[0:00:00 Speaker 1] It was a pleasure to have with us today. Economist Bryan Caplan from George Mason University and alter off two of my favorite books, The Case Against Education and, more recently, open Borders. There's other books as well, but I'm just mentioned those bees to that. I didn't really enjoy Brian. So welcome. And thanks for joining us. Thanks 

[0:00:16 Speaker 0] very much for having me, Carlos. So 

[0:00:18 Speaker 1] with all of these conversations, I'm starting by asking the question off. Let's get ourselves back to march and and try to understand from your perspective when you do notice, or if you or if you thought that this was a big deal, and how would you? What was information and models or what was in front of you that convince you that? Okay, this is serious. There's gonna be bad. How bad is going to be in and sort of talked through a little bit? How you thought about the policies being put in front of us in the very beginning? 

[0:00:45 Speaker 0] See? So I mean, I have been very vaguely paying attention to news in January, February, but I honestly did figure it would end up being something like Ebola or SARS, where it's limited to one small area of the world and otherwise would have no important effect on me personally. Anyway, on then, I would say Honestly, I started getting a little bit nervous when I was traveling Latin America in February and I just noticed a lot of people working in the airport in masks because, like I've never seen that before. But I think that I probably still shrugged it off and said, Well, people are crazy, right which I still believe but 

[0:01:23 Speaker 1] doesn't They're not crazy all the 

[0:01:25 Speaker 0] time And then I guess when I got back, I talked to a few people. His judgment. I trust a lot on matters like this, especially my colleague Robin Hanson across the hall. And he was saying how, even though he agreed that usually disasters predicted disasters do not really transpire, he said. This one was different and I did start paying attention then and then I really did see, especially in the course thesis Oh Shil reaction, which happened much sooner than any significant number of actual deaths or sickness. But just when school started closing and trip started being canceled and I think actually I was really shocked when Disneyland clothes and from Los Angeles, like Disneyland close, you know, closed Disneyland so that these were the things that got me paying attention, the numbers. And then once I started paying attention the numbers, I would say that I will stop paying attention to most of the other things which I knew were just anecdotal the experiences and don't prove much of anything, but did start looking the numbers and saw how the number of cases and the destroyed rising in a way that was very similar to what people who were. I would say that, like the moderate pessimists predicted, you know, the extreme pessimist printing millions of deaths, they they still seem crazy to me and again. And, of course, if they had said it will happen unless we do the following things that it might may be different. But I think that many of the pessimists were just saying, This is going to happen so and those people, I would say, have been shown to be wrong. So I guess that's how most of my thinking in the early phases when anyway, So 

[0:03:00 Speaker 1] when you're thinking, then in the early phases, when you start seeing things like voluntary choices by people like closing Disneyland. Or and then ba decided that was something that struck me. Was like, Whoa, the n b a is going to stop. Okay, that z gonna be hard. And I was teaching at the time a class in Chicago and and, you know, we couldn't fly anymore. And there was some something that that was very surprising to me that I am not surprised, but it was definitely hit home, right? That Okay, this is happening. But those are all voluntary choices. Um, in terms of policies being put in place, how are you thinking about the choices that were they were given to us. We were given destroys off. This seemed to be like a dichotomy off extremes. And And how would you? You know what we reaction to those at first. That is an economist. 

[0:03:41 Speaker 0] You know, I would say that I don't think that really was the economy. It was more of a near unanimity. If we have to go and do something very extreme and honestly, we really have to go and emulate communist China. Uh, which, uh, anything like what Almost every country on earth has done is not normal. Right? Or at least it wasn't normal. Intel. Communist China made it normal. And if you know any history, anything about the history of Communist China, I would never consider in a country to emulate really in almost any way. Um, but, uh, you know, in terms of the extremism of the reaction, that's something that I did notice. And yeah, that bothered me very much. Just the way that people wanted Thio just shut everything down without really indiscriminately, without distinctions between what are high risk and low risk activities, What are ways to communicate the risk? So, you know, to me like as an economist, I'm always thinking not Is it safe? There's nothing's really safe ever right? You know, you could be hit by a bus just walking down the street. So it's really what are the odds? What are the actual risks? And actually one of the earliest things that I was doing? Waas actually trying to look into infection mortality rates and notice that there's a big difference between case mortality rates, which is just number of people died compared to the number of people that have been tested positive first infection mortality. When you actually know that someone saying What are the odds they die and especially realizing that there's enormous selection bias because the people that get measured are generally the really worst cases. So I was very concerned there and it took me very quickly. I did see this point that the infection mortality rate Valerie vary tremendously by age, which then very immediately led me to think well, shouldn't be that young people keep living normally more or less and old people than isolate and rather than having everybody isolate. So that was my immediate reaction, and then when I learned more about how important underlying conditions are and even doesn't seem so much that age per se is, is the kruky issue other than older people of more underlying conditions. But once I realized that it is even clearer now, it should be the people that have underlying conditions who generally will be old. They're not always who should be very careful and again other people should live a basically normal life, both because it's very costly to ask people and bridges the freedom and then also the point of having healthy people catch it does move us closer to what we call herd immunity as to how far you have to go in order to get there. It's a complicated question, but what I say is, you know, it's a continuous variable. So, you know, if you have, you know, there is less infection when 20% of the population has has is immune than 10%. So just saying, Look, if we can move along that dimension, basically, getting healthy people sick and then having them recover is has a very similar effect to getting more people to wear masks. You're 

[0:06:26 Speaker 1] fascinated. That's the same. Is the idea of, like that, um, effective way to get a vaccine, right? 

