Terrence Iverson, Larry Karp, and Alessandro Peri: Optimal Social Distancing and the Economics of Uncertain Vaccine Arrival

I am pleased to be able to share a guest post by my University of Colorado Boulder colleague Alessandro Peri and his coauthors Terrence Iverson and Larry Karp. Below are their words:

Amid the surging COVID-19 pandemic, governments over the past year have faced a difficult policy choice: How much and for how long should they restrict economic activities that cause the virus to spread? From an economic perspective, these lockdown (or social-distancing) policies should balance the economic costs of restricting mobility against the resulting benefit of reduced mortality costs.

A crucial source of uncertainty in this type of analysis is the time needed to develop (and distribute) a vaccine.  While the U.S. ended up approving a vaccine a mere eleven months after the start of the pandemic, the prospects for rapid development were initially murky at best.  In Spring 2020, most experts viewed a one-and-a-half to three year horizon as plausible, and some worried that COVID-19 could turn out to be a disease, like AIDS or the common cold, for which a vaccine would ultimately prove elusive. 

How should policymakers respond to increased optimism about the early arrival of a vaccine? Should it strengthen social distancing policy or weaken it?  To answer this question, we need an adequate model of disease contagion. A widely-used workhorse from epidemiology, now familiar to many economists, is the Susceptible-Infected-Recovered (SIR) model.  It describes how individuals move from being initially susceptible to the virus, to becoming infected, to recovering and developing immunity or dying. 

We use a standard SIR model to show that an earlier expected arrival time for a vaccine can either increase or decrease optimal social distancing, depending on assumptions.  The ambiguity arises because social distancing has two effects: it lowers the stock of infected (a benefit), but it also increases the stock of susceptible who remain vulnerable to future infection (a liability). We refer to the future benefits associated with a reduction in the stock of infected as the “infection channel” and the future liability associated with an increase in susceptible as the “susceptible channel”.  The infection channel causes an earlier expected arrival time to increase optimal social distancing, while the susceptible channel has the opposite effect.

The net effect on policy of the vaccine’s uncertain arrival depends on which of the two channels dominates. Relatively high policy cost or relatively low mortality cost lead to an optimal path for the economy in which infections stay moderately high.  When this happens, the susceptible channel dominates, and an earlier expected arrival time increases optimal social distancing.  Our best guess about the most plausible model assumptions to describe the situation in the United States in early 2021 falls into this category.  An important implication is that U.S. policymakers should restrict economic activities now more than ever since distribution of a vaccine is imminent. 

But there are also plausible settings, e.g. with relatively low social distancing  cost or relatively high mortality cost, where an earlier expected vaccine arrival time makes optimal social distancing policy weaker. In these circumstances, the optimal path of the economy keeps infections low, and the infection channel dominates.  In the U.S., parameters consistent with this relationship may have been plausible early in the pandemic, especially if policy response had been effectively coordinated at the federal level.  Now that U.S. infections are widespread and to a large degree out of control, that situation is implausible. In countries where infection levels have been consistently kept low, including China, Vietnam, and New Zealand, this description of the world is realistic. 

Figure 1: Dots indicate  average infection rate over the first year under two assumptions about  mean arrival time:  52 weeks  on the horizontal axis and 182 weeks  on the vertical axis.   The blue color indicates that a later expected vaccine arrival lowers optimal social distancing. The red color indicates the opposite.

Our paper uses both analytical models (paper-and-pencil math) and numerical models (solved with a computer) to develop the intuition above.  Figure 1 illustrates a key feature of the relation between the level of social distancing policy and the expected time of vaccine arrival. We numerically solve our quantitative model for over 1000 combinations of parameters and for two expected vaccine arrival times, 52 weeks and 182. Each dot in Figure 1 shows, for a single combination of parameters, the first-year average infection level when the expected arrival time is 52 weeks (horizontal axis) and 182 weeks (vertical axis). All of the blue points lie above the 45-degree line, indicating that for the corresponding parameters, a later expected arrival time lowers optimal social distancing, thus increasing infections. The red dots lie below the line, indicating that a later expected arrival time increases optimal social distancing, thus lowering infection. More importantly, the red dots are all very close to the origin.   This shows that earlier expected vaccine arrival leads to stricter social distancing (the red dots) only when the optimal level of infection is kept near zero.

The left and right panels of Figure 2 trace the impact of a ten percentage point increase in early social distancing relative to the original optimum, holding future policy fixed. Economists call these graphs “impulse response functions.”  This figure corresponds to the case where the susceptible channel is strong, so that earlier expected vaccine arrival makes optimal policy stricter. The left panel shows that the stricter social distancing substantially lowers deaths in the short-run, followed by a smaller but longer-lasting increase in deaths.  To explain the dynamics, the right panel shows that while infections initially fall (the blue dashed curve), the stock of susceptible rises (the solid black curve). Individuals who avoid infection in the short run also avoid the benefit of developing immunity and hence remain in the susceptible pool. A higher stock of susceptible is fuel for the fire of future infections. Some of this fuel ignites in subsequent periods, leading to a resurgence in infections and deaths.

Figure 2: Impulse response functions associated with a 10 percent increase in initial-period social distancing relative to the optimal path. Simulations for our baseline model.  The mean arrival time is 156 weeks.

