Spurred, presumably, by the prospect of progressives in Joe Biden’s cabinet, James Pethokoukis posts in The Week to provide a scientific explanation of why one of the keystones of the progressive program, the $15/hour minimum wage, is not a good idea:

There is nothing obscene, morally or otherwise, about all aspects of society coming together to bear the burden of making sure lower-skill workers don’t live in poverty. I know it seems like a simple and smart critique here in the supposed age of “late capitalism.” If only McDonald’s and Wal-Mart would pay workers a “decent wage,” then the fast food and retailing giants could get off the government dole. Or as socialists like to put it: Capitalists offer socialism for companies and wealthy investors — capitalism for the rest of us. But while activists and left-wing politicians might choose to ignore economics, economics won’t be ignored. If workers at a big profitable company only generate $10 an hour of revenue, then the company won’t pay them $15 an hour. A company should not be expected to lose money on a worker, especially to hit a wage number pulled out of thin air by politicians.

The left gets the economics exactly backward. Instead of attacking these companies for employing workers at wages that require them to avail themselves of some government aid, the left should recognize that if these folks weren’t working at a company for a low wage, their entire subsistence would come from the government — and at a much bigger cost. Then there’s this: If Sanders is worried about government subsidizing business, how come he doesn’t view nationalized health-care plans such as “Medicare for all” as one massive subsidy for business by totally relieving them of that responsibility toward nearly 160 million Americans? Why are wages the problem of business alone, but health care a societal problem?

It’s actually counter-productive if your objective helping people but it’s very productive indeed if your object is to make more people clients of the state. It’s the sort of policy that makes people wonder about motives.

Economics is, indeed, a science but it operates under some handicaps. While it can tell you the general contours of the effects of a policy, it can’t tell you when the effects will appear or how great they will be. Still, everyone is apparently a science denier when it’s their ox being gored.

Mr. Pethokoukis himself doesn’t take the rather obvious next step. The problem we’re facing is not just that jobs don’t pay enough but that the jobs that are being created are preponderantly low wage jobs. For decades my critique has been that for at least the last 30 years we have had a policy mismatch. Educational policy has favored college educations but, seeing a nearly unlimited supply of workers with limited English and few marketable skills, businesses have exploited that supply to focus on niches they would not otherwise and to substitute low wage manual labor for more skilled, educated labor, possibly using machines. I fight this battle with libertarians and progressives alike.

The news outlets are full of reports that Joe Biden will appoint Antony Blinken as Secretary of State. I don’t have any comments on that other than to observe that Mr. Blinken does not seem to be a Susan Rice or a Samantha Power. As far as I can tell he’s more a realist than than they and not a proponent of the “responsbility to protect” which I see as a license for unending unjust war.

On the one hand his appointment will bolster the argument that the Biden Administration will be driven more by competency than the Trump Administration has. On the other his appointment probably will not satisfy the progressive wing of the Democratic Party. And he’s clearly a member in good standing of “the Borg” as some term it.

Comments? I mean other than the obvious comment about chickens and hatching.

I found this study interesting so I thought I’d pass it along. You can find the actual study published at Nature.

Researchers at Stanford University have developed a computer model to predict the spread of COVID-19 in cities:

The study traced the movements of 98 million Americans in 10 of the nation’s largest metropolitan areas through half a million different establishments, from restaurants and fitness centers to pet stores and new car dealerships.

The team included Stanford PhD students Serina Chang, Pang Wei Koh and Emma Pierson, who graduated this summer, and Northwestern University researchers Jaline Gerardin and Beth Redbird, who assembled study data for the 10 metropolitan areas. In population order, these cities include: New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Dallas, Washington, D.C., Houston, Atlanta, Miami, Philadelphia and San Francisco.

SafeGraph, a company that aggregates anonymized location data from mobile applications, provided the researchers data showing which of 553,000 public locations such as hardware stores and religious establishments people visited each day; for how long; and, crucially, what the square footage of each establishment was so that researchers could determine the hourly occupancy density.