[0:06:31 Speaker 0] Yeah. Yes, yes, Yes. Right. Um, I guess you also along the way my colleague Robert Hanssen again, he was looking into, you know, something called very elation. Basically, just giving people low doses, which is very similar to a vaccine, right? And people got very upset. Him, of course, is they almost always do whenever he makes an original point. Good or bad. Right? But usually good, in my view. Um, yeah. So 

[0:06:58 Speaker 1] one of the one of the professions that I've been particularly disappointed with throughout this was was economist. And the reason for it is because, you know, economies are always very, very, very careful at least tend to be very careful thinking about this sort of unintended consequences of doing something. And this one, we were, you know, yes. Very quickly, I think became available. The data that, yes, the older and people with preexisting conditions are the most vulnerable. Most of us are not. Most of us are going to die of this. And and if anything, the risk is actually very comfortable to other respiratory infections that we face routinely. Right? So So that that 

[0:07:34 Speaker 0] even five times, it's still 

[0:07:36 Speaker 1] even five times so low, 

[0:07:37 Speaker 0] right? Lose, 

[0:07:38 Speaker 1] Right, Right. Exactly. Five. I can get a year five losing chances are I'm not gonna tie it right. And But But But then then we're looking at this thing where, um okay, we're gonna policy put in place that policy being proposed and implemented, and I feel that the majority of the profession was like, Oh, yeah, I know that seems to make sense without really focusing on hammering on the underlying that sort of, uh, the consequences and the things that cost, really, that we're gonna bear associated with. Is there a few voices that were very loud on this? But I would describe them. Very few. They're not the mainstream voices. Invoices that were, you know, are still being deemed locked down skeptics or something like that, right? And the anti scientists, in some ways, um, do you have a similar impression on on on on the 

[0:08:21 Speaker 0] profession? So I guess that my opinion of my fellow economists peaked around 2007 and has been going downward ever since. S o. I guess I was not surprised. Meaning like like, you know, ultimately, like I, I've long known that the table economist is a normal human being first and an economist second or third or fourth. And there's also been a too big moves in the last 20 years in economics. So one is that there's been a move in a more left wing direction. You know, economics was always left wing overall, but but the balance used to be something like 3 to 2 for Democrat Republican ratio. So it waas one where, even though the left wing view was predominant still, it was a very mild predominance. And there's a lot more room for other views. And over time, especially with the next generation economist, it's been replaced with a very heavily left wing, uh, demographic. So there's that. And the other thing is that as the focus of economics has moved towards doing empirical work and just focusing very heavily on getting proper constant identification, your paper there's just been a great forgetting of thief fundamental tools of economics like cost benefit analysis and expected value, and just just the idea that economics is primarily a grammar of thinking. It's away the organized. Organize your thoughts again. This is not lost entirely, but the share of economists that when they hear they have to take a precaution in order to achieve a benefit who now say, Well, wait, how, like how good like, what is the actual size of the benefit? What does this say? How much produce that reduce the risk? How much is the game? I think that has diminished considerably from where it would have been in seventies or eighties or even nineties, And so I think that's another thing. But I mean there I already did realize how things have gotten worse on. Do you know, it's very disappointing, but unfortunately, there's not too much I could do about it other than to say that there was that we used to know better. We used to have a better way and rend also like, Why are you teaching your students the right way to think? Why aren't you teaching them economic thinking? And yes, I know that it's hard to teach people how to think. But good God, try 

[0:10:32 Speaker 1] At least we need to try. Right? Right. Exactly. I think you're right. Here, I think was in Maybe June 1st, I'm going to quote you here for a second, Um, that you accept a strong presumption in favor of human liberty. You cannot rightfully shut businesses in order people to stay at home out of an abundance of caution. Instead, the burden of the advocates of these policies to demonstrate their benefits drastically exceed their costs by at least 5 to 1. And nobody did that. Nobody even tried t talk about that, right? I mean that that's to me. So clear. What? The point that, you know I shouldn't be Here is an interview telling what I believe, but that's that's the frustrating me the most. Like, without any indication of the trade offs. We're facing these decisions as draconian as they come. Right that this has been, um, as they come. 

[0:11:16 Speaker 0] Yeah. So again, that sounds quite right to me. See, What was I thinking about all of that? Oh, yes, eso Here's the thing. I mean, I think most people would hear those words that I wrote and say, Well, this is just a dogmatic libertarian who says Don't they're going to go and support these elections principles if you get over a near interminable, insurmountable barrier. What I would say is, actually this test I'm talking about is one that most people use actually for anything that takes seriously. So if someone came out with a cost benefit analysis saying that banning Satanism would pat would just pass ah cost benefit test by 5% I think almost no one who ever cared about free speech would say All right, fine, let's round up the sameness now. Instead, they say, Look, that's not enough. Like it's one thing if we got around them up to go and prevent the Satanic like a series of massive Satanic attacks or something, but otherwise 

[0:12:11 Speaker 1] eyes 

[0:12:12 Speaker 0] like even if yes, it turns out that every Satanist really messes up their family and their parents are miserable. And you know what causes suicides? Because people can't handle the fact their kids become a state n'est. Even so, like, we've really got you really gotta show an enormous benefit of bending this principle e that that applies to almost any principle that anyone really cares about. So to me, the idea that you wouldn't care about the principle of don't go and tell people they can't leave their homes right, that seems at least as important as your freedom to practice Satanism 

