Arnold Kling has an intriguing series of blog posts on the nature of universities and other institutions that are, as he says, cancel-bait. I removed the cancel-bait part and pass on his observation on the shift in institutional culture, visible in universities but also in corporate and nonprofit institutions and in our politics. 

Hoover Institution fellow Scott Atlas discusses the enormous harms that have been articulated about closing in-person schools, and they are particularly harmful to people who are working class and poor children. And there is nothing more important than educating our children and that opening schools for our children is safe, and always has been safe since children have an extremely low risk to the coronavirus.

I'm reading up on the $1.9 trillion "stimulus." This caught me eye: Biden's plan would set out $160 billion for a nationwide vaccine program that would help state and local governments get the vaccine into people's arms.There are 328 million people in the US. $160 billion is just about exactly $500 per person. 

Discussing stimulus, a colleague passed along a factoid -- wages and salaries, he said,  are running $20 billion a month or $240 billion a year below where they should be. If the "stimulus" were to aim entirely to replace all lost wages due to the pandemic, that would stop at $240 billion, not $1.9 trillion. (My colleague is usually a pro-stimulus type.) I forgot to get the source, so I tried to recreate it. Here are some documented numbers, total compensation of employees, wage and salaries.