The researchers analyzed data from March 8 to May 9 in two distinct phases. In phase one, they fed their model mobility data and designed their system to calculate a crucial epidemiological variable: the transmission rate of the virus under a variety of different circumstances in the 10 metropolitan areas. In real life, it is impossible to know in advance when and where an infectious and susceptible person come in contact to create a potential new infection. But in their model, the researchers developed and refined a series of equations to compute the probability of infectious events at different places and times. The equations were able to solve for the unknown variables because the researchers fed the computer one, important known fact: how many COVID-19 infections were reported to health officials in each city each day.

Read the whole thing. I’ve reproduced a graph illustrating how their model fits with Chicago’s actual results at the top of the post. I found their approach interesting for a number of reasons. First, it relies on source data capture for data which I regard as more reliable than interviews. Second, their model relies on just three variables: where people go in the course of a day, how long they linger; and how crowded the places get at one time. In short behavior is a major predictor of the number of cases of COVID-19.

This is both good news and bad news. The good news is that, as mentioned in the article, using their model would allow policy-makers to craft policies with more granularity than the present meat-axe, one size fits all approach. The bad news is that, although you can limit capacities in places of business you cannot similarly ensure that businesses can turn a profit under those capacity limitations. The underlying problem may simply be cities with high rents.

28 manufacturers of electric vehicles (EVs) have banded together to form a consortium called the Zero Emission Transportation Association (ZETA) calling for 100% of vehicle sales to be EVs by 2030:

Twenty-eight companies in the electric vehicle industry, including big names like Tesla, Lucid, and Rivian, have joined forces to create a new organization called ZETA, with the goal to push for 100% electric vehicle sales by 2030.

Several markets have recently announced plans to move new car sales to electric vehicles only.

These initiatives, also referred to as bans on the sale of new gasoline-powered vehicles, have taken many forms on different timelines.

Most recently, we saw California move to put in place a plan to ban new gasoline-powered vehicle sales by 2035.

Now, 28 companies in the electric vehicle business are asking for an even bigger goal to be put in place: 100% electric vehicle sales throughout the light-, medium-, and heavy-duty sectors by 2030.

I would have a lot more confidence in the group and their objectives if they included Toyota, Ford, GM, or VW which account for most vehicle sales in the U. S. and don’t have such a huge stake in increased subsidies for EVs.

I have questions.

1. Presently, EVs account for about 2% of vehicle sales (the most ever). Using present technology, can that be scaled up to meet the target? Include evidence.
2. If it can’t be accomplished with present technology, what advances will be required to meet the target?
3. What will the environmental impact of that increase in EVs be?
4. It takes about 20 years to turn over the entire fleet. How much electricity will need to be generated by 2050 to satisfy the newly-electric vehicle fleet?
5. Using present technology, how can that much electricity be produced and what are its material requirements?
6. If it cannot be achieved using present technology, what advances will be required to meet the target?
7. What will the environmental impact of that increase in power generation be?

I’m skeptical to say the least. I doubt they can scale up to producing 20 million EVs per year with or without subsidies. And I don’t think the power generation requirements can be met without nukes.

At Foreign Policy Mustafa Aykol remarks on French President Macron’s recent comments and the response to them from various Muslim countries:

“Islam is a religion that is in crisis all over the world today.” That is what the French President Emmanuel Macron said on Oct. 2, while announcing his “anti-radicalism plan.” Just two weeks later, on Oct. 16, a devotee of that radicalism killed and beheaded a high-school teacher, Samuel Paty, in a Paris suburb, merely for showing the infamous cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad in his classroom. And soon after, three worshippers at a church in Nice were savagely murdered by another terrorist who seemed to have the same motivation: to punish blasphemy against the prophet of Islam.

In return, the French authorities initiated a crackdown on anything they deemed to be Islamism, and also projected the controversial cartoons of Prophet Muhammad on government buildings in France—only to provoke mass protests in various parts of the Muslim world.

All these events have initiated an ongoing debate about France, Islam, and freedom. Some in the West now see France as the beacon of Enlightenment values against the dark forces of religious fanaticism. Others argue that the main problem is Islamophobia, racism and the colonial arrogance of France in a world where—except for a handful of extremists—Muslims are the real victims.