[0:12:43 Speaker 1] and and And do you share the view that I think a lot of people defend those policies still on? Like, you know, there was a moment in time where we didn't know enough about it. There was so much uncertainty, unknowns were too large and and there was a fear of looking what was happening inordinately. Perhaps it was about to happen in New York City off our inability to process the cases. So, like I shut down, let's say of two weeks was something that would lead at least to avoid and solve the hospitals being overwhelmed and and flatten the curve idea. Right? So that was like, I think the way those policies were advocated this is like a temporary thing to just flatten the curve. Um, yeah, reaction to that, 

[0:13:20 Speaker 0] of course. And I'd say that's doing it for two weeks. Is ah, lot lesson justifiable than doing it for months? Yeah, but even there I would say so. This is the same reasoning is round up all the Japanese after December 7th, because look there, probably fine. But let's have an abundance of caution round them all up. How do we know there isn't at least one terrorist cell among the Japanese? And then I would say Yes, I understand that point. And yes, things are confusing right now, but that's not good enough. And that And if you think that things like that are good enough, then really you are going to be doing one terrible thing after another, right, and ultimately comes down to the terrible things that are popular will happen. And the terrible things that are unpopular probably won't. But really bad things could be popular. So the, uh the what I like to call the hysteria and hurting of the population. It really does move around quite dramatically in response to crazy events. So in, like, the this reaction could have been much stronger after 9 11, for example. So, um, I do actually remember after 9 11, some people saying, Well, you know, I mean, this is actually I don't even think was even a joke saying Look, we don't really know which countries behind this. Let's just attack a bunch of Middle Eastern countries, right? And it's like out of an abundance of caution. Let's just invent you invade a bunch of places like Alright, eso you do realize the horrible things that you're talking about here and, you know, like it just seems that seems to me like that's not sufficient, but even close to go and justify this kind of 

[0:14:56 Speaker 1] what I would say in the in the even the reaction 9 11 right there was there was a We didn't face dictatorial powers doing those things in our lives. There's something that, you know, you had a president reacted very strongly to it, and all of it got voted by Congress and, you know, you might disagree with the way that our representatives decided to do something, but it got voted by a legislative body where we've been living through a system where we have 50 desperate plus one. What's really funny is that there's a lot of people like arguing that the one that's what should have been more strong throughout the whole thing is like, 

[0:15:26 Speaker 0] really that one you 

[0:15:27 Speaker 1] wanna tell Give more part of the one. That's what 

[0:15:30 Speaker 0] I mean. My dad is very, you know, is always inclined to blame China for anything wrong in the world. And in this case, he really wanted to blame them for the entire for the entire pandemic. Right? And again, the other question, I mean, so what is it you wanted them to dio So you know, like I think you heard stories about how they suppressed it, really Only in front of news for a couple weeks off course. The day is so like, it was not clear that was like the, like, the very highest level. Like you got local people suppressing it. In any case, uh, you know, like it was given that most countries didn't do very much during that time. You know, I guess Suppose your model could be that, uh, the other countries will react eight weeks after the Chinese have officially react. But it's not clear why that would be your model rather than they react. Four weeks after it's clear that it's a serious problem, something like that. In which case, I'll see the China delayed anything but again. Like when we think about the way that my dad, we reacted if China had done something drastic, like foreigners can't leave Wuhan either. We don't we don't break the quarantine just because you're not a citizen. Everyone has to stay here. E again. That's the kind of thing that I think would have been a major international incident. And yet that, you know, out of all the things that China could it could have done, I think that yeah, that's the one thing I think that actually could have really tip the balance if they just said no one and no one gets out and tell the quarantine is over. I mean, the amount of of international blowback that would have caused, I think, would have been enormous. I mean, I doubt that would have caused World War Three. But I would have been still like pulling my collar like like like 2% chance of World War Three over this. If China just said, you know, like like no way we're doing it our way. Tough luck, right? Let 

[0:17:08 Speaker 1] me pick up on this point because this point the point off all I think that a lot of people that even was okay with extension of lockdowns, as we had in the country, like, you know, he said, Well, if China could have, could have could have not mitigated this but really suppressed the virus, right? If they had lock down Wuhan somehow you know, there is a state of the world where this could be suppressed there. And I think there's a lot that we're learning now. Even places that did that, it seems like it's almost like a losing battery doesn't seem to be possible. Australia seem like a huge, huge ramp up in cases now, after what effectively an island was able to keep it under control and suppress it. Eso And that's the part that I I a t least you know, I think it was a big shift in the goalpost off. We're tryingto to flatten the curve to now. Let's try toe, keep a shot to mitigate Thio. Suppress this, end the virus. And, you know, cold viruses are really hard to make to to suppress. They just apparently are incredibly resilient, and they're gonna be around us. And that's why I think it's It's to me, very frustrating to be looking at the recurrent asked for lockdowns as it's just like, What are you trying to accomplish at this point? Why don't you just pushing those infections to the future? And perhaps maybe you're just hoping that a vaccine shows up first. How do what do you think that that that sort of the idea out there, 

[0:18:27 Speaker 0] Right? So the the view that, you know, delaying actually has saved a lot of lives just because even though we don't have vaccine, we've got better anti virals, better treatment. That may be true. So I mean, I tried looking into it and it didn't seem clearly wrong, but on the other hand, the people that were really optimistic like and told me things were great, like it wasn't clear their claims were checking out either. So again, I really I'm not too clear on that in terms of whether it just can be like, completely, completely, kind of like whether we actually could just get rid of it. So they're getting it seems like there, you know, there's some countries. They managed to get it down to such a small fraction of where it waas that it does seem least plausible that they could drive it into extinction, but at least with it before one for a country. But then there's the question of what do you do about relations with the rest of world, So making the country you know? So you know, this is something where I am not super confident. But listen to me that, like Germany got the number of cases down really low and then we supposedly their contract racing teams were so good. You know, they where they actually and you know, they had enough of them relative to the problem that a lot of times they don't have anything do anymore, right? So if you could actually have something like that, it's a fairly modest cost to be able to go and just getting just hold things down, especially given that Germany still is open to all these other European countries. That's pretty striking that anyone is able to do it. So using it, like what I've said recently, is you're not your foot. Well, so but I don't think they the borders are not still closes for 

