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Fear is a powerful driver of public policy. Ordinarily, that is not greatly troubling. We have speed limits, food sanitation laws, and many other regulations based on rational fear of harm. Sometimes in extreme circumstances, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, fear is so pronounced that it leads government officials to declare an emergency, which under …
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During a recent interview on the Joe Rogan Experience, Tesla CEO Elon Musk called recent Wuhan coronavirus shelter-in-place orders “unconstitutional” just days after reports appeared implying that Tesla’s Fremont plant may begin production again soon in violation of lockdown orders. In an appearance on episode number 1,470 of the Joe Rogan Experience podcast, Tesla CEO …
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Renowned Chef Guy Fieri is helping restaurant industry workers get back on their feet during the coronavirus pandemic. When Fieri realized how much out of work restaurant employees were hurting due to the health crisis, he decided to do something about it, according to TMZ. “Boy, I started thinking about my brothers and sisters in …
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Eager to reopen, local officials across Pennsylvania are set to defy Gov. Tom Wolf’s plan to cautiously ease coronavirus restrictions. The governor has outlined a phased reopening plan, complete with a color-coded readiness chart. Wolf announced Friday that 24 more counties have qualified as “yellow,” meaning they can partially reopen Friday, while extending stay-at-home orders for the …
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We stand on the precipice of the greatest economic disaster since the Great Depression. It is associated with the exogenous shock of a novel Coronavirus that originated in Wuhan China and quickly spread into a worldwide pandemic. The sequence of events leading to this crisis, not the virus itself, deserves to be called a “Black Swan.” Biology dictates …
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Cycling, walking, flying and e-scooters are all set to feature among a raft of policy announcements. The government has begun announcing a set of measures to ease the coronavirus lockdown, with a number of changes involving modes of travel among them. Transport Secretary Grant Shapps used Saturday’s Downing Street COVID-19 briefing to unveil plans designed …
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“Closely watched and scrutinized projections by University of Washington researchers nearly doubled the expected number of COVID-19 deaths to about 135,000 by August, based on the easing of social distancing measures,” reports The Wall Street Journal. Not really. That’s just a convenient excuse. The estimate was doubled because it was obviously wrong. At the time of …
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The global luxury goods sector is heading for a stunning collapse of up to 35% this year due to coronavirus lockdowns, according to a new study by the Bain consultancy published Thursday. Bain Partner Claudia D’ Arpizio said it would take two to three years to return to 2019 global sales of around 281 billion …
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As Covid Brings New Repression, Democracies Must Push Back. That authoritarian regimes around the world are exploiting the COVID-19 pandemic to tighten their grip on power is not surprising. Unfortunately, a number of democratic and semi-democratic governments are doing the same thing. Left unchecked, the combined actions could result in terrible damage to democracy and …
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Walter Duranty, the New York Times’s Moscow correspondent from 1922 to 1936, was awarded a Pulitzer Prize for his Russian reporting in the early 1930s. Stalin showered him with amenities — cars, luxury apartments, and mistresses — as well as access. In return, Duranty treated Stalin’s Russia with velvet gloves. In the midst of the 1931-1932 famine that …
Fear is a powerful driver of public policy. Ordinarily, that is not greatly troubling. We have speed limits, food sanitation laws, and many other regulations based on rational fear of harm. Sometimes in extreme circumstances, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, fear is so pronounced that it leads government officials to declare an emergency, which under …
