer and US sanctions contributed to the problems, as has North Korea’s closing of its borders with the world, including even China, because of Covid-19.  But mostly, it’s the system, both economic and dictatorial.  Several weeks ago, there was a picture of people from the Russian embassy using a handcar to leave the country.

Spending Lots; Doing a Little Good

Nancy Pelosi famously¹ said of Obamacare that you had to pass it to see what was in it.  It appears that was true of Joe Biden’s first big Covid relief bill, too.  In January, I said this about President Biden’s proposed plan in a post entitled “Covid-19 Relief Ought to Be More Than Just Throwing Money Around Randomly”:

“A properly-targeted pandemic relief program wouldn’t waste money by giving it to people who don’t need help.  If we target the help where it is needed, there will be more money for the people who actually need help.  It’s not a matter of cutting costs; it’s a matter of having enough money to help those who really need it.”

Retaking Congress – Or Not

Karl Rove wrote in Thursday’s Wall Street Journal about how the left may be damaging the Democrats’ chances of keeping control of Congress in November, 2022.  While Mr. Rove made some good points about how the “left-wing loonies” could hurt the Democrats, he doesn’t mention what the “right-wing crazies” could do to the Republicans. 

After all, Democrats control the Senate because of Donald Trump.  Instead of going to Georgia and urging Republicans and independents to vote for Republicans David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler, so the Democrats wouldn’t control the Senate, former President Trump spent his time in Georgia doing his normal “it’s all about me” thing, complaining about how the election was stolen from him and the Republican governor and secretary of state in Georgia didn’t care.  Not surprisingly, turnout in Republican areas in the special senate run-off election went down; why vote, if the election will get stolen and your vote won’t count.  And so, Mitch McConnell is Senate Minority Leader, instead of Senate Majority Leader.  If President Trump had cared more about the cause than himself, that might not have happened.

Cutting Carbon Now

New York is shutting down the Indian Point nuclear power plant, which in the past has supplied upwards of 25% of the electricity for New York City and Westchester County.  So where is the electricity going to come from, especially since New York Governor Andrew Cuomo has blocked the construction of pipelines that would bring natural gas to New York City?  Governor Cuomo has proposed building 9,000 megawatts of offshore wind power and a 250-mile transmission line from upstate New York to bring in renewable energy, but they aren’t ready yet - obviously.  Also, given the opposition there will be to such proposals, who knows when they will be built, if ever.  After all, the Biden administration has already withdrawn proposals for offshore wind power developments off certain parts of Long Island because ….  Well, there are always good reasons for not building such things in one’s own backyard.  (Here.)

But, don’t worry about power blackouts in New York because, even if there is a shortage of natural gas, gas-powered plants can switch to oil.  Huh?  We’re trying to cut carbon emissions, so the solution is to: (i) shut down an existing nuclear plant, which supplies, by definition, at least once it is built, carbon-free power; (ii) block natural gas pipelines because natural gas emits carbon and we want to be carbon-zero; and (iii) use oil, the most carbon-intensive of all three, as the back-up power source until we can get wind farms and transmission lines for renewable energy built.

Models, Calculators, and Certainty

Last weekend, The Wall Street Journal had an interview with Steven Koonin, who was chief scientist for the Energy Department under Barack Obama.  In the course of the interview, Dr. Koonin said some things about models and how they are used that resonated with me (probably because I have some of the same concerns.

Dr. Koonin said, of younger scientists today: “They have grown up with the models.  They don’t have the kind of mathematical or physical intuition you get when you have to do things by pencil and paper.”

Why Shouldn’t We Take Care of Ourselves Instead of the World?

[See Note below]

With Russia massing tens of thousands of troops on Ukraine’s border and China increasing its aggressive behavior against Taiwan, maybe now is a good time to consider what the purpose of U.S. foreign policy should be and what our national interests are in connection with either or both of those situations.  Actually, the real question is what our national interests are in general. 

We hear talk about supporting a rules-based international order.  But is that really what we should be doing?  Is it our goal to support other countries or do we need to worry about ourselves?  Some would say that we have lots of problems in the United States; there are lots of things we need to do for our people.  The Biden administration is proposing spending trillions of dollars on important domestic priorities.  Given all of this, do we really have the money – or the time or energy – to deal with Ukraine or Taiwan – or the Uighurs or Alexei Navalny?     

Leaving Afghanistan

I have predicted several times that we would be leaving Afghanistan.  It now looks like this will happen and we will be gone by September 11, 2021.  Five comments:

First, I’m not surprised.  Joe Biden was always going to leave.  And he will get it done because his people want to leave, too,¹ and because we are putting no conditions on what the Taliban, etc., have to done before we leave.