[0:19:58 Speaker 1] the Open now. Yeah, yeah, and then they actually are. They are suffering from cases coming from Spain, apparently, and they're struggling a bit with that, 

[0:20:06 Speaker 0] right? Right. But immediately like morning, my main thoughts is, you know, like if you're not confused, you just don't understand what's going on. So I said, like, I wouldn't be surprised when three months, every country ran. You should get it down to the same level that Germany has got it in. I wouldn't be surprised when three months, every country is doing as badly as the United States of Brazil. And I'm just like, honestly, I'm just pretty confused of the situation. And, you know, like I noticed that people who pontificate almost never have any concrete prediction. They almost like, almost never say anything that could be definitely showed me right or wrong much. Let's put some money on it and steak. The reputation on the line. So I mean, I think, honestly, the the amount of of of respect that I give, you know, for people who say professionally, they're doing it. But find your professional so you know more than other people do. So say something specific. Give me a number. Give me a date, right? And give and and put some money on it, and you stake your reputation. This is what's going to happen to me when someone says I'm an expert much. But I'm just gonna go on speaking platitudes. Well, 

[0:21:03 Speaker 1] the experts have said it and they they've used numbers. They're like they've been. I mean, either it's coming or they were absolutely wrong, right? 2.3 million people gonna die in the U. S. They said it by a day. They even said by July, 2.2 million people in us is gonna die 

[0:21:18 Speaker 0] normally. When they say that if you actually pay attention, they have a bunch of qualifying. Words could die. You About two million could die. 

[0:21:26 Speaker 1] What I like about 

[0:21:27 Speaker 0] you 2.2 million could die like okay? Yeah, like I completely agree. 2.2 million could die, right? Or they'll or they'll have. Like unless we go and take drastic measures, 2.2 million will die, right? So normally again, like normally well, people there in the public eye have an instinct to avoid saying anything that could ever be demonstrably shown to be wrong s a million, which is a big point of Phil Tet locks. Fantastic book, super forecasting where you realize Look, anyone who does that you really show that they do not deserve your time. They don't serve your attention. They don't deserve respect. Really. People don't say what could happen. They say what will happen? They give you a date, they give you numbers and also give you probabilities and they give you money if they're wrong. 

[0:22:10 Speaker 1] So that's the issue that those people go went in and even making those statements and convince a lot of our governments to do radical things. They're convincing your government's thio not open schools for the rest of the year. 

[0:22:21 Speaker 0] A. So far as I know, I don't know about telling Maybe maybe maybe I missed it, but I don't know of any state legislature in the U. S. It has tried to take back powers from the governor's there. Is there any legislature? 

[0:22:31 Speaker 1] Is one. There's one. So so so the. I think that was not a legislator, but it was a court. So the 

[0:22:36 Speaker 0] Wisconsin courts, different courts. Like what? 

[0:22:40 Speaker 1] But that's because of a legislative 

[0:22:42 Speaker 0] trying to say you like where they were even trying to push forward a measure saying, The governor, the governor has become a dictator and you can't do this stuff without our permission and we don't get permission. 

[0:22:51 Speaker 1] But it was actually very interesting. I don't think people paid enough attention to this is that the legislator in Wisconsin has a the what they call the emergency powers of the governor have to be justified on a room making basis So they actually have a administrative law procedure to justify the existence of those those powers they can give you for two weeks. But after that, you have to go and do some justification for the emergency powers. And it turns out that the data available here was not enough to pass the bar. What we call you know. So then the force that you cannot continue this unless you go through the rulemaking process the government gave upside like, Oh, I can't do it because, you know, I don't think this is made up. I don't I don't have This is like in a bad flu. Um, e shouldn't say that because I gotta be in real trouble when I say that, but but that's That's essentially what? What? You know what gave the legislature? The gave stopped the governor of Wisconsin to continue the emergency powers that he had in place. Um, so All right, so let's fast forward to now. Like what? What? How do we read? In fact, actually, go back a little bit. You wrote something a while ago, talking about what you were doing so again, putting your money on, you know, or your mouth is here. So how did you handle personally? Some of the stuff lately. You wrote about it and you told why you're doing it. And you're surprised by the fact that a lot of smart people that you know, we're not acting in that way? Right, s So how did you interpret evidence and how did you act upon that? That evidence? Yeah, 

[0:24:12 Speaker 0] something like I say, You know, like, there's the meta point of the way you think about things, and then there's the actual concrete behavior. So what really surprises me is when smart people don't think in terms of probabilities. So when smart people just say Look, scientists have found there's a risk of walking through a room that someone that a sick person breathed in, say Okay, like, I'd be amazed if they didn't find that there was a risk. But how big is that risk? Right. And like, is there any actually like Like, is it like, Is there evidence that this this dosage, that this is actually going, that this ever gets people sick? What are the odds that it gets people sick? Right. So that's the kind of thing that really surprised me when smart people were just like smart people, especially people that are quite that normally have spotted native ability, just started talking like normal people, right? And a 

[0:25:00 Speaker 1] duty. We have a duty, right? 

