Neither voters nor politicians watch the bureaucracy very carefully, so they respond as one might expect—advancing their own and their favorites' interests, at the expense of the public they are supposedly working for.
Americans were once harangued by government "experts" about the need to slow down on highways in order to save lives. Few listened. Today, laws demanding everyone "stay at home" may suffer a similar fate.
The 1958 pandemic killed twice as many people as COVID-19 has so far. Yet, the economy in 2020 has collapsed far worse than either in 1958 or the far worse pandemic of 1918.
In theory, it is possible to adjust inflation measures to account for the many constant changes in prices resulting from changing demand, quality, and innovations. But it's essentially impossible to execute these adjustments accurately.
Some claim "the rich" will be fine—or even better off—after the COVID panic destroys the economy for most of us. But there's a problem: the wealthy depend heavily on an economy fueled by the production and consumption of all workers and entrepreneurs.
Accad and Koka interview Eric Weinhandl, an epidemiologist whose investigation of a JAMA paper on dialysis patients led to its retraction—and subsequent republication. They also discuss the field of epidemiology during the COVID pandemic.
Media outlets, both left and right, are mostly narrative driven. Also, journalists have a tendency to lazily reprint whatever "experts" say. This makes media reporting thoroughly unreliable.
Accad, Koka, and guests discuss the controversies surrounding the COVID-related opinions and research findings of John. P.A. Ioannidis, the notorious Stanford data scientist and physician.
