Category: News and politics

Are Venture Capitalists racists?

Shifting sovereignty from Kings to the people, was the beginning of human flourishing. In the United States, in its constitution the people returned only those powers to their government necessary to protect their wellbeing. The right to and protection of ones honestly acquired property is an essential aspect of this arrangement. This includes, of course, the right to invest our property anyway we choose.

Venture capitalists are those wealthy people who choose to take great risks in the prospect of large gains by investing in “startups” that have not yet established their profitability.  Put differently venture capitalists are prepared to finance an unproven idea/product/service that might gain public approval, i.e. might become profitable, though most of them fail.  As consumers we have benefited enormously from goods and services my parents never would have even imagined that a few wealthy investors took a chance on.

So the idea that the government might need to enact laws to insure that a venture capitalist’s investments do not reflect racial bias is shocking at several levels. “In the clubby world of venture capitalists, who spent $130 billion in the United States last year and helped anoint the world’s four most valuable companies and countless other successful start-ups, there is effectively no legal backstop that ensures people of color have an equal opportunity to share in its wealth creation.”   “Black-entrepreneurs-venture-capital”

First of all is the right of these investors to their property. They can give it all to their daughters if they want to.  Marxists and other egalitarians reject such a right but that would throw away the whole basis of the wealth our capitalist system has created that Marxists would like to redistribute.  But I want to focus on why capitalism minimizes the role of bias in our economic decisions.  This was explored long ago by Nobel Lauriat Gary Becker in his famous 1976 book on the Economics of Discrimination.

Becker’s basic point is that if your economic decision is influenced by racial or sexual or any other non-economic bias it will cost you money, i.e. you will make less than you otherwise would have.  If you hire a man when a woman was better qualified, he will contribute less to your company’s income than would have the woman, thus you pay a financial price for your bias. The same is true if you hire a white person when a black one was better qualified, etc.

The purpose of venture capitalist investments is to make a bundle by funding the next great idea. Most will fail but one or two turn into Facebook, or Amazon.  It may well be that a venture capitalist systematically under rates the potential of black entrepreneurs, i.e. that he suffers racial bias.  But in that case he will be less successful in his investments.  Capitalism will punish him for his prejudices and diminish his importance as a venture capitalist because it will diminish his wealth. None the less, an Irish venture capitalist may well bias her investments toward fellow Irishmen and a black venture capitalist may risk an extra break for a fellow black. But the profit motive of capitalism will discourage departures from objective evaluations of investment prospects.

The idea that a law should forbid or discourage racial or sexual bias when venture capitalists decide in what to invest is without merit.  Moreover, it is hard to imagine what such a law would look like and/or on what basis a government bureaucrat would overrule and direct the placement of a private investor’s chose of investments.

To peak briefly at the other–entrepreneurial–side of the equation, the unbiased opportunity provided by capitalism has attracted many foreigner entrepreneurs to our shores.  Steve Jobs (Apple, NeXT, Pixar), who was adopted at birth, was the son of Joanne Schieble who was Swiss-American and Abdulfattah “John” Jandali who was Syrian.  Steve Wozniak, Apple cofounder, was the son of Polish and Swiss-German parents.  Sergey Brin cofounder of Google/Alphabet escaped from the Soviet Union.  The famous architect, I.M. Pei, immigrated from China.  “How-12-immigrant-entrepreneurs-have-made-america-great”

Independence Day Celebration

As we listen carefully to the current criticisms of America, we should see them in the context of the wonderful features of our nation that continue to attract tens of thousands of the world’s best and brightest to become Americans and thus add to the material and cultural richness of our lives. We should not lose sight of, nor stop defending, the features of our society that have made us the Land of Opportunity even as we confront and strive to deal with our shortcomings. Those motivated by making more money and those motivated by serving and doing good to others enjoy the incentives for both in our free enterprise system. We make money by serving others, by creating better things and services for the benefit of our fellow man.

Our rights to make our own decisions and speak our minds are protected by our Constitution and its Bill of Rights. Our property and commitments (contracts) are protected by the Rule of Law. Indeed, our history is not without sin, far from it.  Slavery was practiced almost from the beginning of time, and our new nation shamefully participated in the practice for almost the first hundred years of its existence. Discriminatory laws and practices replaced slavery for many decades beyond the end of slavery.  Though all Americans now enjoy the equal protection of the law, the uninformed prejudices of some persevere. Our culture of mutual caring that is nurtured by our capitalist economic system and the values taught by all major religions, continue to make progress towards shrinking and isolating bigots. But we have a ways to go.  We have engaged in wars that are not justified by our defense and that are inconsistent with our values. In this area our economic incentives are perverse.

Our freedom to speak out when we see wrong and to praise what is good are critical to preserving what is good and fixing what is not.  The “cancel culture” crowd seem more intent on tearing America down than building it up by fixing its weaknesses.  The current cancerous attacks on our freedom to speak out and debate the important issues of our day in the name of political correctness risks undermining our progress:  “America’s Jacobin moment”.  This is not to say that we should not strive to address our fellow Americans politely “What is wrong with PC?”.  But if we become afraid to express our views and concerns honestly, we lose the ability to understand one another and build mutually satisfactory compromises. “Do we really need free speech?”.

So on this celebration of our Declaration of Independence and the birth of our nation let’s commit ourselves to preserving what has made us great, which includes the ability to freely criticize what is not so great, and to admit and learn from our mistakes and to work at becoming better still: freer, responsible for our own lives, and more compassionate toward others.

George Floyd, RIP

How should we respond to the horrifying murder of George Floyd by Derek Chauvin, a bad cop with “18 complaints on his official record?” “A Minneapolis-police-chief-promised-change-george-floyd’s-death-shows-hurdles”  Finding a constructive answer is not easy.  While it is difficult to watch the horrible death of George Floyd at the hands of a bad cop as three fellow policemen looked on without becoming enraged, those setting fires, smashing windows, and looting are not looking for constructive answers (or if we are to be extremely generous are not being thoughtful about what measures would actually be constructive) and should be locked up.