As a Muslim who has been writing about these issues for about two decades, let me offer a more nuanced view: First, France—like any target of terrorism—deserves sympathy for its fallen and solidarity against the threat. Moreover, Macron is largely correct that Islam is facing a “crisis”—not “all over world,” but certainly in some parts of the world—and we Muslims need an honest conversation about that. Unfortunately, Macron is doing little to resolve this crisis and could actually be inflaming it, because the sort of freedom he claims to defend is full of painful shortcomings and cynical double standards.

and

Although Macron says the target of laïcité is not Islam, but only “Islamism,” the latter term is left quite vague in his rhetoric. In practice, it’s not vague at all. In France it has long been obvious that personal Muslim practices are targeted: For many years, Muslim women in France have been banned from wearing headscarves in public buildings, or so-called burkinis on beaches. Last September, a French politician from Macron’s party protested a young French Muslim woman for merely walking into the National Assembly while wearing a headscarf. And, in October, the French interior minister even took issue with halal food aisles in supermarkets—and kosher ones, too, signaling a threat to the religious freedom of just not Muslims, but other practicing believers as well.

In other words, what France requires from its Muslims is not just accepting the freedom of speech of blasphemers, but also giving up a part of their own freedom of religion. This is not only wrong in principle, but also myopic and counterproductive. It just makes it harder for practicing French Muslims to feel respected, accepted, and therefore fully French—precisely the sort of integration radical Islamists would like to avert.

Since his piece touches on a number of topics I’ve remarked on myself over the years, I thought I would bring it to your attention.

Let’s put his observations in context. Whether saying it is taboo to Muslims or not, Islam has been in crisis for most of the last 800 years, since the Mongols sacked Baghdad and effectively ended the Abbasid Caliphate. That provoked an identity crisis from which Islam has never really recovered. In other words, tell me something new.

Second, laïcité, along with the notion of “Frenchness”, its present form being the acceptance of French culture in language, dress, and manners, are foundations of the present French state. In theory at least you can be completely French regardless of race or ethnicity as long as you speak French (properly, of course), dress like the French, and behave like the French.

The issue with this is that it is completely antithetical to certain extremely conservative interpretations of Islam, e.g. Wahhabi view which, unfortunately, have been spread all over the world over the last half century by wealthy Gulf Arabs. I honestly don’t see how these foundations of the French state can be reconciled with Wahhabism but that’s a problem for the French and Muslims to resolve not me.

Third, for years, at least since the attacks on 9/11 presumably well-intentioned Westerners have been saying that Islam needs a Reformation. IMO to say that is to understand neither the Reformation nor Islam. Suffice it to say that what we are seeing presently is Islam’s equivalent to the Reformation. During Christianity’s Reformation Protestants and Catholics fought each other across much of Europe. It’s not something we should long for, especially not with the ease of modern transportation.

Finally, other presumably well-intentioned Westerners have been saying that Islam needs its own Enlightenment and there are echoes of that in Mr. Aykol’s piece but to say that is neither to understand the Enlightenment nor Islam. Islam had its Enlightenment several hundred years before Christianity’s own Enlightenment. It was ended when Baghdad was sacked by the Mongols in 1258 and it resulted in Islam becoming much more fundamentalist than it had been before. There are no do-overs.

All animals communicate among each other in some fashion. It may be by making sounds, gestures, or even very involved behaviors such as the dances of bees but it’s communication nonetheless. One of the differences between human language and the communication of animals is that using human language it’s possible to make utterances that have no referents, that is that do not actually refer to any observable phenomena.

Lately I have seen a lot of complaints about Trumpism. Other than support of Donald Trump, what is it? Does it have a referent?

As I have said before I think that Trump is completely transactional in his approach and employs a decision function that utterly baffles me. That makes me suspect that Trumpism is so closely involved with the person of Donald Trump that it is unlikely to have a referent other than support of Trump.