In addition to studying the impact of vaccine arrival beliefs on optimal social distancing, we also use our quantitative model to evaluate recent proposals to move quickly to herd immunity.  We focus on a best-case version of the Great Barrington(“GB”) Declaration, which attracted considerable interest from the Trump administration in late fall 2020.  The proposal encourages governments to focus policy effort on protecting the most vulnerable, while encouraging others to return to normal lives. 

When vaccine arrival remains far off, the proposal might not look too bad.  Indeed, if mean vaccine arrival time is two years, the proposal performs about as well as optimal uniform policy (though still about two trillion dollars worse than optimal targeted policy).[1]  But if vaccine arrival is immanent—as it is in early 2021—then the policy is catastrophic.  With a mean arrival time of six months, 520 thousand more of the vulnerable group (65 and over) die, 380 thousand more of the less vulnerable group (under 65) die, and aggregate (economic + mortality) costs exceeds three trillion dollars.  The assertion in the Great Barrington Declaration that moving quickly to herd immunity will protect the vulnerable is disastrously wrong: the vulnerable cannot be protected when infection levels are allowed to run extremely high.

[1] Targeted policy requires more vulnerable groups to adhere to stricter social distancing; uniform policy imposes the same level of social distancing on all groups, regardless of their risk factors.

George Monbiot on the Role of Food Companies in Making Us Fat

In his Guardian article “We’re in a new age of obesity. How did it happen? You’d be surprised,” George Monbiot points to beach pictures to dramatize how much less people used to weigh than they do now. “Why are we fatter now?” he asks, then argues, based on data, that it is not because we are eating more calories or doing less physical activity.

Why then do we way more? George Monbiot points to what we are eating now: processed foods specifically designed to overcome our willpower—most often by a high sugar content. I think that is an important mechanism, but would point to one more he doesn’t mention: we have made it a norm for people to eat throughout the day, from soon after waking up to shortly before going to sleep.

One of the cruelest things is that after food companies do everything they can to design food to overcome our willpower—and of course, encourage us to eat all day long—they then blame us for getting fat. Here is how George Monbiot says it:

As Jacques Peretti argued in his film The Men Who Made Us Fat, food companies have invested heavily in designing products that use sugar to bypass our natural appetite control mechanisms, and in packaging and promoting these products to break down what remains of our defences, including through the use of subliminal scents. They employ an army of food scientists and psychologists to trick us into eating more than we need, while their advertisers use the latest findings in neuroscience to overcome our resistance.

They hire biddable scientists and thinktanks to confuse us about the causes of obesity. Above all, just as the tobacco companies did with smoking, they promote the idea that weight is a question of “personal responsibility”. After spending billions on overriding our willpower, they blame us for failing to exercise it.

Cognitive, financial and social resources help some in resisting the willpower-overcoming power highly designed and processed foods. This means that the efforts of food companies to maximize temptation that leads to metabolic dysregulation especially hurt the poor, seriously exacerbating inequality. Here is George Monbiot again:

… obesophobia is often a fatly-disguised form of snobbery. In most rich nations, obesity rates are much higher at the bottom of the socioeconomic scale. They correlate strongly with inequality, which helps to explain why the UK’s incidence is greater than in most European and OECD nations. The scientific literature shows how the lower spending power, stress, anxiety and depression associated with low social status makes people more vulnerable to bad diets.

Conclusion: Please put purveyors of highly processed food—and especially highly processed food with a high sugar content—in the same category in your mind as tobacco companies. They intentionally confuse issues and to the extent they don’t confuse themselves in the process, they knowingly do evil.

For annotated links to other posts on diet and health, see:

My Sister Sarah

Sarah Camilla Kimball Whisenant (January 14, 1968—January 23, 2021) on the left. Then Joseph, Jordan, Miles, Mary, Paula and Chris.

Sarah Camilla Kimball Whisenant (January 14, 1968—January 23, 2021) on the left. Then Joseph, Jordan, Miles, Mary, Paula and Chris.

My youngest sister Sarah died on January 23, 2021 of complications of a terrible car crash eight days before that. For her funeral, my sisters and brothers and I wrote these tributes in honor of her. I follow those tributes with a life sketch that my sisters-in-law Linda Hoffman Kimball and Rebecca England and my sister Mary crafted.

JOSEPH: Sarah was number 7 in our family’s children, and I was number 6.  There are 22 months between our birthdays.  While most of the year she was “two years” younger, she always enjoyed the two months when she was just “one year” younger.

Sarah and I interacted a lot.  The year I turned eight our family moved to Provo, Utah, to a house on Oak Lane.  Sarah and I had rooms next to each other in the downstairs.

Sarah often wanted to join me and my friends when they came to play, and was disappointed when I said no. I shut her out in other ways, too—often literally. I remember going into my room and putting my foot against the bottom of my door so she couldn’t get in. (The lock didn’t work.)  She would bang on the door and yell at me whatever she had wanted to say.

Though a boundary change sent us to different junior high schools, we spent two years together at Provo High.  By that time, we had become friends.

One time in our teenage years Sarah called me out when I didn’t know the answer to a question and made something up. She said if I didn’t know something, I should admit I didn’t know.  I took that to heart. It made a big impact on my life.