For starters, in looking for answers we should acknowledge that the problem (racism–unequal treatment of black Americans as well as other ethnic minorities in the law, then by law enforcement and by many people) has existed in America since its founding. But we should also acknowledge that enormous progress has been made over time, especially in recent years. Slavery has been abolished. Racial minorities are no longer discriminated against in the law (as opposed to law enforcement).  Even policing has improved considerably, though being arrested for “driving while black or DWB” remains too prevalent. And then there remain too many Michael Brown, Jrs, an 18-year-old black man, who was killed by Darren Wilson, a 28-year-old white police officer in Ferguson, Missouri in 2014 and too many George Floyds. Any would be too many.

A great deal has been done since Michael Brown’s murder to improve police training. The details are impressive. Medaria Arrandondo, Minneapolis’s police Chief, is black and is committed to furthering the work of his predecessor, Janeé Harteau, to expunge racism from the force and to rebuild trust between the police and the communities they exist to keep safe. While considerable progress has been made, why does it remain so difficult to provide black Americans with the equal treatment under the law to which every American is constitutionally entitled?

Evolution has genetically predisposed us to trust family and distrust if not fear others. Civilization, in part, has required that we overcome or at least tame this primitive impulse with moral teachings and laws (“do unto others and you would have them do unto you”) that facilitate our ability to live together and build trading economies to our enormous benefit. We learn what is “right” from our families, schools, churches, and the varied people we hang out with. We learn from the words and behavior of community leaders that we respect (some have made more positive contributions than others!). Institutional structures are also very important. They should provide incentives for behavior to conform to our moral and legal principles. Police Chief Arrandondo, for example, has increased the transparency of the police force (complaint records, webcams, etc.) in efforts to hold officers more accountable for their behavior.

In the area of policing there are two interrelated institutional impediments to good policing that we should address. Policing can be difficult and can be dangerous. “In a series of decisions beginning in 1967, the Supreme Court gutted [the Civil Rights Act of 1871] by permitting police and other government agents to claim they acted in “good faith” when violating citizens’ rights…. The Supreme Court decided government officials deserved ‘qualified immunity.’”  “Cops-kill-because-we-gave-them-the-legal-framework-to-do-it”  This must end.

“‘Sen. Amy Klobuchar, a top contender for Vice President candidacy for Joe Biden, was the chief prosecutor for Hennepin County (including Minneapolis) from 1998 to 2006. Klobuchar, who was nicknamed “KloboCop” by detractors,  “declined to bring charges in more than two dozen cases in which people were killed in encounters with police” while she “aggressively prosecuted smaller offenses” by private citizens, the Washington Post noted. Her record was aptly summarized by a headline early this year from the Twin Cities Pioneer Press: “Klobuchar ramped up prosecutions, except in cases against police.” [see previous link] This must end.

“Since 2012 there have been more than 2,600 complaints filed against Minneapolis police officers by civilians, according to data provided by Dave Bicking, who was part of the city’s Office of Police Conduct Review. Of those, the data showed just 12 resulted in an officer being disciplined. Among those, eight received written warnings. The most severe penalty was a 40-hour suspension.” [see previous link and “My-fellow-brothers-sisters-blue-what-earth-are-you-doing/?”] This must end.

The other institutional impediment to good policing is the understandable but pernicious self interest of police unions in defending their members from charges of misconduct. “Lt. Robert Kroll, [has been] president of the Police Officers Federation of Minneapolis since 2015. Like his union counterparts across the country, Lt. Kroll has been a fierce advocate for greater autonomy for officers…  Lt. Kroll has criticized the Black Lives Matter movement as a terrorist organization.” “Minneapolis-police-chief-promised-change-george-floyds-death-shows-hurdles”

I am reminded of my mother’s complaint (she was a grammar school teacher) that the teachers’ union was the biggest impediment to improving the quality of education in California. Any monopoly (government, unions, monopoly firms) ultimately sacrifices the public interest for their own if allowed to. This must end.

Social Distancing

Research lead by Neil Ferguson and his colleagues at Imperial College London suggests that a staggering 2.2 million would die in the United States and 510,000 in Britain if nothing is done by governments and individuals to stop the pandemic (no social distancing or hand washing, etc.).  Imperial College London study  The U.S. was late and bumbling in addressing the Novel Coronavirus coming from China in December. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) refused to authorize the use of tests approved by the EU and the test developed by Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) was flawed and had to be withdrawn. The United States remains embarrassing and dangerously behind other countries in testing and other preparations for dealing with the disease.  “Coronavirus-testing-delays-caused-red-tape-bureaucracy-scorn-private-companies”

Unable now to contain the virus in a targeted way, the U.S. has largely shut down its schools, theaters, restaurants and other places of public gatherings as well as flights from abroad. The Ferguson “report concludes that the British government might be able to keep the number of dead below 20,000 by enforcing social distancing for the entire population, isolating all cases, demanding quarantines of entire households where anyone is sick and closing all schools and universities — for 12 to 18 months, until a vaccine is available”. A comparable figure for the U.S. implies a reduction in the death rate to 86,000.

For perspective, traffic accidents in the U.S. in 2017 killed 40,100.  More than forty-seven thousand committed suicide that year and 55,672 died from influenza and pneumonia. When compared with ordinary flu, covid-19 spreads more rapidly and is ten times as deadly, but we still do not know very much else about its properties.  But, we can expect a relatively large number of deaths from this new virus no matter what we do.  But doing nothing will increase deaths considerably.

