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We’re a full month into full lockdown and quite frankly. we’re just about fully filled with aggravation about it. We vent to each other and then we bring in a couple of really smart guys (and coincidentally, Ricochet podcasters): Avik Roy and Lanhee Chen. They (along with Bob Kocher and others) have published A New Strategy for Bringing People Back to Work During COVID-19, a manual for safely re-starting the economy. We delve into detail about how to get people of all ages and backgrounds back into the workforce while putting into place safeguards to prevent another round of infections and another shutdown. Also, should we be buying goods from China? Changing My Mind on “Country of Origin” Labeling Thanks to China, This week’s Lileks Post of The Week by BucknellDad tackles that topic. Finally, what are the podcasts the podcasters listen to? Well, you’ll have to listen t this podcast to find out.
Music from this week’s show: Lord Have Mercy on the Working Man by Travis Tritt
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I plan to listen to this as soon as I get a chance. I’m really hoping that Peter had another coffee date with Jay.
Speaking of which – we were hoping for an update roughly 10 days from the first podcast. Any word, yet?
An hour after recording this podcast, Jay joined me for an episode of Uncommon Knowledge. Jay reported the fascinating results of his coronavirus testing here in Santa Clara County, just published today. The Blue Yeti tells me we’ll have that show up by the end of the day Pacific time.
Good show, even if Peter ditched out early.
And Dr. Bhattacharya will be back on the podcast next week.
Man is born free, and everywhere he is in lockdown. –With apologies to Rousseau
Top of my head guess, Rob was describing a spin coater.
Seems odd to me somehow that the Post Of The Week first appeared April 12, had 22 comments in 2 days, and nothing since then.
Regarding dangerous machines, I… appreciated the story, maybe it was in GLoP but I don’t remember, about the huge paper-cutting machine. Despite repeated training and multiple warnings and the need to use both hands to operate it, one guy still managed to lose a hand. The owner of the business, I think it was, decided that the resulting blood stains in the business would not be cleaned up. Apparently there were no further incidents.
Lileks nailed it. It is scientism.
I used to used to operate one of those cutting machines. It would take a lot of foolish stupidity to do this accident.
Of course, whenever something is made idiot-proof, the universe creates a better idiot.
It reads like pretty good news to me, but I am very interested in his take. I could see that information being used to support a few different (and maybe even opposite) conclusions for what we need to do moving forward.
The WB short Rob was trying to remember is The Abominable Snow Rabbit (1961). The genius of Mel Blanc is here:
The UK is uploading to YouTube as I am typing this. Will be on Ricochet within in the hour.
Here’s the episode of Uncommon Knowledge that Jay and I recorded at midday today.
Peter, I have an honest question for you and I hope you will answer it. Do you think that Dr Fauci understands the dangers of a shutdown economy and massive unemployment?
I love listening to the podcast every week, but lately your reaction to the COVID-19 lock downs has been a little worrying. I understand your frustration. I live in Wisconsin where our Governor simply repeats that he’s “following the science” as if it is some kind of magical incantation. I have no faith that he has a plan for ending this and wish he would work with business leaders to get a plan in place. No one wants this to continue, right?
I trust Dr. Fauci and Dr. Birx, as well as Scott Gottlieb at AEI and others who know far more than me. I don’t think they are infallible, but I think they are doing the best they can. I don’t think anyone wants this to go on longer than necessary. Shouldn’t we give people in their positions a little grace?
I don’t doubt that Dr. Fauci is a fine human being and an accomplished physician, doing his best. I do doubt that he or any other prominent health officials have engaged in any rigorous analysis of the costs of this shutdown. Cut them slack? If that means wishing them well, then of course. If it means offering them a deferential silence, acquiescing in their judgement without questioning it, then certainly not. They have just thrown more than 20 millions Americans out of work. We’re altogether entitled to ask how thoroughly they have examined the costs–including the costs to our health–that this has imposed on the nation.
Having lived in Barcelona for a summer it always gives me perverse joy to hear people try to correct the pronunciation to make the “c” sound as “th”….well the native language in Barcelona is Catalan and that “c” is pronounced as an “s”…unless you’re a Castilian speaker
Thanks, Peter. I certainly do not suggest silence. Despite my personal distaste for President Trump, I’m glad he is at least pushing to “reopen” the country.