While I was on my mission, Sarah managed apartments a block away from the U of U, and when she went on her mission, I took over the managing from her.  The tenants enjoyed her management.  She also learned a lot about maintenance from our brother-in-law Teryl, who had managed the apartments before her.  She took that hands-on maintenance mindset with her as she remodeled a house on 300 South in Provo and did most of the work herself where she could, and helped the people doing the work when she couldn’t do it by herself. 

Sarah loved being involved in the lives of her nieces and nephews as they grew up.  I was sad that we never lived close enough for her to interact with my children much beyond family gatherings, but she was a highly-involved aunt bringing her particular brand of good cheer to the lives of Paula’s and Mary’s children. 

JORDAN: My sister Sarah would ask so, so, so many questions. When I was younger Sarah's questioning sometimes annoyed me. Over the decades I’ve recognized that her curiosity was a gift. Sarah had an insatiable thirst for the details of our lives and thoughts and opinions of the world at large. Over time I came to believe that in her own way Sarah just wanted to know people as well as she could, with a special attention to family. I recognize it now as one of the ways I can see her love for others, including me.

The day after the terrible freeway accident a couple of weeks ago, I visited Sarah in the intensive care. Sarah had asked that I assist Kevin in giving her a blessing before major surgery to stabilize her fractured spine. Sarah looked so fragile in the ICU bed.  I was grateful she had survived such a violent collision. Her scans showed fractures in her spine, ribs, and ankle. Sarah was lying perfectly flat on her back in the ICU bed, staring at the ceiling unable to move because whenever she did there would be excruciating pain. Her surgery had been delayed so we started visiting, the four of us—Sarah, Mary, Kevin, and I.  We started talking about memories of growing up. Our relationship with our parents. When Sarah seemed to slow down Mary and started to talk about Mary’s kids and my kids.  I stayed and talked and talked, hoping the conversation would be just what Sarah would find interesting and a comforting distraction. That evening when I arrived home I realized that I’d been at the hospital for 5 hours.

During that visit I told Sarah I looked forward to post pandemic times, when we could gather again as family. Family meant everything to Sarah. The same attention she devoted to me and Rebecca and our three children, she devoted to everyone in our large extended family, especially our parents, Ed and Bee. She was the aunt that remembered birthdays, made piñatas too sturdy to break, celebrated milestones, assisted with home improvements, joined in hikes, made time to listen. I told Sarah two Saturdays ago I thought of her as a Keeper of Memories, that I counted on her to share her insights gained from close attention to people’s lives.

I’m devastated over losing Sarah and that those anticipated conversations with her will never happen in this life. I loved you, Sarah. Thank you for loving me and my family and asking so many questions.

MILES: Since her death last Saturday, I have been thinking about the qualities Sarah and I shared, but in which she surpassed me. Sarah was preternaturally cheerful. She was curious about everything, and willing to try almost anything. She was outgoing and made friends easily. She cared about doing the right thing in realms that matter, but she was a free spirit because she cared remarkably little about what anyone else thought of her in all the areas that don’t matter. Above all, Sarah was always herself and never tried to be anyone else. In a world full of tortured souls plagued by self-doubt, Sarah instead found the straightforward enjoyment each day offered.

Many of us take one role or another as a cog in the great machine of society. Sarah was never a cog. She stood outside of the machine, while offering kindness to those who are a part of it. I can hardly ever remember her angry. She was happy to accept each of us just as we are and treat each human being as a wonderful mystery.

MARY: Sarah was always doing good.

Sarah reminded me several times recently of a thing I did for her when she was about seven years old.

In Madison, Wisconsin, we lived in Mother’s dream house—a Tudor, with three bedrooms—a bedroom each for parents, boys, and girls. However, one of Mother’s goals for her family was for each of her children to have his or her own bedroom. Mother and Dad squeezed two additional bedrooms out of the basement furnace room. When Sarah (child number seven) was born, Chris and Paula each had a basement bedroom, three boys shared a room, and Sarah and I shared another. When Sarah was five, the family moved to Utah where the typical Utah ranch home has three bedrooms upstairs and three down: a total of six bedrooms. 

Chris moved out for college. Paula graduated early from high school and went to live with friends at community college. Mother could reach her goal for her children. Now each child could have an “own room.”  

Soon, however, Paula moved home to attend BYU. Mother expressed aloud her sadness that two of her children would now need to share a room. Sarah reminded me several times recently that that’s when I piped up and volunteered to share a room with her, my baby sister.

Sarah told me my offer was a defining moment in her life—an older sister accepting a little sister into her space. I tried to clarify that I was not trying to be nice but that I seriously would rather have not been alone. It was Sarah doing me a favor.

All these years she has continued to cling to the thought I was serving her when really she was blessing me.

That’s Sarah.

PAULA: Sarah was full of love and life. She always had enough love to give anyone and everyone. She loved each person individually and so many as a group. Sarah was like the energizer bunny. She enjoyed people, nature, activities, crafts and a bewildering array of other interests. She had an appreciation for everything and everyone around her and wanted to do her part to make things even better.  