What steps should the U.S. take?  We don’t ban cars because people die in them. We choose to take calculated risks if they are not “excessive”.  https://wcoats.blog/2016/12/27/our-risks-from-terrorists/

The extreme measures being taken in the U.S. proceeded without serious estimates of the economic costs to the economy and the spill over health risks of children kept home with vulnerable grandparents, etc.  “The CDC guidelines advised that short- and medium-term school closures do not affect the spread of the virus and that evidence from other countries shows places that closed schools, such as Hong Kong, ‘have not had more success in reducing spread than those that did not,’ such as Singapore.  But this guidance was not released until Friday [March 13], after the cascade of school closings had begun.”  “States-are-rushing-to-close-schools-but-what-does-the-science-on-closures-say”

Our extreme reaction will generate huge costs that cannot be fully known reverberating for years to come. We can be pretty certain that there will be unintended, undesirable consequences quite beyond the disruption of our pleasurable, cultural activities (bankruptcies of otherwise viable firms and the resulting loss of jobs, etc.). The government (congress and the administration working together for a change) is attempting to anticipate and ameliorate as many of those consequences as possible. One example of the search for cost effective balance of cost and mitigation involves the stopping of flights from Europe.  The cost of monitoring arriving airline passengers before boarding abroad is very likely cheaper than the economic disruption and damage of forbidding foreign visitors at all.  Following Trump’s announcement of the travel ban (once his team sorted out and clarified what he was actually imposing) the American Civil Liberties Union announced, “These measures are extraordinary incursions on liberty and fly in the face of considerable evidence that travel bans and quarantines can do more harm than good.”

Unlike the U.S., Britain has not closed its schools and restaurants. But as I am writing this, the UK just announced that its schools will close Friday March 20.  The Patriot Act passed quickly after the 9/11 terrorist attacks in the U.S. on September 11, 2001 (for those of you too young to remember) reminds us how quickly and easily we surrender our revered liberties when we are scared.  Almost 19 years after 9/11 we still have the dangerously intrusive provisions of the Patriot Act.  Once freedoms are surrendered and the government steps in it seems to be hard to regain them.  The extreme measures being taken in the U.S. and elsewhere to slow the spread of covid-19 provide us with the latest example.

On March 16, Deborah Birx, White House coronavirus response coordinator, reported that models based on data available so far indicated that the biggest reduction in deaths came from “social distancing, small groups, not going in public in large groups. But the most important thing was if one person in the household became infected, the whole household self-quarantined for 14 days. Because that stops 100 percent of the transmission outside of the household,”

The biggest bang for the buck comes from individuals protecting themselves by social distancing, hand washing, and normal (and perhaps enhanced) care to avoid the sick and avoid exposing others when we are sick as we generally do now. Clear public health guidance from the government could go (would have gone) a long way to encourage the enhancement of such diligence.  The Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts never closed down during the flu season.

Covid-19 calls for vigorous government action, even now when it is too late to stop it any time soon. We will need extra hospital beds, medicine, respirators, protective gear, replacements for infected health workers, vaccine research, development, manufacture and administration and more.  Soon we will require replacements for the many brave health care workers such as nurses and doctors as they also become infected with the virus. But as with all decisions, private and public, a careful assessment of costs and benefits of different courses of action will produce the best result.  Knowledgeable public information to guide the natural protective self-interests of each of us and our usual concern and respect for the well-being of our families, friends and neighbors can carry us a long way toward minimizing the further spread of this disease at minimal cost to lives and property.

P.S.  In my previous blog of March 15 (Covid-19, why aren’t we prepared) I reported Beth Cameron’s claim that the National Security Council Directorate for Global Health Security and Biodefense was disbanded in May 2018.  Ms. Cameron was its director at the time.  Yesterday Tim Morrison, director of the successor unit for a year in 2018-19, “No-white-house-didn’t-dissolve-its-pandemic-response-office”, explained that its staff and function were merged with two other units performing overlapping functions in order to improve efficiency without a loss of its capacity “to do everything possible within the vast powers and resources of the U.S. government to prepare for the next disease outbreak and prevent it from becoming an epidemic or pandemic.”  I apologize for misrepresenting what happened and expect Mr. Morrison to apologize for the disastrous failure of his unit to fulfill its mandate.

Protecting yourself from Coronavirus

How can you best protect yourself from coronavirus? Unfortunately, the “government” is providing inconsistent and sometimes misleading advice, as are airlines and other businesses that want to keep you coming.  Disinfecting surfaces and extra cleaning of airplanes and other public transports may not be helpful and can communicate a false sense of safety. You would be safer to sit on an uncleaned toilet and then wash your hands, than to clean the toilet seat yourself with some disinfectant.

Two key facts are critical to understanding the transmission of viruses, such as Coronavirus. The first is that not all disinfectants are created equal.  Most are effective in killing bacteria but not viruses.  By and large only products with bleach (Clorox or sodium hypochlorite) will destroy viruses, but they can potentially also destroy the surfaces they are applied to, including your skin and thus it is not desirable to use them routinely. The second fact is that the coronavirus does not enter your body through your skin. It enters through your eyes, nose or mouth (or an open sore). This is why you should avoid touching your face.  Your best protection is to keep the virus off your hands, and then keep your hands off your face. The best way to keep the virus off your hands is to be more careful where you put them and to wash them with ordinary hand soap whenever you think your hands might have contacted the virus.

Wash your hands:  “If we sanitize, it will be fine.” No it won’t. Saying so can give a false sense of safety. Products to disinfect your hands without rinsing might kill bacteria but they will only rearrange viruses on your hands. Even ordinary soap will not “kill” viruses, but it is great at removing them from your skin so they can be rinsed away. Wash for 30 seconds (humming the “happy birthday to you” song twice) and rinse well. The following article provides an excellent and detailed discussion of the power of soap: “Deadly-viruses-are-no-match-for-plain-old-soap-heres-the-science-behind-it”

Don’t touch your face:  The most reliable measure of protection from acquiring covid-19 is to avoid touching your eyes, mouth or the inside of your nose. These are the access points for viruses into your body. This is easier said than done. See Ito’s suggestions below.

If you are young, don’t worry and have fun. That’s what the young do anyway. If you are my age, keep a distance from others and try not to touch anything (especially someone else’s hands). Stay home more. It will also allow time to develop better treatment protocols, increase isolation ward capacity, and a vaccine (which, however, will take another year or more to test for safety and effectiveness).

