I posted recently about the discussion between Phil Magness and Jeremy Horpedahl about mask mandates to deal with COVID-19. My sometimes co-author and former student Charley Hooper wrote the following on masks in a recent email. He’s given me permission to share it. The bottom line: the evidence in favor of masks, let alone mandates, just does not seem to be there.
I live in Monterey County, where the Monterey County Health Officer, Dr. Edward Moreno, has had a lot of control over our daily lives since last March. Many of us were hoping that at least he would do his job and get Monterey County its pro rata share of the Covid-19 vaccines allocated to California.
As we’re about to close the books on Black History Month in America, I’d like to offer a few thoughts on the African American existence in present-day California.
by David Altig, Jose Maria Barrero, Nick Bloom, Steven J. Davis, Brent Meyer, Emil Mihaylov, Nick Parkervia Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta
Wednesday, February 24, 2021
Chances are you recognize the relatively new acronym WFH as "working from home." In less than a year, WFH has become a ubiquitous, inescapable facet of life for many people, so much so that newswires now ask which cities are best for WFHOff-site link, and online job boards compile listsOff-site link of companies that allow remote work on a full-time, permanent basis.
When the Federal Reserve was created in 1913, long before it aspired to be a fourth branch of government, its sufficient mission was to preserve the currency as a store of value: Price stability facilitates economic dynamism by giving economic actors a degree of certainty. In 1978, Congress encouraged institutional imperialism in the Fed by mandating that its policies should promote “maximum employment.”
Many Americans don’t know what to believe about COVID-19 because public health officials like Dr. Anthony Fauci have flip-flopped so many times on so many issues it’s hard to keep track. Turning on the news isn’t helpful either, as viewers will likely be met with doom and gloom stories about the pandemic, including death tracker chyrons (thanks, CNN) that seemed to stay on screen no matter what topic is being discussed (at least under Trump).
What is the purpose of academic freedom? Is it to allow all kinds of ideas to be expressed and explored, protecting even speech that people in the past considered heretical—protecting free expression that some people today would like to “cancel”? Or is it to allow co-workers in the ideological minority to be personally and selectively disparaged with impunity?
Less discussed than his foreign policy experience is Shultz’s no less important role as a visionary problem solver in the interrelated issues of climate change and technology.
