The View from Right Field

Nothing Is Better Than Too Much; Nothing Is Better Than Too Little

That is the essence of the dispute in Congress on a coronavirus relief bill.  Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and Senate Republicans say that the plan proposed by the Democrats is too big and they won’t approve it.  Speaker Nancy Pelosi and House Democrats say that the plan proposed by the Senate Republicans is too small and they won’t approve it.  In other words, both of them are saying that doing nothing is better than passing the bill the other side wants.  And so, nothing is done.

Which sounds familiar to those of us in Illinois who remember the Governor Bruce Rauner/Speaker Michael Madigan disputes in 2015-17.¹
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¹ See here and here.

Covid-19 Leadership: Is Anybody Leading?

When it comes to Covid-19 leadership, Donald Trump has been a disaster.  Too often he said the virus wasn’t that bad.  Other times he suggested almost quack solutions.  And masks were seemingly verboten around the White House.¹  Clear, confident, national leadership could have made things less bad.  He didn’t provide it.

But too many of our governors and mayors haven’t been effective leaders, either.  I understand it is hard to lead when the national message isn’t clear.  But that doesn’t mean state and local leaders couldn’t have done a better job. 

Bridging the Divide

In today’s Financial Times, former Senator Heidi Heitkamp (D, ND) says that “an effective [virus] containment strategy and [economic] recovery plan requires votes from both sides of the political divide.”¹  She is absolutely right on that,  However, she is wrong in how to get such a plan.  She says “[w]hat we need is a series of open meetings” with “[a]ll stakeholders invited” and everything “should be transparent.”

While that sounds good, it won’t work.  As we have seen so often in Washington, public hearings mean public posturing.  Senators, representatives, etc., focus on sound bites and what they can put on Twitter and Facebook, pandering to their base, instead of trying to actually reach an agreement.

The Economics of Big-Time Professional Sports In a Pandemic

With Major League Baseball and the NBA completing their seasons and football moving along with its season, Ben Cohen and Louise Radnofsky came up with some lessons after sports’ first Covid-19 season in Saturday’s Wall Street Journal.  Among them is this:

“The past few months have taught sports that fans are important but not essential – at least for now.  The games can be played without them.  Being flexible and doing the unimaginable, whether it is a closed-door competition or shortening some baseball games to seven innings, paid off for the leagues.

Two Pandemic What-Ifs: Getting Through This One; Getting Ready for the Next One

First, the economy.  Most of the projections of where the economy is going and how long it will take to get back to where we were before the pandemic started are based on things going reasonably well in the future.  But what happens if there is a really bad wave this winter?  Can we afford to shut down¹ again?  Can we afford to not to?

People need to be safe, but how long can people get enough money to buy food and pay rent and utilities if they don’t have a job?  Some businesses won’t be able to continue – or reopen if they have to shut down again.

Probably Not the Best Lincoln Quote for Right Now

The Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum¹ in Springfield had a quote from Abraham Lincoln at the top of an E-News email I received from them today, along with references to two websites, “CoronaVirus.Illinois.gov” and “PresidentLincoln.Illinois.gov”.  It’s this quote, which I am sure is intended to refer to the pandemic:

“Let us confidently hope that all will yet be well.”

It is a great quote, but given that the date and context of the quote, i.e., it was from Lincoln’s Farewell Address to Springfield on February 11, 1861, I am not sure it is the best quote for right now.
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¹ A great place to visit, though you might want to wait until the virus settles down a little

Trump vs. Biden: A Question of the Lesser of Two Evils – On Steroids

What do you do when you don’t like either candidate for President?  When, in fact, you think both candidates will leave the country worse off by the time they leave office? 

Well, the first thing you do is hope you are wrong.  I have supported candidates because l thought their policies would make the country better off.  Sometimes that has happened and sometimes it hasn’t.  Sometimes the policies didn’t work like I thought they would.  Other times the candidates didn’t do what they said they were going to do.  You can never be sure.  But you have to decide what to do in an election on some basis, and the only thing you can do is to look at what each candidate is likely to do and go from there.

When It Comes to Staying Safe With Covid-19, I’m Going to Rely on Me, Not Government Rules

We all want to stay safe when it comes to Covid-19.  I know I do.  But I’ve also come to the conclusion that, if I’m going to do that, it’s up to me to figure out what I need to do to stay safe and not rely on government rules.  Government can do some things regarding Covid-19, but ultimately, if I want to stay safe, I’m better off relying on me than on the government.

To state the obvious, the federal government hasn’t done a good job with Covid-19.  However, I’m not sure how much better a different President would have done, especially early on.  Would the CDC or the FDA have done a better job under a different President?  States and governors would still have been on the front line.  Would a different President have meant fewer deaths in nursing homes?  I don’t know.  After all, it wasn’t President Trump sending Covid-infected patients back to nursing homes in New York.  A different President certainly could have provided better moral leadership.  He or she could have encouraged us to wear masks, etc.  That would have helped.  With a different president, we could have had fewer deaths.  But substantially fewer?  I don’t know.

What’s Next for Covid-19?

Dr. Scott Gottlieb, former head of the FDA and a really smart guy,¹ is worried about a surge in the virus this fall.  If it happens, the question is what do we do?  Do we have big shutdowns, little shutdowns, or what?  I don’t know what our governments will do, but I do know part of the solution: what we do personally.

What governments do is important but governments don’t always know what is right.  President Trump has gotten things wrong.  Governors (both Democratic and Republican) have gotten things wrong.  So what really matters, at least for me, is what I do.  I don’t need government to tell me to cut back.  I can cut back on my own.  I can not go to restaurants or movie theaters or whatever else.  As an example, apparently in Michigan, it is okay for our condo association to keep its hot tub open.  The hot tub is six or seven feet in diameter.  And there are often four people (two couples) in it.  Without masks, of course.  Actually, I don’t know how that fits with Michigan’s rules, but it doesn’t matter.  Because, even if Michigan says it is okay, I can’t figure out how it is okay for me.  So I’m making my own decision, and I’m not going in it.

When Is This Pandemic Going to End?

I think one of the biggest things about this pandemic, especially for those who are cutting back and staying in to try to stay safe, is: When is it going to end?  When is a vaccine going to be available?  How effective will it be?  Do other people have to take the vaccine for it to be really effective?  What can we safely do until we get a vaccine or the pandemic ends?  Etc.

The fact is we don’t know the answers to those questions, and it may be a while, perhaps quite a while, before we do.  Which drives us crazy.  We want to know, and we want to know now.  This is the age of instant everything.  Amazon delivers tomorrow.  Streaming delivers immediately.  We’re not used to waiting.  We’re used to getting what we want now.  But Covid-19 isn’t that way.  It makes us wait, and we don’t like it.  But I wonder whether this is unique or whether it’s just putting us back to the way things used to be.