In the following, Dr. Victorino (Ito) Briones, MD, Ph.D., provides the most relevant tips on how to prevent getting infected with the Coronavirus

  1. The most significant source of infection will be your hands.

We always use our hands in order to go about our daily routine. We touch the doorknob to open the door, hold the grocery handle from a cart or a basket, shake hands, etc. Do not be afraid to get the virus on your hands. Our skin is one of the best defense barriers from this virus. It will not infect you even if you have touched an object or another person’s hand that has the coronavirus. The way the virus can get into your body is by entering through your mucous membranes, which in this case includes your eyes and your mouth as well as the inside of your nose.

Suggestions:

  • Do not touch your face. Again, don’t worry that you might have the virus in your hands. But don’t transfer the virus from your hands to your face where it can enter and infect you through your eyes, mouth and nose.
  • Wash your hands with soap and water. Do this most especially before eating.

NOTES: Most often public toilets will have a liquid soap dispenser. Be mindful that the top of the bottle may be contaminated with the virus by the previous person who used it. Be careful when you use bar soaps as the virus may survive in the soap bar as well. Also be mindful that the faucet knob or handle may be contaminated with the virus so do not close the faucet with the hand you just washed.

The CDC suggests about 30 seconds of washing. I personally like to wash once with soap first, then rinse and then wash again a second time. Please understand that soap and water do not kill the virus. Washing simply removes the virus from your hands.

  • Wrap a masking tape around the tips of both your forefingers.

It is extremely difficult to consciously prevent ourselves from touching our face.    Research says that we touch our face about 20 times an hour and we may not be aware we’re doing it. Wrap a masking tape (blue or orange) around the tips of your forefingers. The hope is that the masking tape at the tip of the forefinger will remind you not to scratch our face with your hands. Also, the sensation of the tape on the face should immediately tell you to stop.

  • What about Masks?

Masks are most helpful to those who already have cough and colds symptoms and this prevents them from spreading the virus in the air. Wearing masks, however, can be helpful in reminding you not to touch your face especially your mouth. But personally, I don’t find it essential.

  • Hand sanitizers?

A friend showed me a hand sanitizer he was using and the label said “antibacterial”. Antibacterial sanitizers do not kill viruses. Bacteria and viruses are very different organisms. CDC recommendations here: https://www.cdc.gov/handwashing/show-me-the-science-hand-sanitizer.html

Personally, I don’t like to recommend hand sanitizers because it may give the person a false belief that his hands are virus free. My recommendation is to think that your hands are always contaminated with the virus.

  • How to scratch your face/eyes?

It may be time to carry a pack of tissues with you. If you feel the urge to scratch your eyes, use a clean tissue from the pack. Make sure that your fingers don’t touch your eyes or face. Then discard the tissue into a trash can after using. Do not re-use the tissue. Be mindful that if your hand is contaminated, then the tissue is also now contaminated with the virus.

    2.  It might be time to change some personal habits.

  • No more shaking hands and embracing when greeting other people. At this time, people already understand and, I think, appreciate that this form of greeting is no longer appropriate.
  • Perhaps start the standard of using virtual fist bumps or elbow bumps to acknowledge personal greetings.

In general, always consider the possibility that everything you touch is potentially contaminated with the virus. But also understand that the virus cannot enter your body through the skin on your hand.  So don’t be afraid to go about your daily lives. However, be always mindful that the virus can enter your body through your face. Your hands are the most probable source of infection.

 

Coronavirus and You

If you are infected by the coronavirus, i.e. if you contract covid-19, what is the probability of your dying from it?  What is the death rate of this particular virus?  On Tuesday March 3 the World Health Organization (WHO) stated that the global fatality rate was 3.4 percent. The figure changes daily, but if we take this to be a correct measure (it isn’t as I explain below), your own probability of dying from the disease will be higher than that if you are older and/or suffer from other health immune compromising conditions and lower if you are young and healthy, etc.  Oh to be young and healthy again.

Yesterday, Friday March 6, the WHO reported 3,400 deaths worldwide and 100,000 confirmed cases worldwide. This is the basis of the 3.4% death rate. 3,400/100,000=0.034=3.4%. The true figure is probably lower, but it could also be higher. The numerator of this fraction–deaths–should be pretty certain. However, mistakes can be made in stating the cause of death.  A covid-19 death could be missed and attributed to something else.

The biggest probable source of error is with the denominator: the number of cases. There is a high likelihood that many who have contracted the disease have not yet and may never be diagnosed to have it.  It is likely that these missed cases are milder than those that are identified and thus have lower death rates. The U.S. has been particularly slow in testing for the coronavirus. The number of test kits needed to perform such tests are still very limited in the U.S.  As of yesterday (Friday March 6), the U.S. had only tested 1,890 people of which about 10% were positive. By comparison South Korea has been testing about 10,000 people per day for weeks. To the extent that the actual number infected with the virus is larger, and probably much larger, than those identified, the denominator will be larger and the death rate lower.  By comparison in the 2017-18 flu season in the U.S. 45,000,000 had the flu and 61,000 died.

But that is not the end of the challenges to an accurate figure for the death rate. The 17 deaths so far in the U.S. may, and probably does undercount the number who will die from those currently infected. If some of those already infected will subsequently die, the true death rate will be higher. The true figure will only be known sometime after the event. The following article provides a very good discussion of this issue. https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/coronavirus-mortality-rate/2020/03/06/b0c4cdfc-5efc-11ea-b014-4fafa866bb81_story.html

**************

Dr. Briones adds the following description of a more scientific approach to estimating the death rate.

There is the “TRUE” death rate and there is the “EXPECTED” death rate. The True death rate answers the question of how many people died from a particular disease event. The expected death rate represents the more computable number when people ask for the probability of dying from coronavirus infection.