Much is being made these days of Joe Biden’s having received nearly 80 million votes in the election. Trump has apparently received nearly 74 million. If being the president of all Americans or reconciliation have any referents themselves, wouldn’t they mean treating both those who voted for Biden and those who voted for Trump with equal consideration?

Just for the record I do not support Donald Trump. I have never voted for him and do not intend to. I do not think he has been a good president. I do not support Trumpism whatever it might be but, then, I also do not support Obamaism, Bushism, Clintonism, or Reaganism if those have any referents.

I’m not entirely sure whether this piece from Politico by John F. Harris is a book review of President Obama’s latest book or an analysis of his presidency. Whatever its intention this passage caught my attention:

It would be hard to argue—without being tendentiously ideological or partisan—that Obama was not at least a good president. He coolly handled an economic crisis that, if poorly handled, would have been catastrophic, followed through on his promise to expand health care access to millions of people, ordered the raid that killed Osama bin Laden.

It is not hard, though, to construct an argument that in historical terms he is something of a shrug. Of his signature achievement, it is at best a transition. Democrats are divided between believing the Affordable Care Act was only a good start and needs to be expanded significantly (Joe Biden) and those who believe it should be scrapped and replaced with Medicare for All (most progressives to Biden’s left). He was stymied in his plans to lead a far-reaching response to climate change, and went from calling in a major Prague speech in 2009 for the eventual abolition of nuclear weapons to witnessing an effective new Cold War with Russia, complete with an expensive new plan to modernize the nuclear arsenal. The unique circumstances of his multi-racial upbringing gave him special ability to understand America’s racial and class divisions. But these divisions seemed to become only more raw during his time. Far from transforming politics, he was succeeded by Donald Trump—his opposite in values, temperament and aspirations for the country and its place in the world.

My own view of the Obama presidency echoes the song lyrics:

You had one eye in the mirror
As you watched yourself gavotte

He was overly concerned about how he’d appear in the history books and not enough interest in the retail politics that is necessary to do the job of being president. When he left office the Democratic party was in disarray. An entire generation of Democratic politicians had been swept from office, particularly at the state level, a situation that persists today.

I encourage you to read Thomas Wright’s piece at The Atlantic in which he attempts to outline a prospective Biden foreign policy. He starts by comsidering the stakes:

Biden cannot simply rely on competent technocratic management in foreign policy. His presidency may be the establishment’s last best chance to demonstrate that liberal internationalism is a superior strategy to populist nationalism. He must consider the strategic options generated by an ideologically diverse team, and he has to make big choices that are attuned to the politics of the moment, in the United States and around the world. Such a bold path is not one that a newly elected president with no foreign-policy experience could take. But he can.

The challenge that the Biden Administration faces is that, while liberal internationalism has been a roaring success for countries like Germany and China who advocate it for others without adopting it themselves and for the handful of people in the U. S. who are positioned to garner benefits for themselves and their families from it, it’s been a complete flop for most Americans who find themselves increasingly burdened with educational debt and confronted by a dearth of jobs that pay enough to pay off that debt. He continues by outlining the contours of the debate:

Within Biden’s team, an ongoing, but largely overlooked, debate has been brewing among Democratic centrists about the future of U.S. foreign policy. One group, which I call “restorationist,” favors a foreign policy broadly consistent with that of President Barack Obama. They believe in careful management of the post–Cold War order. They are cautious and incrementalist. They will stand up to China but will not want to define their strategy as a great power competition. They maintain high hopes for bilateral cooperation with Beijing on climate change, global public health, and other issues. They support Biden’s idea for a summit of democracies, aimed at repairing democracy and encouraging cooperation, but are wary of an ideological competition between democracy and authoritarianism. They favor a return to the Iran nuclear deal and intend to continue to play America’s traditional role in the Middle East. They generally support free-trade deals and embrace globalization.