I too am worried about the effect of 20 million unemployed in a matter of weeks. Congress encouraged that result with “unemployment on steroids” and the delay in other relief measures. I think what we need is more of the plans like those put out by the White House. My frustration is that no one is saying what metrics will trigger reopening? What needs to happen and how do we get there? Who is best positioned to answer those questions?
As a person who didn’t complete high school 30 years ago, I took immense pleasure in hearing that both Peter Robinson and James Lileks share a love of Dan Carlin’s Hardcore History as do I. As an Aussie I learned more about WWI in his “Roadmap to Armageddon” podcast series than all the years of my schooling combined. His “King of Kings” and “Supernova in the East” podcasts are also favourites of mine.
Ricochet is great, even people like myself fit in amongst the greats on this site (and thanks to this site I discovered Andrew Klavan too). Thank you for all that you do.
In other words, a foreigner.
Precisely! Castellano Supremacy is a real thing…
I can’t say I follow it very well, but War Room Pandemic has been very critical of the consistency of his rhetoric. They cut him slack until about a week ago, and then they started tearing him apart. The big picture is, they think he tends to over accommodate his audience / his interviewer instead of trying stay on message, and he’s not on guard that most of them want to trip up the Trump administration. They are also now very critical of their explanations of the models they are using.
I forget what day it was, but Dan Proft had a devastating segment on Fauci’s inconsistent rhetoric.
Our system is built on so much debt and so many fixed payments it was absolutely foolish to not have a plan on how to keep the country locked down financially for six weeks of a pandemic. The Fed has to print a ton of money and it has to be stuffed in the right places. You can’t just tell creditors, landlords, banks, and coupon clippers to just suck it up. It’s not going to work.
When is anyone going to do some basic thinking about the ridiculous debt to GDP ratios on this planet? The angles on the charts never get better. There is no way in hell this is progress.
Comrade Attorney General Keith Ellison:
I only caught part of it, but I was listening to Dana Loesch, Friday, and it sounds like they have an OK outline for this. It was pretty specific.
The best guy on the show for technical pandemic stuff is Jack Maxey. He doesn’t talk that much, but he’s a lot more clear and he has very strong, well thought out opinions. If you can catch a long interview of him on YouTube, they are all very good. His interviews on the Zooming In channel are great, but they are dated now.
(Zooming In is very good in general. It’s an anti-CCP journalist that does a very good job interviewing. Another interview I would recommend is her interview with former Representative Dave Brat. That guy is very thoughtful about China. I think he has a long interview with *the guy from Epoc Times* which is even better just because it’s longer. Zooming In might be part of Epoc Times I’m not sure. Another thing I’d recommend is her interview, Simone Gao is her name, at War room Pandemic. Really sharp anti-CCP takes. )
* American Thought Leaders is the name of the podcast. I’ve also seen Dave Bratt’s analysis of the pandemic in the economy on Newsmax. That is also really good.
Did I just hear @jameslileks turn the table this podcast and interrupt @roblong for a transition into an email commercial? (James = 😎?)
Naaah, must be the coronavirus affecting my internet connection…Rob would never let himself get played like that. 🤣
I like Dan Carlin a lot, but listening to the marathons is exhausting, sometimes.
Never Trump was 1000% embarrassing of their criticism of Tom Cotton. They always are. Fools. He’s smart as hell and he’s always very careful with his words.
Taken as a whole, the public health people have been terrible. New York City alone wiped out anything else that was positive. The communication in Minnesota and Ohio has been outrageous. I did not expect this. Those guys have nothing to do except get ready for this event. Horrible.
I heard an Austrian economist talk about trying to not buy from China. It’s really hard in the sense of “I Pencil” if you are familiar with that video. It’s something that has to be more strategically done by Congress and the President. We obviously need to disentangle ourselves from those guys as much as we can, as fast as we can.
One interesting thing about China’s economy. I’m pretty sure that the CCP doesn’t want to start selling stuff to themselves for a long time. This is going to disperse power to individuals too much to keep their fascist nonsense intact. An export economy gives them more control.
As Rob might have said: If you are infected with Covid-19, you’ve got the problems of the average Joe.