TRUE death rates can only be computed after the “event” has finished and all people involved have been counted including those that survived the event and those that died from the event. For example, a pile up car accident involving, say 100 people, with 20 deaths would have a TRUE death rate of 20%. The TRUE death rate in this situation can be calculated accurately because the event has finished and is no longer evolving. No more people will be involved in this particular situation in the future.

In the present coronavirus epidemic, the TRUE death rate CANNOT be computed because the infection and disease continue to evolve and increase. It remains impossible to determine how many people actually have been infected with the Coronavirus as compared to those who have been tested and found to be positive for the virus. Also, most importantly, the TRUE death rate cannot be established because all those that have been tested positive have not finished the disease process. The TRUE death rate requires knowing the number of people that recovered/survived after coronavirus infection as opposed to those that died from the infection. Since the present situation of the Coronavirus epidemic continues to spread and infect more people, the result cannot be computed. This may be possible after the Coronavirus epidemic has been contained and new infections have been significantly minimized.

The better computation to answer the question of probable mortality rate from Coronavirus infection would be the EXPECTED death rate. In this computation, a randomly selected group of individuals from the pool of people who have tested positive from the Coronavirus are followed to the end of the disease process. (This approach assumes that this group is representative of the whole population infected by the Coronavirus.) So far, people infected with coronavirus either recover after two weeks or so or they die from the disease due to respiratory distress.

For example, 100 people are randomly selected from those positive for the Coronavirus. After a month or so, these 100 people would either have recovered or died from the infection. If 2 people died from this selected group, then the expected or probable death rate would be 2%. One important key point in this experiment is to follow the disease process to its conclusion of either recovery or death.

To increase the “Power” of the result of this experiment, researchers can further increase the randomly selected population from 100 to 1000 or even 100,000. But it is important that those selected to be part of the final computation (number of deaths divided by the total population) should have finished the disease process.

To increase the accuracy and power of the EXPECTED/PROBABLE death rate is to further categorize the selection by age group. For example: 20 to 40 years of age versus 50 to 70 years. Another refinement of the group selected can address older people with underlying conditions selected for the study. Further refinements of this population group can be made in order to accurately answer the question of: What is my (male vs. female, young versus old, no underlying disease versus one with underlying disease, etc) probability of dying from Coronavirus infection.

With already over 100,000 Coronavirus infections around the world, these numbers and computations can be done on a retrospective analysis of the various population groups.

******************

WC: The above approach should produce a more accurate estimate of the death rate if the death rate of those testing positive is representative of the death rate of those not tested.  It is reasonable to assume that those who were not tested but had the infection and where thus not part of the population from which the test sample was drawn, had a milder reaction to the infection and thus probably a lower death rate (possibly even zero).  Thus the “expected” death rate computed in the way explained by Ito above would be a maximum expected rate and the actual rate is likely to be lower.

The Basis of American World Leadership

Since the end of World War II, the United States has played a disproportionately large role in guiding world affairs. It has unquestionably been the most powerful nation on earth. Its dominance reflects a number of factors including economic and military strength. But in addition to these, most countries have been happy, or at least willing, to accept American leadership because it was largely seen as guided by broad principles of fair play and the rule of law.  American leadership was the least of evils. The United States has benefited a great deal from this good will.

But as the old saying goes: power tends to corrupt, etc.  Being able often to bend other countries to our will (as long as others still saw us as driven by widely shared principles of fair play), the U.S. increasingly exploited this influence to encompass policies or actions others were not so happy to comply with.  To take a fairly recent example, the wisdom of President Trump’s withdrawal from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA or the Iran Deal) to stop Iran’s development of its nuclear capabilities for at least ten years was not shared by the other parties to the agreement (the P5+1–the permanent members of the UN Security Council: the United States, the United Kingdom, Russia, France, and China, plus Germany–and the European Union).  All signers of the agreement except the United States continued to abide by it. But the U.S. dollar is the primary currency used for international payments and the U.S. threatened to punish (cut off from the use of the dollar and trade with the U.S.) any country that did not observe its unilateral trade sanctions on Iran. The non-U.S. signers attempted to set up alternative ways for paying for trade with Iran that did not use the dollar but found the reach of American threats hard to avoid. On January 5, 2020 Iran announced that it would stop complying with the agreement and resume its nuclear development program. It is not clear why Trump considers this better for American security than the (at least) ten-year suspension in the Iran Deal he tore up.  See: Economic-Sanction

President Trump has also used up a lot of “good will capital” with his Trade wars. He began by withdrawing the U.S. from the 12-member Trans-Pacific Partnership or TPP (Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, Vietnam, and the United States). The TPP further reduced tariff and non-tariff restrictions on trade, while expanding and modernizing coverage for the digital world. As, or perhaps more, importantly, the TPP provided a model and positive encouragement to China to adopt Western trading rules as a condition of joining the TPP in the future.  The remaining signatories went forward with a Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership, which went into effect a year ago with the U.S.

But Trump’s counterproductive trade strategies didn’t stop there by a long shot. In addition to economically harmful tariff protection of inefficient American industries (e.g. steel, washing machines, etc.), Trump has angered many of our friends in Europe, Japan and elsewhere by threatening tariffs in situations that do not seem to be justified by the World Trade Organization’s rules. In the process he is ignoring and weakening the WTO, which has played such an important role in the gradual trade liberalization that has dramatically lifted living standards around the world following WWII. He even tore up the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and replaced with a new agreement that is not unambiguously better.  See: The-shriveling-of-US-influence

But once bullies taste their power, their appetites tend to grow. While elected with promises to end our forever wars and reduce our military commitments around the world, Trump has done neither.  This is not the occasion for exploring why (I don’t doubt Trump’s sincere desire to achieve both of those goals, but his ignorance of history seems to have made him vulnerable to flipflopping in the face of pressure from the neocons, such as Secretary of State Pompeo, he has surrounded himself with). Rather it is to review his rapid descent into a major bully, to the detriment of American influence and security.