After I had back surgery, I went to stay at my Dad’s house where Sarah took care of me in addition to caring for Dad. That meant extra laundry, cooking and help with all the other things I couldn’t do for myself then.

Sarah loved family. She was there with us creating memories of many special times.

The day before her accident she turned 53. We got together as sisters and had a good time celebrating with her and just being with each other.

I will miss Sarah.

CHRIS: My little sister Sarah was 5 years old when I went off to college. I barely remember her as a baby and a toddler. It was more than 20 years later when I got to know Sarah. After college, and her mission, in the mid-1990s, she came out to Massachusetts to live with us for a year. She quickly became a beloved aunt to my three children and an always-cheerful member of the household. 

I was always suspicious that at first Sarah felt like a naive small-town girl in the big city. But she quickly made friends in the single adult ward and gained confidence in herself. It seemed to me that was an important time for Sarah to become convinced that there was not just one way to be a modern Mormon woman, but room for all types and especially for her to be just the way she wanted to be.

Because of that time in Belmont, Massachusetts, I got to be a big brother again. Sarah would call to process family events and to share things that mattered to her. I am waiting for her call now. 

Life Sketch

Sarah Camilla Kimball Whisenant (1968 – 2021)

Sarah Camilla Kimball arrived on January 14, 1968, in Madison, Wisconsin, during the turbulent Viet Nam War era. Hers was somewhat of a celebrity birth. The interns at the hospital flocked to witness what they had never seen before – the birth of a 7th child! Evelyn Bee Madsen and Edward Lawrence Kimball happily welcomed Sarah into their family with her 6 siblings - Christian, Paula (Gardner), Mary (Dollahite), Miles, Jordan, and Joseph.

Sarah spent her first five years in Madison in the affectionate company of her parents and siblings. With them she climbed trees, made mazes with raked leaves, fed ducks, and ice skated on a little frozen pond her father created at the beginning of the winter freeze.

In 1973 Sarah and her family moved to Utah – first to Mapleton, then to Provo. There Sarah’s kindness and sunny temperament blossomed. Her many friendships flourished in the neighborhood and schools. She graduated from Provo High School in 1986. Sarah studied at what was then Utah Valley State College, at Brigham Young University, and at the University of Utah, eventually graduating from the University of Utah in Communications. She was also a certified massage therapist.

During college Sarah studied abroad in Vienna, Austria, where she began learning German. Sarah managed the Evelyn Apartments in Salt Lake City, learning useful skills before her mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints from 1992-1993 in Berlin, Germany. She loved the Gospel, the people of Germany, the culture and their language.

Sarah blessed many lives with her generous spirit and friendships. She worked for twenty years at the Orem Public Library, cheerfully greeting patrons at the front desk or helping behind the scenes repairing books – one of the many artisanal crafts she mastered. Those in her community and church congregations benefitted from her gifts. Among her callings she served as Primary President, Young Women’s President, and teacher. She especially enjoyed her stint as Young Women’s Camp Director.

Sarah married Kevin Dee Whisenant on April 28, 2008, in Salt Lake City. They were later sealed in the Salt Lake Temple. Their home was in Springville, Utah.

Sarah’s life demonstrated the interconnectedness of all of God’s children. Sarah was an avid family historian with her sisters Mary and Paula. She made joyful connections with anyone who could conceivably be considered a “cousin.” She was a particularly fun aunt to her many nieces and nephews.

She was also an advocate for the disadvantaged and a promoter of racial justice and community service.

Sarah’s interest in “interconnectedness” was also quite literal. A lover of fiber and fiber crafts, Sarah was a member of Utah Valley Yarn Spinners in Utah Country for over two decades. She owned her own spinning wheel and loom and demonstrated weaving at historical and community events, including Constitution Day, the 4th of July, and Colonial Days – often in period costume. She also was skilled in knitting, quilting, ceramics, and upholstery.

Sarah’s know-how also included enviable practical skills. She remodeled a house down to the studs. She hired sub-contractors to teach her wiring, plumbing, and hanging sheetrock. She already knew trimming, painting, staining, and tiling. She assembled countless IKEA projects (including at least 2 kitchen remodels) that would stymy lesser souls.

Sarah was a life force of kindness, service, friendship, talent, good humor, and generosity. Her body succumbed to death January 23, 2021, in Murray, Utah, after injuries sustained during a car accident the previous week.

We celebrate her life of enthusiasm, curiosity, love, compassion and service.

I have tributes for my Mother and my Dad here:

And here is my wife Gail’s tribute for my son Spencer:

Finally, here are my tributes for three economists who died in the last few years:

Death comes for us all. 

Brett Milano: What Women Learn from Sports →

Betsey Stevenson has a very interesting paper statistically backing up the idea that women gain a lot from participation in sports: “Beyond the Classroom: Using Title IX to Measure the Return to High School Sports.”

For a contrary view, see Michael and Tyler Ransom’s paper “Do high school sports build or reveal character? Bounding causal estimates of sports participation.”

Peter Huber on Being Provocative

“My job is to be sufficiently entertaining and outrageous to get people to spend a bit of time thinking about serious issues. And while I assert what I believe (at that particular moment) with outrageous certainty, you will also find if you read far enough that I always concede down the road that I quite see the other side of the argument.”
— Peter Huber

(This is for all those who hesitate before getting into blogging.)

