Professor Metal's Liberty Lair
  • Blog
  • About
  • Contact

Where Fiction and Fear Ends, Realism and Faith Begins

3/27/2020

1 Comment

 
Growing up a headbanger, you get used to hearing about the apocalypse. 

From nuclear annihilation in Metallica’s “Blackened,” to “environmental holocaust” in Testament’s “Greenhouse Effect,” to Slayer’s more recently prophetic “disease spreading death/entire population dies” in “World Painted Blood.”  One could say we’re desensitized to it.

Or, we take it for the fiction it is, and maintain a belief in a free peoples’ ability to overcome.  Count me in that group.

No sane person is taking the coronavirus lightly, or calling it a hoax.  Everyone in my family and office started washing/sanitizing their hands more diligently.  I spotted our CEO wiping down door handles.  We’ve had travel plans and concerts (ugh) cancelled. 

Our kids’ schools have closed, our colleges have closed, and some of our employers started limiting office hours.  If you think about it, we’ve been moving in a direction the last couple decades that makes these precautions manageable.

My daughters’ teachers have pushed out assignments via Google Classroom, I took a crash course in Zoom to learn how to conduct my class online, and my colleagues did “trial runs” to ensure we could carry out our duties from home.
​
Now the drill is real, as San Antonio and Bexar County joined other jurisdictions by issuing a “Stay Home, Work Safe” order.  These technological trends of the last generation are getting a swift kick forward in this effort to “flatten the curve.”

To an extent, I get it. 

We’re learning daily what we’re dealing with, and trying to get our arms around it.  Nobody wants to see someone close to us succumb to this new, unknown threat, much less hundreds or thousands of our fellow citizens.  We want to ensure we have enough capacity for the critically stricken.

But we need to leave these “lockdowns” behind us ASAP, and it should start with the biggest silver lining in all this.

I can’t be the only one who is supremely grateful that our kids don’t seem to suffer from this malady like other age groups.  If it were otherwise, I might also not be the only parent whose house would look like Elliott’s when the authorities found out about E.T. 

Re-opening schools would have a dual upside: first, it would allow our kids to finish out the last month or so of their school year under normal conditions.  It would also allow parents to return to a regular work routine, which would be particularly important if they’re in the medical field or another role on the frontline dealing with this virus.

This crisis meanwhile, has split my friends’ opinions like I’ve rarely seen before.  I’ve sensed fault lines breaking along who’s fairly comfortable in life, who earns a wage, who can work from home, who’s prone to hysteria, etc.  But I also have the feeling health concerns come into play. 

Yours truly feels fortunate to have started running again this year, and to have overcome my stubbornness toward taking medication to address a burgeoning blood pressure issue.  I imagine some might be a little wary having recently emerged from surgical procedures, or they or a loved one has a pre-existing condition. 

Yet others may feel a not-so-healthy lifestyle might come back to bite them.  All are more vulnerable to the serious consequences of getting COVID-19.

Needless to say, folks with naturally-occurring ailments merit close attention, just like our parents do.  Given the regular trickle of information, we should all continue to exercise a healthy dose of caution, especially toward those we reasonably suspect of being careless or outright foolish, something we already do every day on the road, but I digress.

That said, by the end of April at the very latest, we should be free to go about our lives without the threat of being lighter in the wallet for doing so. 

If I want to take my family out for my daughter’s birthday, I should be able to.  If the restaurant wants to institute new capacity limits in order to spread people out, so be it.  If my wife wants to go get her hair and nails done, she should be able to. 

People in these service industries are the ones getting hit the hardest by these shutdowns; both the workers AND the owners.  Many are adapting by creating makeshift drive-thrus to deliver takeout orders, for example.  Those who have lost their jobs will certainly have the opportunity to find work at one of the companies whose business is already predicated on delivery. 

But with all the newly unemployed cramming into that space looking for work, those who do secure jobs will likely earn lower wages given all the competition.  That’s not something an ill-advised, political redirection of $2 trillion will be able to remedy.

And barely mentioned in all this is the personal toll taken on the unemployed, and those at risk of a subsequent rise in domestic violence, or worse. 

We keep hearing that we should expect infected numbers to continue their march upward, that it’s more contagious than the flu.  Consequently, many of us have come to accept the distinct possibility of contracting it ourselves, if we haven’t already. 

A 1.4% mortality rate makes that an easier pill to swallow, even moreso because that merely includes known infections.  Know what else softens the blow? 

Faith in the American system and human spirit.

Though a vaccine may very well be a year or so away, there are promising possibilities in transferring antibodies via convalescent plasma from those who recovered from COVID-19, to those who are suffering.  Another is an old anti-malarial drug hydroxychloroquine, sometimes used in conjunction with a Z-Pak.

Some doctors are finding success administering high doses of vitamin C. 

We’re seeing clothiers making garments for healthcare workers.  Fragrance makers and distilleries are converting operations into producing sanitizer.  Concert venues are being converted into makeshift hospitals.  Vacuum companies are shifting to build ventilators.  

In addition to that, auto manufacturers are undergoing “thorough cleaning and disinfecting“ of their plants, enhanced sanitary measures that could create new job opportunities going forward.

We’re going to last only so long being cooped up in our homes.  This is coming from a person whose picture you’d see if you looked up the word “homebody” in the dictionary.  I love my house.  I love being at home reading, writing, playing music, etc. 

But I also like going to a show.  I like taking my daughters to the newest superhero movie.  I like going with my wife to join our colleagues to blow off steam after work occasionally.  We benefit from being around them at the office as well, exchanging ideas and whatnot. 