On January 3, President Trump ordered the assassination of Maj. Gen. Qassem Soleimani, the leader of Iran’s paramilitary Quds Force in retaliation for an attack a week earlier on an Iraqi air base in Kirkuk that killed a U.S. civilian contractor and injured four U.S. soldiers and two Iraqis.

The drone that launched two missiles that killed Gen. Soleimani at the Baghdad International Airport also killed the Iraqi leader of the PMU, Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, a close Soleimani associate, and eight other Iraqis.  According to the Pentagon, “General Soleimani was actively developing plans to attack American diplomats and service members in Iraq and throughout the region,”  According to Adil Abdul-Mahdi, Prime Minister of Iraq, Soleimani was on his way to see the PM in order to discuss moves being made to ease the confrontation between Shia Iran and Sunni Saudi Arabia.

The White House stressed that Soleimani’s planned attack was “imminent” thus justifying it without having to first inform Congress. Bruce Ackerman argues that Trump’s failure to obtain Congressional authorization for the attack justifies a third article of impeachment.  See: Trump-war-against-Iran-impeachable-offense  Iraqi PM Mahdi claimed that the attack on Iraqi soil was a violation of Iraqi sovereignty and a violation of the agreement between the U.S. and Iraq for stationing American forces in Iraq. Though Congress was not informed in advance, the Israeli government was told of the planned attack, according to some reports. In these circumstances, it is very difficult to know which reports are authentic and which are deliberate (or sometimes inadvertent) fake news.

In order to assess the likely impact of all this on our standing and support in the rest of the world, I like to evaluate American actions from how they might seem standing in someone else’s shoes. How would Americans react, for example, if our government had invited, say, French troops for training in the U.S., and the French Army blew up a Russian general on his way to meetings at the UN (or reverse the roles between the French and the Russians) without our permission?

But this note is not about whether this assassination was legal or good policy. For that see the following article from The Economist: Was-Americas-assassination-of-Qassem-Suleimani-justified?  It’s about the rise of American bullying in the world and its impact on our standing and ability to influence friends and enemies in ways that serve our national interest. What followed in the days after Soleimani’s assassination is mind boggling.

Keep in mind that following America’s invasion of Iraq that started on March 20, 2003, the U.S. and its coalition partners returned sovereignty to the Iraqi government at the end of June 2004. I was there as part of the Coalition Provisional Authority (I was the Senior Monetary Policy Advisor to the Central Bank of Iraq reporting to the U.S. Treasury). As we boarded helicopters to waiting planes at the Baghdad International Airport (of recent fame) many of us recalled images of the last American helicopter lifting off the roof of the American Embassy in Saigon when the U.S. ended its participation in the Vietnam War. Over the next seven years American and coalition troops remained in Iraq under terms agreed to in a Status of Forces agreement with the Iraqi government.  Following the ups and downs of troop surges and draw downs American forces were kicked out after Blackwater security contractors killed 17 Iraqis in Nisour Square in 2010.

With the rise of the Islamic State (ISIS) American troops were invited back under new, less formal terms. “Instead, the current military presence is based on an arrangement dating from 2014 that’s less formal and ultimately based on the consent of the Iraqi government, which asked the parliament on Sunday to pass urgent measures to usher out foreign troops…. ‘If the prime minister rescinds the invitation, the U.S. military must leave, unless it wants to maintain what would be an illegal occupation in a hostile environment,’” said Ramzy Mardini, an Iraq scholar at the U.S. Institute of Peace.  Getting-us-troops-out-of-iraq-might-not-be-that-hard-say-experts

And how did POTUS, the great negotiator, respond to the Iraqi Parliament’s vote: “President Donald Trump threatened to impose deep sanctions on Iraq if it moves to expel U.S. troops…. ‘We’ve spent a lot of money in Iraq,’ Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One as he returned to Washington after spending the holidays at his Florida resort, Mar-a-Lago. ‘We have a very extraordinarily expensive air base that’s there. It cost billions of dollars to build. … We’re not leaving unless they pay us back for it.’” Trump-threatens-iraq-sanctions-expel-us-troops

However, the Pentagon promptly announced that it was repositioning its troops in preparation for withdrawing them. Reuters released a copy of a letter on US Department of Defense letterhead addressed to the Iraqi Defense Ministry by US Marine Corps Brigadier General William H. Seely III, the commanding general of Task Force Iraq, which read in relevant part: “In deference to the sovereignty of the Republic of Iraq, and as requested by the Iraqi Parliament and the Prime Minister, CITF-OIR will be repositioning forces over the course of the coming days and weeks to prepare for onward movement…. We respect your sovereign decision to order our departure.”  reuters.com/article/

Within hours, the Pentagon stated that no decisions had been taken and that the letter had been sent by mistake. “U.S. Army General Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said on Monday that a leaked letter from the U.S. military to Iraq that created impressions of an imminent U.S. withdrawal was a poorly worded draft document meant only to underscore an increased movement of forces.”  Iraq-security-pm  Or maybe they forgot to consult POTUS or maybe he changed his mind.  Are you confused yet? See: Amid-confusion-and-contradictions-Trump-white-house-stumbles-in-initial-public-response-to-Soleimanis-killing

In response to Iran’s threat to retaliate for killing General Soleimani “Trump tweeted on Saturday that the United States has targeted 52 sites for possible retaliation, including “some at a very high level & important to Iran & the Iranian culture.” The outcry over this clear war crime was immediate. “Secretary of Defense Mark Esper… put himself at odds with President Trump on Monday night by definitively telling reporters that the U.S. military will not target cultural sites inside Iran on his watch, even if hostilities continue to escalate in the wake of the U.S. drone strike that killed Maj. Gen. Qasem Soleimani at the Baghdad airport last week. ‘We will follow the laws of armed conflict….’” See: Esper’s-split-with-trump-over-targeting-iranian-cultural-sites-is-a-nod-to-the-laws-of-armed-conflict  Trump quickly backed down. Perhaps discussing these decisions with his staff before twitting them would be a good idea.

