zaterdag 29 februari 2020

Random Friday: The coronavirus edition

February 28, 2020 By Andrew Moran

News Story of the Day:

The stock market has not been beaten up this badly since the financial crisis. In just one week, the stock market has lost $6 trillion based on fears over the coronavirus. What makes Covid-19 terrifying for investors is that there is still plenty unknown about the outbreak, from its health effects to its impact on global supply chains. It is a mess out there.

You’re OK, though, if you have purchased any of the coronavirus plays, like Alpha Pro Tech, Lakeland Industries, or the myriad of biotech stocks, you made a killing this week.

Chart of the Day: It’s official: The coronavirus is worse than SARS, the swine flu, and ebola. Look at this chart:

Screenshot from video produced by Abacaba, posted on YouTube, which shows how quickly the Covid-19 coronavirus strain has spread and overtaken other illnesses such as SARS, MERS, swine flu and ebola

Illustration of the Day: Believe it or not, sales of the Corona beverage down because people are ostensibly correlating it with the coronavirus.

Quote of the Day: Eric Boehm is out with a new piece on Reason about political opportunities in the coronavirus scare:

While it is presented as a way for the government to ensure America is prepared for a public health crisis, Hawley’s bill is also a step toward greater central planning. It’s not difficult to see how Hawley or Trump could, sometime in the future, claim that America’s medical supply chain is too dependent on China—in the same way that Trump used a fictional “national security” risk to justify tariffs on steel and aluminum. Those tariffs haven’t worked, but Hawley—who believes Trump’s trade war is a long-term proposition—is barely disguising his attempt to lay the groundwork for more protectionism.

Democrats, too, are using the coronavirus as a new argument for old political objectives. Like defeating Trump, for example. While they offered little in the way of alternatives during Tuesday’s primary debate, each of the candidates onstage were happy to blast the president for bungling the response to the coronavirus—even though it’s still far too soon to conclude whether Trump’s responses, or lack thereof, have made the outbreak worse in America.

Specifically, former Vice President Joe Biden has ripped the current administration for making “draconian cuts” to the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The Obama administration “increased the budget of the CDC. We increased the NIH budget,” Biden said Tuesday night. “He’s wiped all that out. He cut the funding for the entire effort.”

Except he didn’t. Trump has proposed budget cuts for the CDC and NIH in each of his budgets since taking office, but Congress never approved those proposals. That’s a pretty important distinction.

If the NIH and the CDC aren’t adequately prepared to handle a disease outbreak, it’s probably their own fault. There is always going to be a finite amount of money for any government agency to use, so it’s best not to waste your shares. Yet the CDC spent $15 billion during the Obama administration to nudge Americans towards healthier eating habits, and millions more on the creation of a “Hollywood liaison office” with funds that were supposed to be used to counter the threat of bioterrorism. Sure, it’s possible that more funding would result in greater preparedness to face new and deadly diseases. So would making better choices about the money you already have.