My daughters miss being around their friends at school.  I’m sure they’ll find some goofy new way to greet each other in the wake of this shock to the system. 

If some parents want to keep their kids at home, and continue to utilize online learning, that should certainly be their prerogative.  Employers ideally would continue to be flexible about work-from-home arrangements. 
​
Regardless, we all need to be free to call our own shots, and if increased testing that appears imminent shows fewer infected/recovered numbers than expected, we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.  But if those estimates bear out, maybe we’ll be able to borrow a line from Hatebreed’s tune “Own Your World,” and “burn the bridge to the place where (our) fear lives.”
1 Comment

Plugging the Brain Drip of Price 'Gouging' Laws

3/20/2020

1 Comment

 
Thank goodness for the first amendment and social media!  The former has allowed amateur comedians to flourish and share their wares via the latter, mostly in the form of humorous memes.  It’s come in handy by providing comic relief as concern about the coronavirus outbreak has swept the land.

I took a stab by offering a quip about the stash of wine bottle corks my wife and I have stockpiled the last few years.  I drew a link between that surplus and the baffling run on, and subsequent shortages of, toilet paper.

The reader can take it from there (depending on my comedic skills), but it offers a good lesson on the practice known as price “gouging.” 

After Governor Greg Abbott “issued a statewide disaster declaration” Friday, Attorney General Ken Paxton reminded the public that it is against Texas law for “any person or business selling goods” to “unreasonably raise the cost of necessary supplies.”  Similar laws exist in two-thirds of the other states.

In economic parlance, such laws are examples of price controls, these in particular being the ceiling variety.  (The minimum wage is a classic illustration of the opposite, a price floor.)

Prices are one of the most organic conveyors of information: is there a surplus of raw materials pushing prices down?  Is a tight labor market driving up the cost of that input?  Is transporting the final product to market easy and inexpensive?  Is demand outstripping supply, thereby pushing up the final price to the consumer? 

All that information is represented in the sticker price that we consumers see.

“We’re all demanders,” I tell my students.  “We recoil when the price of a good goes up, but it presents an opportunity for enterprising vendors.”  They rush to market with more supply, which means the final price to consumers has nowhere to go but down.

That’s why I use a variation of the following question on every test I give: when the price of shrimp goes up on the menu at your favorite seafood restaurant, how do fishermen (suppliers) respond?

When government steps in to “do something!”, that organic signal gets skewed.  Case in point last week, when we also saw shelves stripped of disinfectant wipes. 

It’s not as if we’ve been bereft of real-life examples in recent years, of what happens as a result of such price controls.  Just look at Venezuela.  Same thing.

For a fleeting moment, I did wonder if rationing by grocery stores might be an OK alternative.  Privately enforcing quotas would at least be preferable to mandated price ceilings. 

Then it occurred to me that even people who have lost their marbles are probably clever enough to send their kids into the store for more of the same item, effectively circumventing the store’s efforts.

Businesses don’t remain going-concerns by being stupid.  Their survival depends upon having products on the shelf.  The most successful ones can foresee the likely results of current events.  Prices could be raised incrementally, smoothing out the process. 

Instead, we nearly come to blows while in line at the gas station when a hurricane is taking out energy production in the Gulf of Mexico as it barrels toward landfall.  We see a man being upbraided for selling bottles of water out of the back of his truck when the alternative is zilch.

There’s no getting around the real market-based price.  Demand, especially the overwhelming kind, will always be met by supply.

All this is why I put “gouging” in quotes: it’s a politically expedient, emotionally-driven word used to demonize people or businesses who serve a valuable purpose.  In this case, it’s putting a price on a general inadequacy of preparedness and overreaction.  It’s the market’s way of making those habits and traits expensive.

Those who really end up getting the short end of the stick are the ones who have to spend more of their scarce time fighting the crowds, standing in line when all they’re buying is a few routine items.  Worse off are those of lesser means who rely on public transportation to transport groceries home, or who we see walking sidewalks doing so.

This is a time when our leaders have an opportunity to lead on principle, educate the public in some basic supply and demand, with emphasis on the former.

Alas, they fall into politician mode, if only to guard against power-hungry challengers who would seize on an emergency and demagogue the issue (think Dana Carvey’s George H.W. Bush: “SCARY!  SCARY!”) in an effort to wrest control over our lives.  Incidentally, it’s reflective of the herd mentality that has led to empty toilet paper shelves, which reminds me ...
​
I need to go check if any competitors have emerged in the market for wine bottle corks.  I might have to cut my price to stay competitive. 
===
Christopher E. Baecker manages fixed assets at Pioneer Energy Services, teaches economics at Northwest Vista College, is a board member of the Institute of Objective Policy Assessment, and is a member of the San Antonio Business & Economics Society.  He can be reached via email or Facebook
1 Comment
    Picture

    Author

    I have worked in oil & gas for 20+ years, including the 21st century energy renaissance in Texas.  I have taught economics to local college students since 2014.  I am sending 4 wonderful daughters out into the world, starting my first high school graduate this June (summa cum laude, no less). I ran for San Antonio City Council in Spring 2021.
    To see where my mind is at, check me out at RealClearMarkets, Mises Wire, The American Spectator, the Foundation for Economic Education, and the San Antonio Express-News, among other.

    Archives

    August 2021
    June 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    October 2018
    September 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    March 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    November 2015
    September 2015

    Categories

    All

    RSS Feed

Proudly powered by Weebly