These are but a few examples of a bully on the loose. “Foreign Minister Mohammed Javad Zarif told NPR that he was scheduled to deliver an address when the U.N. Security Council meets Thursday [Jan 9] but that he was told the State Department had informed the U.N. that there was not enough time to process his request for a visa, which he said he first submitted 25 days ago.” Iran-foreign-minster-javad-zarif-denied-visa   Under the 1947 U.N. headquarters agreement, “the United States is generally required to allow access to the United Nations for foreign diplomats.”  Once again, we are violating our commitments. Iran is demanding that all future meetings of international bodies be held outside the US.  The IMF and World Bank are also headquartered in the U.S.

The American and coalition partners now in Iraq are there to support its fight against ISIS. This benefits us, our partners, and Iraq. The traditional tools of diplomacy (persuasion), rather than the threats of a bully, would ultimately be more effective.  The respectful consideration traditionally given to the views and positions of the United States in international bodies –such as global satellite spectrum allocation–global warming agreements–security agreements–or any other multilateral agreement in which we have an interest, is rapidly vanishing.  Assuming that the Trump administration can de-escalate the current tensions with Iran, something quite possible with sufficient diplomatic skill–see: The-soleimani-killing-could-draw-the-us-deeper-into-the-mideast-but-it-doesnt-have-to–our general loss of good will is the real cost of excessive bullying and it will hurt us considerably.

 

A Letter to the Republican Party

As a no doubt futile outlet for my frustration with the Republican Party, I have been enclosing the following letter in the return envelops they keep sending me with the request for financial support.

Dear Members of the Republican National Committee,

The Trump administration has had some positive achievements domestically (tax reform, regulatory reforms and court appointments). However, its continued increase in government spending (annual deficits of one trillion or more when the economy is at a cyclical peak) is wrong and unthinkable for Republicans. President Trump’s weakening of America’s support for and role in international organizations, abandonment of the Iran Deal and anti-nuclear proliferation treatises, and war on trade, are bad for America and the world we live in.  President Trump’s divisive language is unbecoming of the leader of a great nation, a nation of immigrants. The Republican Party has failed to stand up for these principles and to criticize the President for these offenses.

Even more concerning is your acquiescence to President Trump’s lying, immorality, and corruption. His clearly documented attempted bribery of the President of Ukraine for personal gain is damaging American security interests. His obstruction of Congress’s execution of its constitutional duties is very concerning. These and other acts cross the sadly low bar of acceptable behavior.

For the sake of our deeply divided country, the Senate owes us all an impeachment trial that any honest person will consider fair. President Trump must have every opportunity to explain and defend his behavior and those challenging it must have every opportunity to make their case. President Trump obstructed the House’s efforts to obtain firsthand evidence of the President’s attempt to use his executive authority for personal gain. It is essential that the Senate permit the testimony of those blocked in the House by the President (Bolton, Mulvaney, Mike Duffey).

With your silence you have abandoned me and my continued commitment to limited and sound government.  I cannot continue to support the party until you stand up and again defend our principles.

Sincerely,

Warren Coats

Nation Building in Afghanistan

Ambassador Crocker rightly calls the American role in “rebuilding” Afghanistan, “complicated.”  “I-served-in-Afghanistan-no-its-not-another-Vietnam”  I first met Ambassador Crocker in January 2002 when he was servicing as America’s chargé d’affaires to Afghanistan. We met in the American Embassy that had just been reopened after a decade or so of abandonment.  A decade’s worth of dust still covered the embassy floor several inches deep. Its newly returning employees were sleeping in cots along the hallways.

Following al-Qaeda’ 9/11 attacks in the U.S., I supported NATO’s UN sanctioned attack on Afghanistan’s Taliban regime as a necessary measure to deprive al-Qaeda of its sanctuary there. I wept when we abandoned that objective unfinished in order to pursue another war in Iraq, which I strongly opposed. The Washington Post just published Defense Department documents evaluating America’s 18-year war in Afghanistan and finding it a costly failure. https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2019/investigations/afghanistan-papers/afghanistan-war-nation-building/

“Former defense secretary Jim Mattis defended American efforts to rebuild Afghanistan as part of the 18-year-old U.S. war there, saying Friday that ‘we had to try to do something in nation-building, as much as some people condemn it, and we probably weren’t that good at it.’  Speaking to journalists at The Washington Post, he cited an increase in the number of Afghan women who are educated, the development of Afghan diplomats and the inoculation of civilians against disease.

“Mattis, who oversaw the war as the four-star head of U.S. Central Command from 2010 to 2013, said violence in Afghanistan is ‘so heartbreaking that it can blind you to the progress,’ and he acknowledged that the United States made a strategic mistake by not paying enough attention to the country as the administration of George W. Bush launched the war in Iraq in 2003.  ‘That we didn’t do things right, I mean, I’m an example of it,’ Mattis said, recalling that as a one-star general, he was pulled out of Afghanistan in the spring of 2002, promoted and told to prepare for war in Iraq.

“’I was dumbfounded,’ he said. ‘But we took our eye off of there.’” “Mattis-Afghanistan-papers-we-probably-werent-that-good-nation-building”

But should we have remained as military occupiers and then as peace guarantors for another 18 years and counting?  I have spent a lot of time in Afghanistan over those 18 years, most intensively as a member of the IMF team addressing the Kabul Bank scandal from 2010-14 (22 visits after that first one in January, 2002).   “The Kabulbank Scandal–Part I” Cayman Financial Review, January 2015  “The Kabulbank Scandal–Part-II” Cayman Financial Review, April 2015  “The Kabulbank scandal–Part-III” Cayman Financial Review, July 2015

I have worked with many wonderful, mainly young, patriotic Afghans and have grown to care a great deal about their conditions and their future. We (the U.S., IMF, World Bank, EU) have a lot to teach them about the institutions of capitalism and they have been very eager to learn. However, the United States has rarely been very good at “building” modern nations that it conquered militarily.  Our Generals and Ambassadors, who rotate in and out every two to three years, rarely understand the cultures and histories they are trying to deal with.  With our military on the ground it is too easy to attempt to impose our institutions on societies unfamiliar with them without more patiently growing more modern institutions from what is in place that are thus better adapted to their traditions and thus more likely to function successfully.

