Day: July 20, 2020

The End of the Pandemic

For the last couple of weeks, I have been making the claim to my friends that the Chinese SARS-CoV-19 virus pandemic will be over by June 2021. I predict that by the end of 2020, there will be at least one safe and effective vaccine available in sufficient quantities to drive down the infection rate to the point that the virus is essentially eliminated.

Predictions are easy to make. Like calling spirits from the vasty deeps, anyone can do it, as Hotspur pointed out to Glendower. Continue reading “The End of the Pandemic”

Don’t Ask me About the Economy

When people get to know that I am an economist, for instance on a flight, I often get asked about the economy or even the stock market. I just make up some stuff if the mood strikes me but sometimes I tell them that I don’t know. You tell me, I say.

As it happens, I am not interested in the economy per se. I am a serious student of economics but am only marginally interested in the economies of countries. What’s reported in the media regarding macroeconomic variables such as inflation, unemployment, GDP growth rates , etc., are to me mostly noise that can be profitably ignored. News is mostly noise anyway. It’s literally noise in the case of TV news but also figuratively speaking news is noise because the signal is hard to discern in the meaningless drivel that gets shoveled around. Continue reading “Don’t Ask me About the Economy”