Tuesday, March 31, 2020

Some of my tweets in times of Covid-19

On the response to COVID-19: 2 tweets Jul 27, 2020

Sweden kept all schools until 9thgrade open. Parents of children in 9th grade are almost always less than 50 years of age. In Sweden, as of July 24, out of 5,687 Coronavirus deaths 71, 1.2%, were younger than 50 years.

Conclusion: Keep schools open, keep older teachers at home and have grandparents refrain from hugging their grandchildren. Disseminating data on COVID-19 without discriminating by age, is in essence misinformation.


The economy:
Covid-19, which mostly causes some older to die a little earlier, thereby in a very cruel way alleviating some serious social security deficits, does not really hurt so much the economy It is the responses to this pandemic that does produce the highest costs, which will be shouldered the most by the youngest, for the longest.


 “I’m old, must sell my business”
Those who because of their age do not want to go back to run their business, instead of selling it at depressed prices, could do better finding a capable younger person to run it, and with whom to split any future profits.

Banks, when Covid-19 hit us.
With the intention of making bank systems safer, the regulators based their risk weighted bank capital requirements on perceived expected credit risks, the risks which bankers should clear for; and not on the risk of misperceived credit risk, like 2008’s AAA rated or unexpected events, like a pandemic. Therefore, banks now stand there with their pants down... meaning no capital... at the worse time to raise capital.

A Covid-19 breather: 
Postponing all capital and interest payment on residential mortgages coming due next 12 months to the end of current mortgages, and allowing banks to hold that refinanced portion against zero capital… would help the economy and stop some bank balance sheet bleeding.

 A bad time to increase bank capital requirements
The credit distorting bank capital requirements against residential mortgages should increase to the same level as against loans to SMEs, and entrepreneurs… but in the midst of the coronavirus crisis… for the time being, the latter could be lowered to the level of residential mortgages.

Creative destruction?
Coronavirus / Covid-19 times is not the best time to engage in creative destruction since too little construction can result in a closed down economy. As I see it, both debtors and creditors would benefit immensely from keeping hungry bankruptcy lawyers at distance.

When is there an overreaction?
In Italy, as of August 17, deaths from coronavirus COVID19 are only 0.25% for those under 40 years of age.
Yes, the older need to take care, but it is those under 40 years who will for the longest bear the brunt of the economic costs of overreacting.

Winston Churchill

Reading of UK’s plan of building up herd immunity against Covid-19, I felt Winston Churchill would have agreed with such stiff upper lip policy: “I’ve nothing to offer but fever, coughing, chills and shortness of breath"


Social Media
SARS 2003, Facebook 2004, Twitter 2006, WhatsApp 2009, Coronavirus 2020 
Does this help us to understand the different intensity of how the world has reacted?
Information / attention overload, must have some dangerous unexpected consequences too.

Entrusting
Paraphrasing Georges Clemenceau’s “War is too serious a matter to entrust to military men”
A pandemic is too serious a matter to entrust to scientists/epidemiologists


Why are citizens not more enlisted in the fight?
If given timely and easily accessible data on new cases/ hospitalizations/ deaths/ other serious consequences; discriminated by age/ gender/ race/ occupation/ location/ other significant factors, so that they can take their own informed decisions, the citizens are the most effective pandemic combatants in the world.

Global comparisons
Data reported continuously on CNN indicates that, considering total population, USA suffers 6.3 times more Coronavirus cases than the rest of the world; and 5.7 times more deaths.
Are the numbers used really comparable? Is it science or is it politics?


Underlying conditions:
The most dangerous underlying condition of Covid-19, is that it broke out in the midst of a raging Polarization Pandemic, in which way too many polarization profiteers have a vested interest in blocking the development of a harmony vaccine.

A pandemic earthquake?
The Great Barrington Declaration and WHO’s acceptance of that lockdowns are not the way to go, places them sort of more on the side of Trump than Biden. Could that shake rattle and roll up the debate so close to elections?

History repeats itself.
With the intention of making bank systems safer, the regulators based their risk weighted bank capital requirements on perceived expected credit risks, the risks which bankers should clear for; and not on the risk of misperceived credit risk, or unexpected events, like coronavirus.

Now, to allow nations fend off coronavirus with the least societal costs, governments impose on society restrictions derived from perceived risks, risks citizens should be able to clear on their own, and not from risks of misperceived COVID19 risk, or unexpected unknown facts.

On Trust
In “socialist” Sweden, when battling coronavirus, authorities seem to trust more their citizens than in America, the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave.

