Ethics and Human Challenge Trial

The discussion here, lead me to following thoughts.

 I think the key with human challenge trial is that the people infected would be volunteers.

Unlike Bernie Sanders, I do not think that letting someone die is equal to killing them. 

Unlike Bernie Sanders, I do not think reducing taxes on the rich is giving money to the rich. 

Though I support a UBI, unlike Bernie Sanders,  I do not think not taxing people and giving the money to people less rich is equal to inflicting poverty on them.

Unlike Bernie Sanders, I do not think not providing healthcare to people is equal to denying them healthcare. Though it might make sense to provide cheap stuff like vaccinations and many other very high bang for the bucks (trauma care infant care, some meds) things paid for through taxes, BUT at our discretion.

Gruber Video on Healthcare

Gruber video on healthcare.

He starts with the difference in white and black infant mortality and blames it on healthcare access, but he ignores that a black baby born in the USA at 31 week of gestation or less is more likely to survive than a white baby at the same gestation.  See table 2 page 9 here.

Hispanic babies have about the same survival rates as white babies.
USA babies survive to 1 month as much as EU born babies.
It does not look like healthcare.

Also there are important differences between a tax and health insurance premium.

BTW According the US census, at over 90 years (see table 103) so it does not look like overall differences in life expectancy are mostly due to access to healthcare. Also the 8 America's study would give a little evidence of that also.

Scott Sumner's most Right Wing Positions

I love them all: 

Scott Sumner's most Right Wing Positions

Once we have CBDCs, my anti-FDIC view will no longer be my most right wing opinion. And after Covid, I’m not sure my abolish the FDA view is all that right wing. Abolish the public school system? The teachers unions are already hard at work on that objective. Abolish zoning laws and allow nuclear waste dumps right next to residential housing? Heck, even Matt Yglesias seems sorta OK with that idea. Abolish the minimum wage? Some of the Nordic countries don’t even have one. Privatize fire departments? Denmark got there first.

More Statistical Ignorance

More statistical ignorance from here.

In a 2015 YouGov survey, respondents reckoned that 32 percent of Democrats are LGBT, 29 percent are atheists or agnostics, and 39 percent belong to unions; the right figures are really 6, 9, and 11 percent, respectively. Meanwhile, they estimated that 38 percent of Republicans earn over $250,000 per year, 39 percent are over age 65, and 42 percent are evangelicals; actually, just 2 percent earn that much, 21 percent are senior citizens, and 34 percent are evangelicals.

Look how far off people's beliefs are from reality.

Blessed are You Poor

People are low income for many reasons on one hand things like bad health, lack of valuable talent for earning money etc. and many other's but also for sloth and criminality (crime usually does not pay very well), inability to work with others etc.  

I see dichotomy when I consider the contrast between the story of the good Samaritan, were the man who is poor, is only temporarily poor because he was robbed and hero really helps in a bog way in contrast to the verse below which to me implies a chronic problem but that we are called to continually tend to. 

Matt 26:11 The poor you will always have with you, but you will not always have me.

That is why it seems like amazing grace to me that Jesus says:

Luke 7:20 Blessed are you poor, for yours is the kingdom of God.

God has a grace for you, it seems, even if most of you poverty is self inflicted. 

I like to link to this to make a point that if you take the group of people who are poor for religious reasons they do not produce children whose average behavior is not similar to the average behavior of other poor people, who often bring poverty upon themselves through things like crime and pride, nevertheless it seems clear to me that we should help them and long term. 

All the more amazing Gods grace. 

One might point to:

2 Thess 3:10 KJV: For even when we were with you, this we commanded you, that if any would not work, neither should he eat.

So if a healthy man refuses to do any work he should not eat, nevertheless I think we are to help the poor even when self inflicted. Maybe in the case men we should provide work that the can an will do.

There are the deserving poor and the not so deserving poor, help them both.

Grace, grace, grace.

Links:

Why Do the Poor Commit More Crime?

Household Poverty and Nonfatal Violent Victimization, 2008-2012

Freddie DeBoer agreeing with Arnold Kling, Bryan Caplan and Me

Here is communist Freddie DeBoer agreeing with Libertarians; Arnold Kling, Bryan Caplan and me on school quality:

Indeed, I am on record as saying that I don’t think there’s really such a thing as school quality, and that while teacher quality may be a real and meaningful variable it is likely confounded to hell and there may be interaction effects. 

There are not a significant number (more than 0.1%) of schools in the developed world that are significantly (10%) worse that the rest. We could save a lot of money if we admit that. You could use the saving to help the poorest among us if you chose.

Crime and Poverty

William Barr, William Scott Dwyer, and Patrick Fagan all agree that poverty is not a cause of crime (5; ÒPart 2Ó, 1; 3). Poverty does not directly cause crime; instead, it is a factor in the cause but, independently, it is not the root source (Barr 5). During the Great Depression, poverty levels were much higher than they are today, but crime actually declined (Barr 5; Fagan 3). From the mid-sixties to the mid-seventies, income was on the rise and crime moved right along with it (Fagan 3; Dwyer Part 21). In 1990, the income level was much higher than in was in 1903, but the murder rate in 1990 was ten times higher than the murder rate in 1903, which was at 1 per 1000 inhabitants (Dwyer Part 21)

Another argument presented by Barr and Dwyer, inverts the poverty/crime relationship by stating that crime actually causes poverty. One of the premises for this argument focuses on businesses and how crime deters potential employers from establishing them (Barr 2; Dwyer ÒCrime and Poverty, Part 1Ó). One reason for this is that crime against a business reduces revenue, raising prices in impoverished neighborhoods because merchants have to make up for any losses caused by theft. These high prices also suppress the standard of living in the community, as the income in the community cannot keep pace with the rise in prices. Blacks living in high crime areas suffer from poverty because they pay higher prices for food and other goods than do whites in neighborhoods with less crime (Dwyer ÒCrime and

Poverty, Part 1Ó). Crime also decreases the likelihood that an area sees improvement; Barr describes a Òsmall contractor who tried to rehabilitate inner-city housing for low income tenants. He had to give up because drug addicts would break in, rip out his improvements, and sell them for drug moneyÓ (2). 

Links:

The Cause of Crime, Anthony Holtzman Escareno

Household Poverty and Nonfatal Violent Victimization, 2008-2012A 

Village With the Numbers, Not the Image, of the Poorest Place