A second group, which I call “reformist,” challenges key orthodoxies from the Obama era. Philosophically, these advisers believe that U.S. foreign policy needs to fundamentally change if it is to deal with the underlying forces of Trumpism and nationalist populism. They are more willing than restorationists to take calculated risks and more comfortable tolerating friction with rivals and problematic allies. They see China as the administration’s defining challenge and favor a more competitive approach than Obama’s. They view cooperation with other free societies as a central component of U.S. foreign policy, even if those partnerships result in clashes with authoritarian allies that are not particularly vital. They want less Middle East involvement overall and are more willing to use leverage against Iran and Gulf Arab states in the hopes of securing an agreement to replace the Iran nuclear deal. They favor significant changes to foreign economic policy, focusing on international tax, cybersecurity and data sharing, industrial policy, and technology, rather than traditional free-trade agreements.

This comment puzzled me somewhat:

Cooperation with China on shared interests should occur, but we need to be realistic about the limits.

I understand the limits; what I don’t understand is what the shared interests are. It might have been helpful had he outlined what he expects from agreements with China on the two issues he mentioned: climate change and global public health. To date the Chinese have been the biggest offenders in both areas and very little has materialized from their previous agreements other than press releases. He makes no mention of China’s violation of the human rights of its own citizens, traditionally a focus of Democratic administrations.

I also think that he fails to understand the zero-sum approach to foreign policy that China has taken. It is not enough for them to win; we must also lose. How liberal internationalism addresses that is beyond me.

In his latest New York Times column Nikolas Kristof strays dangerously far into heresy:

Some things are true even though President Trump says them.

Trump has been demanding for months that schools reopen, and on that he seems to have been largely right. Schools, especially elementary schools, do not appear to have been major sources of coronavirus transmission, and remote learning is proving to be a catastrophe for many low-income children.

Yet America is shutting schools — New York City announced Wednesday that it was closing schools in the nation’s largest school district — even as it allows businesses like restaurants and bars to operate. What are our priorities?

I think I can answer that question. Primacy is given to the fears of teachers and staff and to what’s easy to administer.

As I pointed out in my post yesterday, the evidence that we should be keeping schools open is mounting. Not only do they not pose enhanced risks, closing them has serious costs as Mr. Kristof notes:

America’s education system already transmits advantage and disadvantage from one generation to the next: Rich kids attend rich schools that propel them forward, and low-income children attend struggling schools that hold them back.

School closures magnify these inequities, as many private schools remain open and affluent parents are better able to help kids adjust to remote learning. At the same time, low-income children fall even further behind.

It would be complicated but it seems to me that there must be some way to coordinate the needs of most students, the needs of students who are at greater risk, and the needs of teachers who are at greater risk. I can understand why administrators wouldn’t like it and unions would oppose it. Sounds like the sort of problem that could be solved with a clever computer program.

Update

More here at City Journal from John Tierney:

For young students, the risk of dying from Covid is lower than the risk of dying from the flu, and researchers have repeatedly found that children do not easily transmit the virus to adults. The clearest evidence comes from Sweden, which did not close elementary schools or junior high schools during the spring Covid wave, and which did not reduce class sizes or encourage students and teachers to wear face masks.

Not a single child died, and there was little effect beyond the schools, as a team of Swedish economists reports after analyzing records of Covid infections and medical treatment for the entire Swedish population. The researchers, from the universities of Stockholm and Uppsala, took advantage of a natural experiment in Sweden by comparing hundreds of thousands of parents at the junior high schools (for students aged 14 to 16), which remained open, against those at the senior high schools, which switched to online instruction for two months in the spring.

There was scant danger from the schools that remained open. The parents at those schools were 15 percent more likely to test positive for the virus than the parents whose children stayed home, but they were no more likely to be treated or hospitalized for Covid. The classroom teachers were twice as likely as the online teachers to test positive, but their infection rate was nonetheless lower than the rate among parents at either type of school. Just 0.2 percent of the classroom teachers were hospitalized for Covid, lower than the rate among parents. The Swedish researchers suggest additional protections for classroom teachers, like encouraging them to start wearing masks or allowing the older, more vulnerable ones to teach online. But after calculating that a closure of all the junior high schools would have reduced the Swedish national rate of Covid infection by a mere 1 percent, the economists conclude that closing schools is “not a particularly effective way” to stop the spread of the virus.