[0:25:02 Speaker 0] Everything is just like any risk is too high. Oregon. Just like, you know, just saying there is a risk like this is, or or using hyperbolic language that's too dangerous. Or just imagine what would happen if some of you who died right I think like these are all the kinds of questions where I would say quantitative people need to be trained to to say those air terrible questions ask their ones that make people that confuse people prevent them or they clearly because everything you do can lead you to your death and the death, the death of other people around you. So it's a question of what are the actual odds that you should be focused on. And if you're not interested, those odds, then I would just say it's very hard to take anything you say. Seriously, eso me. That's sort of the meta point of the number of people that were just not thinking in a quantitative way on then in terms of the Civic, so, like on the specifics, I could much more understand. So, like, if I had a friend who said, I'm still pretty worried and here you'll hear my reasons why or I still think this approved measure and they went through the math, you know that then I think we could still have a very good conversation. But you know what, I basically, what I'm doing is trying to find the most up to date numbers on infection mortality rate by age by health status and then figuring out how that compares for me. Two things that I already do routinely. Like driving a car, right and again by, you know, by my by my math my my covert risk is probably really like you basically. And then, of course, the other thing is, even if you try to stay very safe, you could still get it. And, of course, even if you start living in a more relaxed way, you're very, very likely will never get It s all right. So let's ballpark. So suppose that changing my behavior to you live like a 90% normal way would move my infection rate or infection probability from 15 to 40% that Then you're talking about something like, I think, like a year's worth of driving risk, which to me, is not bad, right? And especially realizing that when I'm driving, I'm often risking the lives of all my Children. Right? Uh, who, actually, I would really like Honestly, I'd rather that I died. One of them died. And, you know, they're all caves, so their risk is really low. So when you put it that way. So like in terms of the familiar risk, I just don't see that this is very risky to my family. Now again, I'm not blind to the possibility of infecting someone that is high risk. And you know what I say is, you know there's a lot of common sense measures you can take their most obviously just avoiding contact with people that are high risk or if you know they're high risk. Then saying, Well, wait, we should probably avoid contact. Or of course, there's also asking, So like, are you high risk? And, like I'm happy to go on, accommodate you in ways that seem reasonable to you, right? So those are all ways that I would handle on have handle these things on the At the same time they're saying, Look, if you're very high risk, then it is reasonable to say that you should be the one that's taking extra precaution, and there's no reason to be resentful of that. Uh, compared to other people so we could say yes if everybody would just the world. We just revolve around me. I could live my life, and everyone else would withstand side. Yes. Well, that's not a reasonable expectation to put upon strangers. You ask for moderate things. So, you know, I said, if I see someone wearing a mask, then I try to drive. Then I try to stay further away from them because I take that as a sign that they're worried, Right? So I don't want to upset anyone or make anyone nervous. On the other hand, I'm not going to go and wear a mask outside to take a hike just because someone is terrified of seeing 100 ft away 

[0:28:28 Speaker 1] or because the governor told you to do so, right? 

[0:28:31 Speaker 0] Yes, brilliantly. There. Honestly, everyone breaks loss every day. That might have actually stopped during the quarantine, because people are inside. So maybe they're not breaking laws every day. But any time you're actually moving around interacting with other people, you're always breaking laws. You are always breaking the law when you're driving. Practically I've never met a human being who actually falls traffic laws in any scrupulous way because the laws are unreasonable and ridiculous and really there, there. So the police could go on hassle people whenever they want Thio for other Really, for other reasons rather than to actually dio and enforce the law per se. So yeah, So my view is when laws are stupid, people already break them routinely. And honestly, I don't see anything wrong with this, and I do it too, and I'm happy to do it. 

[0:29:19 Speaker 1] So So a point that I think escape a lot of even economists writing about This is something you mentioned that that well, you're going out you're doing, You understand the risk that your face and and I just just you mentioned Ah, your worst or driving and probably driving is the most dangerous thing that you do in a routine basis. So, you know, it's not trivial that you're adding that right, But again, you start from such a low level. And I would say that the latest calculations I've been looking at, I think it's something one way to look at a covert risk for people in our age bracket without conditions. It's something like adding somewhere between two or 20 days in a year. So you just use a little 

[0:29:55 Speaker 0] true that's way below what? I figured what I calculated about six weeks ago. Eso I mean, you know, So you started to me. I'm very curious. Like, 

[0:30:05 Speaker 1] uh, a whether it's in British numbers. So maybe, you know, we need to be a little careful. Careful with that. But the point. I was trying to make 

[0:30:15 Speaker 0] British number some pretty good to me, actually. E if I had to either generalize about my own risk from New York City or the entire country of Britain. That's a 

[0:30:24 Speaker 1] great thing, right? Yeah, that's right. That's right. Um, well, the point. The point that I was gonna make about about, you know, one of the one of the issues that people say Well, but you're making your own choice is creating externality. That's like a thing that we'd like to talk about in economics. An externality is that by you going out, you might increase the transmission of the virus, and therefore another vulnerable person might get it. And I'm or people who died as a result of your choices off going out right? You're not bearing the cost off that. But But I think that's not necessarily the whole way to think about this. Because as we talked about earlier, people like you and me getting in fact, it's actually, perhaps a positive externality on, And that has been sort of completely lost in the discussion of this, uh, 