Nation building at the point of a gun has not and is unlikely ever to work for us or for them. https://wcoats.blog/2009/11/16/afghan-national-army/.  https://wcoats.blog/2012/10/23/our-unsupportable-empire/.

My hope for the future of Afghanistan rests with its young, dedicated and increasingly well-educated young people. Our advice can be valuable, especially if filtered and adapted by Afghans themselves. After centuries of relative isolation, the modern world of the Internet, offers them the knowledge of the world. We need to get our troops and our billions of corrupting dollars out of their way.

New tools require new rules?

A hammer can hit a nail on the head, or it can hit you (or your enemy) on the head. Most, if not all, tools have multiple uses, some good and some bad.  Societies adopt rules to promote the beneficial uses of technologies and discourage harmful uses. New tools/technologies necessitate a discussion of what the rules for their proper uses should be. We are now having that discussion for the uses of social media to promote and propagate ideas and information (some true and some false).

Free speech is revered in America for good reason. Like many other aspects of our preference for self-reliance (personal freedom), it requires that we take responsibility for sorting out what is true from what is false rather than giving over that task to government (and whoever leads it at the time). This can be a challenging task.  We must sort out who we trust to help us. Those of you my age will appreciate that we no longer have Walter Cronkite, and Huntley and Brinkley to help us filter real from fake news.

Our commitment to free speech is so fundamental to the character of America that I have written about it a number of times. https://wcoats.blog/2012/09/14/american-values-and-foreign-policy/    https://wcoats.blog/2012/09/15/further-thoughts-on-free-speech/ https://wcoats.blog/2012/09/29/freedom-of-speech-final-thoughts-for-a-while-at-least/

Various social media platforms present us with another new tool and the need to sort out how best to use it. The answer(s) will take the form of social conventions and government regulations. It is important to get the balance right.

Facebook, Twitter, Google, YouTube, Instagram, Tiktok and other platforms do not generate or provide content. They provided a very convenient and powerful means for you and me to share the content we produce. What responsibility should Mark Zuckerberg, Jack Dorsey, Larry Page, Sergey Brin, etc. have for regulating the content we post to their own platforms, which are after all private. As you saw in my earlier blogs on this subject, publishing and broadcasting our words are limited when they endanger or slander others. But these limits do not and should not limit our advocacies for policies and political beliefs as I am doing now.

The big issue today is fake news (out right lies). If you create or repeat lies, you must be responsible for what you do (but we don’t generally punish lying unless under oath). You are allowed, for example, to state on Twitter or Facebook that you believe Obama was born in Kenya despite thorough documentation that he was born in Hawaii. Perhaps you are gullible enough to actually believe it though it is false. But should Facebook and other platforms have a responsibility to block clearly fake news? What if their own biases lead them to block more Democratic Party “fake news”, or vice versa?

As a private company Facebook can more or less do what it wants but it has a strong business/financial incentive to build a reputation of fairness and to provide a platform that attracts as many users as possible. Here are their rules from their website:

“To see the full list and learn more about our policies, please review the Facebook Community Standards.  Here are a few of the things that aren’t allowed on Facebook:

  • Nudity or other sexually suggestive content.
  • Hate speech, credible threats or direct attacks on an individual or group.
  • Content that contains self-harm or excessive violence.
  • Fake or impostor profiles.
  • Spam.”

The debate at the moment is focused on political ads. Facebook has said that it will not fact check political ads and Tweeter has said that it will not run them at all.  A Washington Post editorial stated the issue this way: “Politicians should, for the most part, be able to lie on Facebook, just as anyone else is, and the public should be able to hold leaders to account. But that’s a different question from whether politicians should be able to pay to have their lies spread, based on unprecedentedly precise behavioral data, to the voters who are most likely to believe their lies.”  “Google’s reply has been more nuanced. The company will limit the criteria campaigns can use to “microtarget” ads to narrow audiences based on party affiliation or voter record. The aim is to increase accountability by letting more people see ads….”  “Tech-firms-under-fire-on-political-ads”

No one, thank heavens, wants the government to vet ads for truthfulness. Some facts are obvious and some are less so. The potential danger to free speech is illustrated by Singapore’s “fake news” law.  Singapore claimed that a post by fringe news site States Times Review (STR) contained ‘scurrilous accusations’.  Giving in to the law, Facebook attached a note to the STR post that said it “is legally required to tell you that the Singapore government says this post has false information”.  “Facebook’s addition was embedded at the bottom of the original post, which was not altered. It was only visible to social media users in Singapore.” https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-50613341

However, the government should provide the broad framework of a platforms responsibilities.  For example, the U.S. government requires transparency of who pays for ads in print and TV ads. The same requirement should be imposed on Internet political ads. To qualify for Facebook’s say whatever you want in a political ad policy, the candidate being supported should be required to attach his/her name as approving the ad. Limiting the use of micro targeted ads broadens the exposure and thus discipline on truth telling.  According to The Economist: “To the extent that these moves make it harder for politicians to say contradictory things to different groups of voters without anybody noticing, they are welcome. “Big-tech-changes-the-rules-for-political-adverts”

Knowing what sources of news to trust is no trivial matter. Knowing the source is helpful. Rather than fact checking the content of posts, Facebook attaches an easily viewed statement of the source.  Establishing standards for and establishing boundaries between categories of posts sound easier than they really are, but insuring transparency of who has posted something should play an important role. Flagging questionable sources, without changing the content of a post, as Facebook does, is also helpful. I hope that the discussion of the best balance (and not every platform needs to adopt the same approach) will be constructive.