12 thoughts on “A Cost/Benefit Analysis”

  1. I just listened to the worse of the normally very good Bari Weiss podcasts. She had Josh Rogan (D-WaPo) to discuss how right he was about the lab leak theory and how Zero Hedge was just a “Rooster noting the sun rise”. During the discussion, both the former NYT editorialist and the WaPo reporter noted that the CCP was black mailing the US by threatening to withhold Wuhan made masks if the US didn’t back down from the lab made virus claim. That seems like a story that neither of them covered and was only mentioned in passing during the podcast.

    Who, besides the CCP, made money off mandating masks? Why did our leaders allow us to be blackmailed like this without making it public? I’ll note that a number of noted personalities and companies were quick to call the lab leak theory a lie.

    1. Oh yeah?

      Don’t let this happen to you

      https://www.channel3000.com/state-sen-jacque-reportedly-on-ventilator-as-he-remains-hospitalized/

      Not only is the dude on a ventilator (do they still do that for COVID)? This Madison TV station seems happy that he is ill and getting his just deserts.

      That is the part I don’t want to happen to you. If you wear a mask or take the vaccine, that is your decision, and a person has to balance medical risk against other factors. I just don’t want to see your local TV station appear to be happy that are in that condition.

      1. Notice there are no articles like that about people who wore masks and still got covid and died or got the vax and got hospitalized anyway even though those things happen. Illness is portrayed as a personality failure when the reality is, covid is coming to all of us whether you mask or vax.

        I think being vaccinated gives you your best shot at recovery but covid is here forever. We need to learn how to help our bodies fight it and how best to treat it.

        Dehumanizing people who get it, as if having the right character and demeanor will stop covid is a horrible coping mechanism. The problem is that a lot of the I love science crowd are too simplistic to comprehend the activities they engage in.

  3. I did an analysis like this. Even the second analysis by Reid still implicitly values the whole life at $12m+ when most people are going to earn per capita GDP or less $63k/year 1-2% growth for let’s say 52 years of earnings and 85 years of life for $100k per capita GDP per person while they are working. That will be growing to about $150k per capita in real terms by half way through their careers. So a planning number of $5-7 million is better. Or if you divide 8.4 trillion in wages by 157 million people employed you only get $53k/year. Which is closer to $2.5-3.5 million.

    Furthermore, the data is inconclusive about whether lockdowns reduced morbidity at all. Policies are uncorrelated with deaths. (Non-compliance may be the explanation. Every fourth person in a hotel that required masks on a recent trip had his nose out of his mask. Channeling everyone into grocery stores instead of splitting them up between restaurants, bars and grocery stores may have increased transmission.) Another answer than Reid’s is that lockdowns cost a good fraction of the 8% drop in GDP (~$2 trillion) with nothing to show for it–or worse.

    1. Bugs me that the people who claim masks work haven’t been pushing PR campaigns on how to properly wear a mask, how often to change a mask out, what types of mistakes make your mask worthless, how to store a mask, and what kind of masks actually work.

      Cloth masks are the least effective, so where is the push to get people to wear better masks?

      1. I agree. This thing about kids in school need to wear them. It would be great if schools taught good hygiene and proper use of PPE (outside of birth control, which they will teach in detail). Alas, if you think your child is going to wear a mask properly, then check out their socks.

      2. Forget the masks! Get the little ones into pressure suits! Imagine a whole generation of kids ready to go for space exploration and fully qualified for EVAs as soon as they hit 18!

        I remember reading once that the Air Force loved to enlist farm kids from the mid-west who had grown up around farm machinery doing both operation and maintenance. Their lack of fear and familiarity with heavy machinery made them natural born flyers of jet aircraft.

        Suppose we could do the same for the Space Force?

        ok ok I’m jesting (a little).

        1. For my return to the classroom this Fall, I am told I am issued a “mask fitter.” I had to do some research to find out what the e-mail was even referring to.

          https://making.engr.wisc.edu/mask-fitter/

          It appears only instructors in the College of Engineering are being given these things. Sad.

      3. The people “pushing” masks have been “pushing” a whole lot of other things now, aren’t they?

        I hate the word “push” as shorthand for using political organization or power to force things on people as much as I cannot stand the word “jab” for a medical injection of a vaccine.

        Use of a mask is a visible display of cognitive skills or lack of same, especially when one’s nose is left uncovered or someone is in a store confident of the protection afforded by one of those masks with a valve on the front. Misuse of a mask may be a sign of other habits putting that person at higher risk of getting The Virus and an indicator to minimize one’s own time in a store or other public indoor space.

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