On How Incredibly Noisy Any One Reading on the Scale is as a Gauge of Long-Run Weight Gain or Loss

Out of curiosity I weight myself almost every day right between coming back from my daily walk and taking a shower. The exact time of day varies as does whether it is before or after my eating window. I am often surprised by the huge swings in weight over periods of time much to short for any calories-in/calories-out effect working through the burning of body fat to have an effect greater than a fraction of a pound. Sometimes the fluctuation in one days time can be as high as 7 pounds. Theoretically, there are many likely components to these mass-in/mass-out effects. For example:

  1. The sheer weight of food in my gut can vary a lot depending on exactly when I ate and how ‘regular’ or ‘irregular’ I am. This effect is the larger because of the large amounts of roughage I eat (a lot of cabbage, spinach, broccoli and cauliflower, for example).

  2. Water weighs quite a bit. And water retention can easily vary quite a bit on exactly how much sodium I have consumed lately.

  3. Glycogen amounts to about 2 pounds at its maximum; it goes down rapidly going into a fast and is reconstituted quickly after a fast.

The bottom line is that there are huge fluctuations in my weight that I know are not from body fat burning or build up. It all makes me worry about people who either cheer or beat themselves up about short-run weight measurements. It takes me many, many scale readings before I am confident of anything about whether I am burning body fat or building it up. (The exception is when I am eating nothing for a substantial length of time. Then I am pretty sure I am burning body fat on theoretical grounds. I figure that when I am not eating anything for a long time, body fat burned will eventually be about 3/5 of a pound every 24 hours.)

When I read about people talking about weight loss, I don’t see much recognition of the huge, huge amount of noise in any given reading on the scale. That makes me worried about what notions people have.

Related posts:

For annotated links to other posts on diet and health, see:

The Federalist Papers #23: The Federal Government Must Be Given Sufficient Power to Accomplish Whatever We Expect the Federal Government to Do—Alexander Hamilton

One of the things that has held back economic growth—as well as hobbling other dimensions of human flourishing—through thousands of years of human history is that it is quite a difficult design problem to make a government strong enough to keep people from stealing from, lying to and threatening each other without that government itself stealing from, lying to and threatening the people. But both sides of this design problem must be faced. It is no good trying to mitigate the danger of a tyrannical government by making that government too weak to do the things we expect that government to do. (Even in a libertarian system a la Robert Nozick, a private security company must be made adequately powerful, and then becomes much like a government.)

Alexander Hamilton makes the argument well in the Federalist Papers #23:

… it is both unwise and dangerous to deny the federal government an unconfined authority, as to all those objects which are intrusted to its management. It will indeed deserve the most vigilant and careful attention of the people, to see that it be modeled in such a manner as to admit of its being safely vested with the requisite powers.

The first sentence quoted above is the point addressed in the rest of the Federalist Papers #23. Alexander Hamilton defers discussion of how to keep the federal government well-behaved (the subject of the second sentence quoted above) to a later number in the Federalist Papers.

What do we expect the federal government to do? At a minimum: national defense, suppressing domestic insurrections, and foreign affairs. The performance of each of these requires considerable power. This list of three is Alexander Hamilton’s. To his list, I would add something for which we have gotten a greater understanding of both means and ends since Alexander Hamilton’s day: stabilizing the business cycle; stabilizing the business cycle is best enabled by giving the federal government the authority to conduct monetary policy. Ideally, that authority to conduct monetary policy would be in the Constitution, but at least it seems to be firmly ensconced not only in legislation, but in the unwritten constitution of our nation, as it is for many other nations.

Importantly, as Alexander Hamilton persuasively argues, the power to accomplish these key objectives of the national government must be direct power over the citizens of the nation. not merely power on paper to command the states. The Articles of Confederation included power on paper to command the states—especially to command them to contribute to the common defense—but in the event the states often ignored those commands.

Below is the full text of Alexander Hamilton’s argument in the Federalist Papers #23:

FEDERALIST NO. 23

The Necessity of a Government as Energetic as the One Proposed to the Preservation of the Union

From the New York Packet
Tuesday, December 18, 1787.

Author: Alexander Hamilton

To the People of the State of New York:

THE necessity of a Constitution, at least equally energetic with the one proposed, to the preservation of the Union, is the point at the examination of which we are now arrived.

This inquiry will naturally divide itself into three branches the objects to be provided for by the federal government, the quantity of power necessary to the accomplishment of those objects, the persons upon whom that power ought to operate. Its distribution and organization will more properly claim our attention under the succeeding head.

The principal purposes to be answered by union are these the common defense of the members; the preservation of the public peace as well against internal convulsions as external attacks; the regulation of commerce with other nations and between the States; the superintendence of our intercourse, political and commercial, with foreign countries.