[0:31:05 Speaker 0] positive if if you could do it responsibly. Exactly. You know, then you isolate. So which again is just what I would dio e remember? Like even in March, I asked my memory. So what is our plan? If one of us gets sick, what are we doing? Right? And that's actually where a lot of the stuff on dose response function what was relevant to me Because, Okay, what we don't want to do is put a bunch of sick kids together in a small room. So if one of you gets sick of, like, each person should be spread out of the house as much as possible, open up the windows and there was that way. You don't wind up getting a really high dosage of it in the same place. Um, yeah. I mean, you know, of course, what you like with any externality, Of course. Driving an externality and no silver person says that you should never drive. It's one thing to say you, like, take, take precautions. Look both ways don't drive too fast. These are all things that prudent people dio and that I'm happy to dio, you know, not just for my own safety or the safety of other vulnerable people, pedestrians and so on. But when someone, if someone said, never drive because you could hurt someone who's an externality, I say that's that's crazy. And again, like, you're like, you're ignoring the enormous cost you're putting on me, right? Uh, you know, And then I would say the same thing with infection, saying Yes. Well, you know, if it's, ah, substantial benefit to others that I could give it a modest cost myself great if or other. But if it's the other way around, then I don't think that is so great. Yeah, I was actually doing some Twitter polls on, like when would you consider something murder? So, you know, like, I suppose that you know, you're sick and you deliberately coffin somebody's face and they get sick and die like Is that murder? Yeah, probably it iss right. But how about if you, like, have no symptoms? You stay 6 ft away from other people, and then someone happened, and then someone happens to get sick and the result was that murder and saying like That's no, you know, I would say that's no more murder than if you actually kill someone. Writing on your bicycles were like you like you were doing very reasonable things. And yet once in a long while, something really bad happens when you're behaving responsibly. But it doesn't show that when you're doing so responsible. By the way, this is one of the great lessons that economists ought to teach their students more. Which is that just because of bad thing happens doesn't mean you should change your level of precaution, right? So look, I have a level precaution. The lower precaution is designed to achieve a certain level of risk. The fact that the risk happens once doesn't show that you weren't cautious enough. And yet, of course, you know to not economists No, no. Like like there was a fire that show that we need more fire precaution. It's like, Well, like, what is the overall rate of fire? If it's like one in a million, then maybe this is This is actually a totally acceptable one, and we shouldn't do anything right. 

[0:33:35 Speaker 1] Call that exposed freshen, Albert. Exactly. Right, right right. So you're accented Decision making was the right one. Don't don't exposed evaluated because that's gonna be that's gonna be bad. Right? Um so two things I want to talk about now, just moving a little bit to to to school. That's something that we're having A big policy decision that's taking place right now is like whether or not to open schools and your work has been a very and I want to quote you, I think again here. Maybe not perfectly, but but But, ah, lot of your work questioning the value of education. Um, it's quoted a lot focusing on high school in college. But I think you you went out. We were more vocal about us. And then, you know, I question all of it the whole and by education, you know, mean teaching people stuff. You mean the way we currently teach people 

[0:34:19 Speaker 0] stuff are like when a politician says we need more money for education. That's what I think. It was 

[0:34:25 Speaker 1] exactly exactly so. But now here we are, here we are. And somehow we're gonna live in a world this fall where I can go out and do anything, literally anything in Texas, but my school's gonna be closed. Our kids are gonna be, like, literally anything. Not going to a bar, I think not going to a bar, but anything else we could go to college. We could go to a football game in college. My little kid could go to daycare, but we cannot go to a school to Mike McKay through helps close 

[0:34:50 Speaker 0] public schools, private schools. 

[0:34:51 Speaker 1] Well, there's a big fight going on currently. So? So local health authorities are issuing mandates, saying the privates cannot open as well nor charters. And that's a political battle off funding. Why you don't want people to get under enrolled from from from the public. So the question is, I guess the question to you To you Is that Is that, um how do you look at this and you react to say Okay, I know this is this is pointless. So So who cares? Or are you particularly worry about? I mean, do you do you worry about the fact that somehow we're not gonna have education in the country for perhaps entire fault? Eso you think of that impact is gonna be 

[0:35:25 Speaker 0] in terms of student learning. I would be amazed if you saw any long run harm in terms of people's math and reading abilities. However, the the point that I mostly talk about in high school college and but I also occasionally mentioned younger grades. Eso Whenever I talk about education, I I always tried to be fair, and I say, Look, whatever else they do or fail to do, at least K through eight delivers daycare or now I say it well, it used Thio. It used thio. So even if they're not learning anything useful, you're just wasting their time making a bunch of stupid posters and singing songs. There are a lot of the kids don't want to sing songs, but I have seen plenty of miserable kids being forced to sing songs and schools. I mean, even if that's going on, say, at least schools provide daycare where kids a place where kids to go and they could see other kids and someone watches them so their parents could go and do their job and relax, right? And now it turns out the schools are not even gonna provide this one function where I've Long said, it's an undeniable thing service that they're providing? Yes, I say, like if schools aren't even gonna be a, you know, but especially for K through eight, then they are totally worthless. At this point. The idea that you're going to do online education for kindergarteners is just absurd. Right? So the best case scenario is the parents to sit there making the kindergartner do the work. So much case, it doesn't save the parent anytime they can't do their job. They can't relax. So why not? Just at that point, you might as well just do home schooling and save a lot of time and cut out the middleman. So, yeah, it is just a case where the schools want to keep getting enormous amounts of tax dollars and don't believe people say schools were underfunded. They get an enormous amount of money per student per year. So you're like the national average years ago was already up to, like, 12,000. So I'm doing this enormous level of spending per student on average. And what are they offering you? They're offering you something that's barely better than showing them YouTube videos. So 