Cubs: The First Game of the Second 100 – 45 Years Ago Yesterday

I missed the anniversary of the “First Game of the Second 100”; i.e., the 1976 home opener for the Chicago Cubs in 1976.  The Cubs started in the National League in 1876 (and they are the only team from the start who is still in the same town), so the home opener in 1976 was the first home game in the second 100 years.  The anniversary was yesterday: April 13.  It was my second Opening Day (the first was the prior year, which, in true Chicago fashion, was postponed two days because of snow) and Susan’s first.  I made a mistake and didn’t buy tickets ahead of time, but we got in because they sold 8,000+ standing room tickets.  So we stood.  But at least it was good weather.  In the 60s.

It was an even better game.  As part of the celebration, a granddaughter of Cap Anson threw out a first pitch.  (Obviously, that wouldn’t happen today.)  Ernie was there, too.  Jerry Morales hit two-run homers in the first and the sixth (Bill Madlock was on base ahead of him each time).  The Mets got three runs in the fourth to chase Rick Reuschel, but brother Paul came in the stop the damage.  The stupid Mets tied the score on a home run in the eighth.

Baseball Doesn’t Need to be Shorter; It Needs to be Brisker

Baseball games are too long, which is something everybody knows.  Except, it’s not really true.  Baseball games aren’t too long; they’re too slow.  The great baseball writer, Roger Angell explained it in an interview in The Wall Street Journal last September on his 100th birthday.  Mr. Angell was discussing the changes they instituted last year because of the pandemic:

“I can understand this business of putting a batter on second base, but it goes against every baseball instinct that I have, because the heart of the game is that you have to earn every base, and suddenly that’s been abrogated.  Seven inning games, I guess I understand, but seven is a very different game than nine.”

The US Economy Is On a Path To Do Fine – As Long As

Per an article in yesterday’s Financial Times¹:

“Most advanced countries will emerge from the coronavirus crisis with little lasting damage, thanks to relatively rapid rollout of vaccines and a willingness to increase sharply spending and borrowing, according to the I[nternational] M[onetary] [F]und. …

The fund was bullish about prospects of a rapid US recovery without inflationary pressures.  [IMF chief economist Gita] Gopinath said: ‘The US is really the only large economy whose {economic output} for 2022 is projected to exceed what it would have been in the absence of this pandemic.’”

Opening Day!

In honor of Opening Day at Wrigley Field, where the temperature at game time today will be 34 degrees, with the wind blowing in off the lake, and memories of Opening Days past, here is Jeff MacNelly:

Writing Constitutions – And Judging Those Who Write Them

This week’s Economist has a review of Linda Colley’s new book on the history of written constitutions, The Gun, the Ship and the Pen.  The book covers the writing of constitutions from the middle of the eighteenth century to the present.  According to the review:

“Above all, Ms Colley argues, the need for innovative, written constitutionalism was driven by the evolving nature of war. … Governments’ need for ever-more manpower to fight these wars – and ever-growing tax revenues to pay for them – led to crises at home that could only be tackled by the concession of new rights and promises of wider political participation. … 

House Values in Illinois

One of the problems with living in Illinois is that house prices values aren’t going up like they are in some other parts of the country.  But then, with so many people leaving Illinois (Illinois is one of the few states losing people each year), it’s logical.¹  With fewer people in Illinois, there are fewer people looking to buy houses; i.e., demand is lower.  With demand lower and supply staying the same (the houses aren’t leaving, just the people), it’s logical that prices aren’t going up as much as places where population is growing and people want to move.

One of the reasons people are leaving Illinois (and why others aren’t coming or returning) is our lousy state government.  As I have said elsewhere, Illinois has the worst credit rating of any state and has hundreds of billions of dollars of unfunded pension liability, not to mention billions of dollars of unpaid bills.  Why wouldn’t people want to leave – or not come?  Why not get away from that debt?  Why move to that debt?

After We Pass New Gun Control Laws, We Still Need to Deal With the Problem

The call is on for new gun control legislation.  Which is fine.  But my question is simple: After we add the new controls, what do we do about all the guns that are already out there?  Because our problem is not just new guns and legal sales of guns.  It’s guns that we already have and guns that are sold illegally.  Limiting new guns and putting more limits on the legal sales of guns might help.  But really dealing with the problem requires figuring out what to do with all the guns that are already out there.  And I haven’t seen anybody really seriously address that.
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Note: I have said this before (see, for example, here and here), but I wanted to say it again – because new gun controls are only a small part of a solution.

The Return of Earmarks. Sigh.

It was sad last week to see Republicans in the House of Representatives giving up one of the real accomplishments on the last Republican House: the ban on earmarks.  In 2011, House Republicans passed a ban on earmarks, and since they wouldn’t approve earmarks, Congress couldn’t pass them and the President couldn’t sign them.  The entire Congress ultimately went along with the House Republicans, and in 2014, President Obama even said he would veto any bill containing earmarks.

The problems with earmarks were obvious.  Representatives and Senators were putting in specific appropriations for things they wanted done, not necessarily what needed to be done.  The more powerful a representative or senator was, the more money a district or state would get.  One of the most infamous earmarks was the $233 million “bridge to nowhere” in Alaska.¹