The authorities essential to the common defense are these: to raise armies; to build and equip fleets; to prescribe rules for the government of both; to direct their operations; to provide for their support. These powers ought to exist without limitation, BECAUSE IT IS IMPOSSIBLE TO FORESEE OR DEFINE THE EXTENT AND VARIETY OF NATIONAL EXIGENCIES, OR THE CORRESPONDENT EXTENT AND VARIETY OF THE MEANS WHICH MAY BE NECESSARY TO SATISFY THEM. The circumstances that endanger the safety of nations are infinite, and for this reason no constitutional shackles can wisely be imposed on the power to which the care of it is committed. This power ought to be coextensive with all the possible combinations of such circumstances; and ought to be under the direction of the same councils which are appointed to preside over the common defense.

This is one of those truths which, to a correct and unprejudiced mind, carries its own evidence along with it; and may be obscured, but cannot be made plainer by argument or reasoning. It rests upon axioms as simple as they are universal; the MEANS ought to be proportioned to the END; the persons, from whose agency the attainment of any END is expected, ought to possess the MEANS by which it is to be attained.

Whether there ought to be a federal government intrusted with the care of the common defense, is a question in the first instance, open for discussion; but the moment it is decided in the affirmative, it will follow, that that government ought to be clothed with all the powers requisite to complete execution of its trust. And unless it can be shown that the circumstances which may affect the public safety are reducible within certain determinate limits; unless the contrary of this position can be fairly and rationally disputed, it must be admitted, as a necessary consequence, that there can be no limitation of that authority which is to provide for the defense and protection of the community, in any matter essential to its efficacy that is, in any matter essential to the FORMATION, DIRECTION, or SUPPORT of the NATIONAL FORCES.

Defective as the present Confederation has been proved to be, this principle appears to have been fully recognized by the framers of it; though they have not made proper or adequate provision for its exercise. Congress have an unlimited discretion to make requisitions of men and money; to govern the army and navy; to direct their operations. As their requisitions are made constitutionally binding upon the States, who are in fact under the most solemn obligations to furnish the supplies required of them, the intention evidently was that the United States should command whatever resources were by them judged requisite to the "common defense and general welfare." It was presumed that a sense of their true interests, and a regard to the dictates of good faith, would be found sufficient pledges for the punctual performance of the duty of the members to the federal head.

The experiment has, however, demonstrated that this expectation was ill-founded and illusory; and the observations, made under the last head, will, I imagine, have sufficed to convince the impartial and discerning, that there is an absolute necessity for an entire change in the first principles of the system; that if we are in earnest about giving the Union energy and duration, we must abandon the vain project of legislating upon the States in their collective capacities; we must extend the laws of the federal government to the individual citizens of America; we must discard the fallacious scheme of quotas and requisitions, as equally impracticable and unjust. The result from all this is that the Union ought to be invested with full power to levy troops; to build and equip fleets; and to raise the revenues which will be required for the formation and support of an army and navy, in the customary and ordinary modes practiced in other governments.

If the circumstances of our country are such as to demand a compound instead of a simple, a confederate instead of a sole, government, the essential point which will remain to be adjusted will be to discriminate the OBJECTS, as far as it can be done, which shall appertain to the different provinces or departments of power; allowing to each the most ample authority for fulfilling the objects committed to its charge. Shall the Union be constituted the guardian of the common safety? Are fleets and armies and revenues necessary to this purpose? The government of the Union must be empowered to pass all laws, and to make all regulations which have relation to them. The same must be the case in respect to commerce, and to every other matter to which its jurisdiction is permitted to extend. Is the administration of justice between the citizens of the same State the proper department of the local governments? These must possess all the authorities which are connected with this object, and with every other that may be allotted to their particular cognizance and direction. Not to confer in each case a degree of power commensurate to the end, would be to violate the most obvious rules of prudence and propriety, and improvidently to trust the great interests of the nation to hands which are disabled from managing them with vigor and success.

Who is likely to make suitable provisions for the public defense, as that body to which the guardianship of the public safety is confided; which, as the centre of information, will best understand the extent and urgency of the dangers that threaten; as the representative of the WHOLE, will feel itself most deeply interested in the preservation of every part; which, from the responsibility implied in the duty assigned to it, will be most sensibly impressed with the necessity of proper exertions; and which, by the extension of its authority throughout the States, can alone establish uniformity and concert in the plans and measures by which the common safety is to be secured? Is there not a manifest inconsistency in devolving upon the federal government the care of the general defense, and leaving in the State governments the EFFECTIVE powers by which it is to be provided for? Is not a want of co-operation the infallible consequence of such a system? And will not weakness, disorder, an undue distribution of the burdens and calamities of war, an unnecessary and intolerable increase of expense, be its natural and inevitable concomitants? Have we not had unequivocal experience of its effects in the course of the revolution which we have just accomplished?