In April 2016 Swedish authorities issued my mother a driver license that would have expired when she was almost 103 years of age. Asking about the wisdom of such thing, I was told that in Sweden the Swedes were supposed to know when they were fit to drive or not.
That applies to coronavirus behavior too

Conflict of interest 
The 70 years or older, in terms of health, are more a Covid-19 vulnerable group. Since therefore we might unwittingly suggest actions way too costly for those more vulnerable to its socio-economic consequences, perhaps though we should much take care of ourselves we should totally abstain from recommending Covid-19 responses.


Quarantine for those under 40 years of age?
If the percentage of those under 40 years of age that die of all causes, is higher than the percentage rate of that same age group that die from coronavirus/COVID19, how can it make any sense to subject them to a quarantine and its economic consequences?

Don't mortgage our youngers' future
If total deaths from COVID19 to total population is 0.2%, in US that would be 700.000 deaths. 
If of those deaths the younger than 50 years are 5%, that would represent 35.000 deaths of younger Americans 
Take care of the older, but do not mortgage the future of the young

In Washington Post.
Roughly 90% of all coronavirus deaths will occur in those 60 years of age and older. Equally roughly 90% of the virus’s social and economic consequences will be paid by those younger than 60. It’s an intergenerational conflict of monstrous proportions.

Relevant Universe Bias:
For now, I have four grandchildren, all whom I love dearly.
But, if I had 100 grandchildren, if knowing that safeguarding 2 of them from the worst Covid-19 consequences could bleak the future of the other 98, would I feel the same about what we should do?

And for God’s sake, if there are any moment banks should try to do ‘God’s work’, meaning taking the risks the society needs to move forward, it is now.
The risk weighted bank capital requirements based on expected credit risks, are insane!

The robots will be further empowered:
And coronavirus will most probably increase the robotization speed of our economies, so now there is more need than ever of decent and worthy unemployments, something which must include the launching of an unconditional Universal Basic Income.

SCHOOLS - Sweden
Here are current data of Covid-19 deaths in Sweden that explains the wisdom of keeping schools up to 9th grade open.

Higher education:
And our higher education systems must adapt to harsher times, perhaps by making it much more a joint venture between students and professors.

Nobel prizes in virtual online teaching:
At this moment, much more important than a Nobel Prize in Economics, is are Nobel Prizes for the Best Virtual Online Teacher/Professor in the World, in the categories of children under 10, high schools, universities, and of course business schools


What if a coronavirus II / Covid-19 II?
The capacity to borrow at a reasonable interest rate (or the seigniorage when printing money) is a very valuable strategic sovereign asset, and it should not be squandered away.

Banks, the morning after Covid-19
We need to get rid of the perceived expected credit risk weighted bank capital requirements and impose a leverage ratio of 8%-15%; and sack all dangerous equity minimizing leverage maximizing creative engineers and put our banks back into the hands of savvy loan officers. 

Do all dead from Covid-19 represent the same problem?
When responding to Covid-19 should all those residents and staffers of nursing homes and other long-term care facilities who in US represent about 40% of all Covid-19 deaths, in Sweden closer to 50%, be bundled up with all other? I don’t think so.

PS. This is a post that will be in continued revision

PS. May 16, 2020 I turned 70 and posted this

PS. December 2020: The adequate response to a Covid-190 when hopes for vaccines were two or three years away must clearly differ a lot from the one when it looks like vaccines are only two or three months away. The opportunity cost of not taken precautions has now dramatically increased.

PS. January 2021:Once the most endangered had been vaccinated, would it be so wrong to have an official market, e.g. in the US, where e.g. 30 million vaccines are sold at, e.g. US$ 2.000? That would help pay for 1.200 million vaccines, at least.


PS. February 2021: How many of our elder would still be alive if only expert epidemiologists had said that the elderly care and the senior retirements homes, needed to have independent air conditioning, heating, ventilation units, or have counted with first class air filtering systems?

PS. February 2021: I’m all for obtaining Covid-19 herd immunity, but the terminology makes me somewhat uneasy. It makes me think on whether with the alternative of strict lockdowns, some are looking to impose on humanity, on our Western civilization, some herd docility.

PS. March 2021: The battle of our times: Herd Immunity vs. Herd Docility


PS. April 2021: A return to a pre-pandemic world would have little to do with Covid-19/vaccines; much more to do with the responses to it: e.g., clearing all debt-overhangs, changes in work-methods, and many forms of herd-docility profiteering… therefore such a return, in my time, is a mirage.

PS. April 2021: When is a pandemic no longer a pandemic?

PS. November 2021: Should we vaccinated not be very thankful for that a group of without preconditions citizens, are willing (heroes) to keep on being unvaccinated (the placebo), and thereby serve the scientist as a control group for Covid vaccines, for the benefit of future generations?

PS. November 2021: Have your national health authorities identified without preconditions citizens willing to keep on being unvaccinated (placebo), and thereby serve science as a control group for Covid vaccines? If not, why? Is such research not a question of national security?