[0:37:17 Speaker 1] I think that that's a thought process that you have 

[0:37:19 Speaker 0] rip off and Yes. So, you know, like people saying like, give the parents back the money and then let and then let them let them go and figure out what they want to do with their kids. Education seems like huge improvement to me. Eso I've been homeschooling my older kids for years and, of course, never got a dime back from that. And originally my younger kids, we're gonna have school open two days a week and like, all right, maybe that's not terrible, but it will be better than nothing. But anyway, now it was announced in our area that there will be no in person school whatsoever. So now I'm just gonna be home schooling my kids for at least the first quarter. So as to why I don't get that money back, right? Or of course, you go further and say, Hey, maybe we should just give the taxpayers back their money, right? Who are not quite the same as the parents, right? We've been ripping off taxpayers for all these years to get for these dubious services, and now we're not even giving you that. So why not just say, look like we don't want our rationale for us existing has gone e mean. I have little doubt that if schools would just receive no money if they didn't reopen, I think that maybe pushing to reopen, which, by the way, I haven't heard economists saying things like, Well, so you're like you're only you're worried about saving lives? What about people's livelihoods? And whenever I hear that, you have to remember, the people who want things shut down also want the level of redistribution to compensate for the loss to be so high that that especially most good workers were actually making more money now than they ever did. So they're not worried about their livelihoods very much so. There is a reason, you know. So you know, people also say, Well, it's not at all clear why the left is more supportive. Locked down to the right. It could have gone the other way. I'll see you could have gone the other way in a system without redistribution, but once you have very high levels of not only redistribution general but especially extra emergency redistribution, then it all lines up ideologically because the left likes the idea of people getting paid to not have to Dio do not have to do their job. They don't like the idea that you should have to do have a have a job to get work. They don't appreciate the the enjoyable consumer products that most people mostly spend their time saying. Most of what we do is not essential, right? And so and of course, yes, but it's not essential, but it is. But it is enjoyable. Why isn't that good enough? 

[0:39:31 Speaker 1] Well, essential. I don't like I don't like the term it all. I think essentially something that e exactly. I like to define what's essential for me and not not not letting somebody else 

[0:39:40 Speaker 0] to do really like definitely the categorization of essential or non essential was laughable. Yes, liquor stores are essential cannabis, 

[0:39:49 Speaker 1] cannabis stores, cannabis stores in places that cannabis is again. I'm completely support that, but it's like you're gonna have that the essential and and not schools schools. Not essential. Um, so so so that that is interesting point you make about, like, you know where in the country going to get the ability to in short period of time. Say, oh, we're gonna defund the schools if you know they're not open. Right? But if parents were to un enroll, then they the fact to get the funding because I think most states the homeschooling sort of like basically the money goes back to the state coffers. They don't depends on number of students who have. 

[0:40:22 Speaker 0] I think that that's the normal system. Of course, the schools really hurting. I think the laws get changed. 

[0:40:26 Speaker 1] Well, sure, but at least you put some pressure. And I'm surprised that that has not been at all anywhere. A big campaign on this. I've been I've talked to some people like shouldn't have some campaigns on, like home school your kids If the states asking to home school your kids home to your kids. Onda, let's let everybody, you know, be honest about it. But nowhere. You see nowhere. The fight for for that 

[0:40:47 Speaker 0] also means So you know, there there's a list of government employees where people love them based upon the ideals that they associate with associate them with. So, you know, veterans course, fireman police until recently, and teachers, right. And, of course, healthcare workers. So these are occupations where because what they do, what they do sounds good that you know, of course, soldiers in general, not just veterans, but they do sounds good. And so they get a lot of love just for existing. So, yeah, I mean the number of times where I've seen big signs around saying like like during the lock down, saying We are so grateful to our wonderful teachers. This is a time I have to say, Look, I'm actually teaching my kids. Where's my side e? No one's putting up signs saying Thanks, Brian, for going and doing the job that teachers are getting paid to do, and you're not getting paid to do it, but you're doing anyway. So, e, I have to say, I know some people don't like the idea of Stockholm syndrome. I'm a big fan of it. So, yeah, I think that's a lot of what's going on. And people are here getting totally ripped off, and teachers are basically giving them next to nothing in exchange for large amounts of money. And yet, because teachers are usually personally likable and nice, people wanted to persist. But, you know, like your garbage man was a nice guy. But he stopped picking up your garbage because of Covic. You wouldn't keep him right. 

[0:42:02 Speaker 1] Right on. That's, uh, you like to use the word you told me once They would like to rescue the word austerity. You think I started the good word and you like the fun stuff. So? So I think there's a lot of talk about defunding police this day. So So you're pro defunding. Police protein funding, education system defunding generally. Right. 

[0:42:19 Speaker 0] Okay, so you defunding is greatly underrated writer, like you said, you know, just austerity e. It's kind of funny because, you know, like you funding a sort of the new positive term with a positive connotation for austerity, but even like the idea is what, like my dad was like in the eighties. So you go and say, Hey, Dad, can I have 20 bucks? First question. What do you need it for? And then then it's like, Well, what over the last $20 I gave you, right? And what can I expect to see for my money? Right. And these are good questions for anyone that is handing out even their own money to ask. And we're handing out somebody else's money. You're handing out taxpayer money donor money. It is duty breach of fiduciary duty not to ask questions like this, right? If you are running a charity and you don't ask hard questions like, Well, what do you need the money for? What happened last money I gave you? What have you accomplished with, like, How will I know whether this is working? You weren't doing your job and I say the same thing for whenever government officials handing out taxpayer dollars. These are the questions that you should always be asking to find out, like our taxpayers getting their money's worth. Or are they getting ripped off and to say, what's a mean question when teachers need their salaries like, Well, like isn't there? This is not charity. They're supposed to be doing a job in exchange for this money. And if they don't do their job anymore, then it's totally fair to say, Well, we don't want to pay money to have people do nothing. 

[0:43:39 Speaker 1] Yeah, that's that's That's the especially now if they're actually not even gonna provide a daycare. So So that's That's the parts really crazy. All right, last question for you. And that's maybe a little provoking a little bit. Um, you wrote about this wonderful idea off open borders, immigration being a completely, completely no laws of immigration anywhere. Just people can move back and forth. It would be amazing for the world that would that would increase GDP by by enormous a mountain. And it's hard to disagree with that notion in a sort of hypothetical level. You go through a lot of arguments supporting that and arguments against it, and so on it. I recommend the book highly after a pandemic, Do you? Is there any change in your in your thinking about immigration? Is there anything that gives you pause or give you second thoughts? 

[0:44:22 Speaker 0] Right. So the main thing, I would say is that tourism is more dangerous than I thought here because here's the thing. Foreign immigrant, even a seasonal immigrant. If you were to say you have to go through a two week quarantine on on both sides of the trip in order to do it almost every year, it would still say yes because there's enormous game to them for tourism. On the other hand, if you were to go and do that, then actually probably would greatly to tourism, right? So again, of course, you could You could try to have high speed Kobe testing or something like that. But how do you know there won't be another disease? You know, that's that's hard to say. So anyway, what I say is that, um you're just just to set back. So you might take a look this and then say See, See? This is why we just shouldn't have anyone ever come to our country anymore, because we don't have, like, we don't have a bad disease right now. The only place is really gonna come is gonna be from another country. So if we just stop letting people in, then we're safe. Right? And I said, That's not really true. You know why? Because you would also have to prevent anyone from your country from leaving and coming back. So it it actually is not enough just to keep people out. You actually would have to turn your country into the old Soviet Union, where people either can't leave or if they do leave the right style. Can't return. All right, now, when you say Well, look all right, that's ridiculous. Then why don't we go up testing and quarantining and so on which they said, Okay, we'll find maybe there's some use for that, but that is you know, But, you know, that would be actually a very minor barrier thio immigration for work purposes. Which is, of course, the main reason why people want to migrate because it is a substantial up front cost for enormous overwhelming benefits. So I just don't think would make very much difference. Um, again, the ending In the end, I would still say that. Um, yeah, if you, you know, like, if there could have been some very carefully crafted limits on mobility early on again, like, you know, like if china actually said foreigners can't leave Wuhan either there there's one month quarantine. Sorry, Right. If they had done that, I would have been nervous about the peace of the world, but in terms, But knowing what I know now, I think that actually really would have had a high chance of actually saving the rest of world from there from these horrors. And of course, the amount of gratitude China would be getting or that would be less than zero, I think said there'd probably be a lot of people that were there stuck there and they're saying, You know, like or if you could find one American who died there because they weren't able to go and get high quality American medical treatment outside of Wuhan, you know, then that could be an international incident, right? But still So something like that, where there's a small where there's a reasonably small area where you actually can do enormous good by going and having the state of this temporary abridgment of human freedom. For a modest number of people do something like that to me like That's not crazy at least. But I think what we have done is crazy. What what is going to continue doing? I think it's good. It's crazy. 

[0:47:09 Speaker 1] That seems to be the case very right. That seems to be the case. Um, so what's the What's the estimate again for? For if we had open borders everywhere, in terms of how much richer the world will be, 

[0:47:19 Speaker 0] eso sort of sort of like immediate estimates, something like a doubling of the production of mankind again, this is like, you know, reasonable person says this would happen immediately because the way you get that large increases by moving large populations from low productivity countries. I could high productivity countries and again it's on the order of billions of people, which is not feasible during the course of a month or a year or even five years. But over the course of 50 years, moving billions of people is totally feasible, right, and people that can't be done now it can be done. In fact, China, India have had hundreds of millions of people move just within their own countries over the past few decades. So either you couldn't do this all over the surface of the earth is just wrong. It's totally realistic to think that we could move billions of people over that long, long period right and again and then, like the kinds of fears that people have about moving, that many people are reasonable at the duration of a month or a year. They're not reasonable, the duration of decades, where there's plenty of time to build housing and new businesses and everything else for all the people that are coming. 

[0:48:21 Speaker 1] And you know, my point of making that is that is that you know, I maybe I'm willing to trade off double the GDP over spirit of time for for yeah, even with a higher risk of the disease spreading around and killing a certain number of people because, I don't know, part of me also thinks that that's an unavoidable right We have. We have. Ah, and I think that if you double GDP, life expectancy is gonna grow by so many other reasons. People gonna get better and, like, you know, live longer and so on that that feeling long long enough, right? Something we're gonna kill you and including covert and cancer and so on. And the point is that I think that those the I wouldn't give up on on the immigration a benefits by looking at. 

[0:49:00 Speaker 0] There are a lot of diseases that epidemiologist classifies disease of poverty that basically diseases where they mostly originate and and spread in places where people are poor for a wide range of reasons. So But of course, once they originate and start spreading an area with a lot of poor people, they can go and spread through contagion richer areas. So I would say this is a reason to want to speed poor countries through the period of poverty to get them out of that danger zone not only for themselves, but also so that you least wind up reducing the risk of a lot of diseases. Which one could actually affect you? That's right. 

[0:49:36 Speaker 1] That's right, Brian. Thank you so much. And good luck. Good luck with the home schooling, 

[0:49:41 Speaker 0] right? Yeah. So always great seeing him and face. So now, more than ever. 

[0:49:45 Speaker 1] Exactly. Bye bye