Every view we may take of the subject, as candid inquirers after truth, will serve to convince us, that it is both unwise and dangerous to deny the federal government an unconfined authority, as to all those objects which are intrusted to its management. It will indeed deserve the most vigilant and careful attention of the people, to see that it be modeled in such a manner as to admit of its being safely vested with the requisite powers. If any plan which has been, or may be, offered to our consideration, should not, upon a dispassionate inspection, be found to answer this description, it ought to be rejected. A government, the constitution of which renders it unfit to be trusted with all the powers which a free people OUGHT TO DELEGATE TO ANY GOVERNMENT, would be an unsafe and improper depositary of the NATIONAL INTERESTS. Wherever THESE can with propriety be confided, the coincident powers may safely accompany them. This is the true result of all just reasoning upon the subject. And the adversaries of the plan promulgated by the convention ought to have confined themselves to showing, that the internal structure of the proposed government was such as to render it unworthy of the confidence of the people. They ought not to have wandered into inflammatory declamations and unmeaning cavils about the extent of the powers. The POWERS are not too extensive for the OBJECTS of federal administration, or, in other words, for the management of our NATIONAL INTERESTS; nor can any satisfactory argument be framed to show that they are chargeable with such an excess. If it be true, as has been insinuated by some of the writers on the other side, that the difficulty arises from the nature of the thing, and that the extent of the country will not permit us to form a government in which such ample powers can safely be reposed, it would prove that we ought to contract our views, and resort to the expedient of separate confederacies, which will move within more practicable spheres. For the absurdity must continually stare us in the face of confiding to a government the direction of the most essential national interests, without daring to trust it to the authorities which are indispensible to their proper and efficient management. Let us not attempt to reconcile contradictions, but firmly embrace a rational alternative.

I trust, however, that the impracticability of one general system cannot be shown. I am greatly mistaken, if any thing of weight has yet been advanced of this tendency; and I flatter myself, that the observations which have been made in the course of these papers have served to place the reverse of that position in as clear a light as any matter still in the womb of time and experience can be susceptible of. This, at all events, must be evident, that the very difficulty itself, drawn from the extent of the country, is the strongest argument in favor of an energetic government; for any other can certainly never preserve the Union of so large an empire. If we embrace the tenets of those who oppose the adoption of the proposed Constitution, as the standard of our political creed, we cannot fail to verify the gloomy doctrines which predict the impracticability of a national system pervading entire limits of the present Confederacy.

PUBLIUS.

Links to my other posts on The Federalist Papers so far:

Cristina Beltran on a Possible Right-Wing Strategy of Saying ‘You Count as White Either If You are Racially White Or If You Are a Republican’ →

If by some definition, the number of white voters, with some defections to the left, becomes insufficient to support a majority (or is due to become insufficient in the future), then those who hope to maintain a racist system must expand the definition of who is white. This has happened before when Italian-Americans and Irish-Americans were declared white. There are three prominent alternatives here. First is to declare Hispanics who have been in the US for a long time to be white. The second alternative is to treat those who have some white ancestry as white even if they also have non-white ancestry. The third is to treat right-wing political allegiance as conferring honorary whiteness. The link on the title of this post is about that third possibility.

Note: On my part, this is not meant to be against the Republican party. I have hopes that the Republican party will fully distance itself not only from racism, but also from anti-immigrant attitudes. Changing demographics make that a fourth possible outcome.

My Highlights from Joseph Biden's First Inaugural Address

I was impressed by Joseph Biden’s First Inaugural Address as President of the United States. Let me share what to me were some of the highlights:

First, I am moved by the strength of our Constitution and the victory of Democracy over attempts to overturn an election on spurious grounds. Joe Biden described this in several ways:

… democracy is precious.

Democracy is fragile.

And at this hour, my friends, democracy has prevailed.

…

You know the resilience of our Constitution and the strength of our nation.

…

Here we stand across the Potomac from Arlington National Cemetery, where heroes who gave the last full measure of devotion rest in eternal peace.

And here we stand, just days after a riotous mob thought they could use violence to silence the will of the people, to stop the work of our democracy, and to drive us from this sacred ground.

That did not happen.

Second, I think it is both consequential and absolutely right that he listed nativism and racism as twin evils. I have no doubt that racism fuels a lot of nativism, but nativism—looking at those not born in the US as somehow a lesser type of human being—would be a great evil even if it weren’t fueled by racism. (See my post “It Isn't OK to Be Anti-Immigrant.”) Here is how Joseph Biden addressed racism and nativism:

A cry for racial justice some 400 years in the making moves us. The dream of justice for all will be deferred no longer.

…

Our history has been a constant struggle between the American ideal that we are all created equal and the harsh, ugly reality that racism, nativism, fear, and demonization have long torn us apart.

Third, Joe Biden addressed our national dysfunction of “othering” those whose political views are different from ours—which includes “othering” those who “other,” thereby taking on their bad habits. (On othering, see “Us and Them.”) Joe Biden said this on how to view others as not so “other”:

We can see each other not as adversaries but as neighbors.

We can treat each other with dignity and respect.

…

Politics need not be a raging fire destroying everything in its path.

Every disagreement doesn't have to be a cause for total war.

I write about “politicism” here.

Fourth, Joe Biden clearly distinguished between ordinary partisan differences and actions that are beyond the pale. (A) Attempts at violent overthrow of the Constitution of the United States are beyond the pale. But the right to peaceful dissent is at the heart of what it means to be a democracy:

To all those who did not support us, let me say this: Hear me out as we move forward. Take a measure of me and my heart.

And if you still disagree, so be it.

That's democracy. That's America. The right to dissent peaceably, within the guardrails of our Republic, is perhaps our nation's greatest strength.

(B) Lying to the public for partisan advantage—or to make a few bucks in ways that are harmful to the nation—is beyond the pale. Here is Joe Biden on truth:


…we must reject a culture in which facts themselves are manipulated and even manufactured.

