I Told You So - 19 May 2020

From the beginning, at least from the first essay addressing data about and from the Damn Gummint (at all levels), I've made the point that the USofA isn't made of Red states and Blue states, but of shitkickers in the empty counties and the educated in the cities. Where's a newly minted EE from State U going to go next? Smallville in the middle of nowhere with no one who even knows what a EE does, or Gotham where there's lots of work for a EE? Not surprising to figure out that those are the Red and Blue dominions. Further, macroeconometrics is hard mostly because the data is from self reporting, and at the federal level, almost always from sampling.

Also from the beginning of The Very Unstable Lunatic's reign, I asserted that he and his minions would suppress and corrupt data collection and reporting when (and it will mostly) data contradict his addled brain. Can't let facts get in the way, "and bring me my bleach inhaler!!"

So, it should come as no surprise that mainstream news has put two and two together.

"The concentration of the economy in bigger, denser, more science-oriented places becomes a real ceiling on effective reopening," says Mark Muro, senior fellow and policy director at the Metropolitan Policy Program. "Metropolitan economic elites are well informed about the risk and may simply refuse to participate in what they may view as a precipitous opening. This is where behavior is going to have a large say, rather than political or policy positions."

The fact remains, and was true in Greece and Roman millennia ago, progress both economic and intellectual, happens in cities. They are the engines of growth.

Taking their cue from The Very Unstable Lunatic, states have taken steps to suppress Covid-19 data.

"When there is no accountability, the only kind of accountability that is left is the public scrutiny of places," said Brian Lee, executive director of Families for Better Care, a national long-term care watchdog group.

"Who does it ultimately benefit to not know the names of the providers? The providers. This shows (states) are protecting the interests of the providers."

Same goes for prisons and meat processing plants. What we don't know will hurt us.

That's the Right Wingnut way.