…

What are the common objects we love that define us as Americans?

I think I know.

Opportunity.

Security.

Liberty.

Dignity.

Respect.

Honor.

And, yes, the truth.

Recent weeks and months have taught us a painful lesson.

There is truth and there are lies.

Lies told for power and for profit.

There are many lies told for profit. See for example:

Some economists have a blanket antipathy to all regulations, but to me, regulations that force corporations to tell the truth to their customers seem like a good idea. After all, the standard welfare theorems assume an absence of asymmetric information. Forcing corporations to tell their customers the truth will usually get us closer to that benchmark.

Because I want to hold my own profession to a high standard, let me also add that lying with statistics in order to advance one’s scientific career (or what would then be a pseudo-scientific career) is also very bad. On that, see:

Joe Biden’s First Inaugural had a lot of repetition in it, but I think the repetition was warranted. We need to have the messages he kept repeating burned into our minds:

  1. We must cherish democracy and fight to preserve it from those who would put partisanship above democracy.

  2. We need racial justice—and it isn’t OK to be anti-immigrant.

  3. We must treat everyone as a full human being, even those with different political views—and even those who don’t themselves treat everyone as a full human being.

  4. Attempts to violently interfere with the workings of the Constitution of the United States are beyond the pale, and lying for partisan advantage is beyond the pale, but ordinary political disagreements are OK.

I’m sure Joe Biden will say things in the future that I disagree with. But in my book, his inaugural address was on solid ground.

Sugar Rots Your Teeth. Sugar Kills. So Don't Eat It.

I have written a lot about the other health dangers of sugar. Here are some of the other posts:

But there is one other health danger from sugar that everyone agrees on, but most people have chosen to ignore as a big toll of sugar: tooth damage.

Ever since I have gone off sugar, bread, rice, potatoes and all the processed foods that say on the package that they have a substantial amount of sugar, my dentist has been surprised by what good shape my teeth are in when I go in for a regular checkup. It makes a difference to your teeth when you eat right!

The causes of the dramatic rise in obesity over the last century are controversial. But it is hard to explain without looking at the rise in sugar consumption. Some explanations that sound different really include sugar: many scholars talk about the increasing palatability of food, where “palatability” refers in important measure to the superstimulus from sugar added to food. Others talk about highly processed food. From what I see looking around my local grocer store, it seems that 90% of highly processed food contains a substantial amount of sugar. And increased variety of food has come largely from the proliferation of different kinds of processed food. And if the only foods that had become cheaper were those with no sugar in them, I doubt there would be an obesity effect from declining food prices.

The one variable that could contribute a lot to explaining the rise in obesity that is fully distinct from increased use of sugar over the last century is the expansion of the average eating window to eating from soon after waking to shortly before going to bed, instead of having eating more nearly confined to three regular meals. (That is not to say that three meals without snacking is as good as an even more compressed eating window; but it is better than eating from right after waking to shortly before retiring for the night.) The upward trend average length of the eating window, for which, unfortunately, there is no readily available time series, could explain rising obesity during some of the more recent periods when sugar consumption has declined somewhat. (No readily available times series doesn’t at all mean it is impossible to gather evidence. Gathering that evidence would be a noble task for an economic historian.)

As a side note, in addition to sugar rotting our teeth, eating soft food (along with bad tongue posture) may be making our teeth crooked. See:

We treat our tooth problems (and the dental and orthodontic treatment they occasion) as if they were a law of nature. But Charles Gemmi, in the article flagged at the top of this post, reminds us:

Humans have a long history of brushing our teeth and an even longer history of not doing it at all. For thousands of years, our ancestors had no concept of dental care. You might think that they suffered as a result, but there’s actually no evidence to suggest that people from those early eras had any dental health problems at all. Why is that?

It really comes down to diet. Our ancestors had no GMO-filled fast foods, no baked goods, and no processed products of any kind. The foods they ate didn’t contain harmful additives or chemicals and were completely all-natural. Whatever they found is what they ate.

This meant that they weren’t deficient in the vitamins and minerals that promote oral health like calcium and phosphorus. They all got their daily allowances of fruits and vegetables. The tough, fibrous foods they ate also got their mouths moving, scraping their teeth on accident and preventing plaque buildup that leads to tooth decay in the modern mouth.

…

With the rise of sugar-dense foods and the increasing lack of basic mineral nutrition in the modern diet, it’s no wonder that dentists and orthodontists are recommending that people brush their teeth for at least 2 minutes at a time and at least twice a day.

… a modern diet means the modern necessity of brushing your teeth every day. 

Next time you go to the dentist, remember the contribution that sugar makes to the necessity of going as often as you do—and especially how often you go to get a cavity filled or to undergo a more painful procedure. Going off sugar could easily add many years to your life. And going off sugar could easily add many years to your teeth.

If you are convinced and want to go off sugar, I have some posts meant to help you:

The really big gains in health come from also shortening your eating window and doing occasional longer fasts. But going off sugar, bread, rice and potatoes makes that much, much easier. So, although a logically distinct strategy, in practice a shorter eating window and occasional longer fasts is not a totally separate thing from going off sugar.

For annotated links to other posts on diet and health, see: