Lockdowns imposed in Britain, America and continental Europe may well go down as one of the worst policy failures in modern history. They derailed kids’ education, added billions to the national debt, and placed millions under arrest – all for practically no benefit (judging by comparison with those locations that eschewed them).
In a paper published in February 2021, two economists – Peter Boettke and Benjamin Powell – ask why lockdowns were adopted, given their enormous costs.
The authors begin by noting that lockdowns are not consistent with “recommendations from standard welfare economics”. This is a fancy way of saying that lockdowns are not the policy you’d choose if you were an economist trying to maximise societal well-being in the context of the pandemic.
Boettke and Powell acknowledge that there is “transmission externality” – people with Covid impose costs on others by inadvertently transmitting a deadly virus to them, which may lead to more transmission than is “socially optimal”. And while this kind of situation calls for some kind of government intervention, it does not call for blanket lockdowns.
Since catching Covid confers immunity (and this immunity appears to be better than what the vaccines provide), the “negative externality” associated with Covid transmission is partially offset by the “positive externality” associated with the build-up of population immunity.
As I’ve noted previously, it’s by no means clear that preventing Covid infections among very low-risk groups (such as healthy children) was the right policy. In fact, we probably should have encouraged young people to get the virus early on (while shielding those with underlying health conditions).
Boettke and Powell argue that Covid policy-making can be framed as a “dispute” between healthy, young people on the one hand and elderly or vulnerable people on the other.
Young people impose an externality on old people, who are at much higher risk, by taking less care to avoid transmission than is socially optimal. However, lockdowns impose an obvious and very large externality on the young. So what is to be done?
As Boettke and Powell note, the standard welfare economics approach would be to ask the “least cost mitigator” to bear the burden of adjusting to the externality. This is a fancy way of saying that, when deciding which of two groups should change its behaviour, you choose the one for which doing so is least costly.
Since it is much less costly for old people to engage in shielding than it is for young people to remain locked down, a focused protection strategy makes far more sense – from the perspective of welfare maximisation – than blanket lockdowns.
So why did most Western countries ignore this straightforward logic (as well as their own pandemic preparedness plans), and press ahead with lockdowns?
On this particular question, the authors fail to provide a satisfying answer. They correctly note that politicians and public health officials are just as self-interested as everyone else – that they look out for their own interests first, and only secondarily for the ‘public good’. Yet they don’t really explain why imposing lockdowns was in their interests.
One explanation that’s popular on social media – the so-called ‘Great Reset’ theory – is that lockdowns were adopted with the explicit aim of increasing government power, making it easier to adopt various other authoritarian policies in the future. And while they may end up having this effect, I don’t buy it as an explanation for their adoption.
Here I’m inclined to agree with Toby, who subscribes to the ‘cock-up theory of history’. What I suspect happened is that governments came under immense pressure to ‘do something’ as people became increasingly scared by what they were seeing on social media (much of it highly sensationalised and, in some cases, simply fake).
Meanwhile, scientists like Neil Ferguson and bloggers like Tomas Pueyo were saying that healthcare systems would be completely overwhelmed unless we locked down now. These pronouncements made people even more scared, heaping further pressure on governments.
Once Italy locked down, there was a precedent, allowing other Western governments to lock down without fear of being the first mover. This had a domino effect, where each successive country went into lockdown (apart from Sweden, of course) because no leader wanted to be the only one who ‘hadn’t acted’.
In the short-term, therefore, politicians and public health officials were pursuing their own interests when they decided to lock down. They didn’t want to be punished by the voters for ‘not acting’, and recognised that the costs of lockdown would come later, by which time they’d be out of office. A textbook case of government failure.
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Good. It’s a BS schedule anyway.
On holiday in Keswick this week.
Stocking up at Waitrose I was left in the car while Mrs shopped.
I watched a lady trying to reverse her EV people wagon into the narrow charging bay. No tittering gents, please.
Eventually, after 15 mins she was there. Out she got, spent 5 mins reading the instructions. Back to the EV, then working out her cable wouldn’t reach. Then 5 more mins looking at a phone app, presumably to locate another charge point.
Off she drove, steam coming out of her ears.
‘Buy a diesel, love!’ I shouted in my car.
PS Confession: my wife and daughter are much better at reversing than me.
My son met me at Marlborough for the day a few months ago. He parked his hybrid in one of the 2 EV charging bays in the car park, just to find they were both out of action. Just as well it wasn’t a full EV because he had a 100 mile return journey and would have had insufficient charge to make it.
“Michael Gove, the levelling-up secretary, said the 2030 date to end sales of new petrol and diesel vehicles was “immovable”. He told the BBC: “We’re committed to maintaining our policy of ensuring that by 2030 there are no new petrol and diesel cars being sold.””
Gerald Celente “Hey Politician who ** are you to tell me what to do”
“Immovable” and the Titanic was “unsinkable”
What a self important poofed up twat!
Add in treacherous and self interested
Call me whacky, but given that they’re already talking about rolling blackouts this winter because they won’t be able to meet current demands, let alone an increase (at least it’ll keep my extortionate bills down), where is all that leccy to supply these charging points supposed to be coming from? It’s been proven time and again that windmills and solar panels – both unreliable, unrecyclable and environmentally damaging – just won’t cut it & Hinkley Point nuclear station isn’t due to come online until 2027 at the earliest.
The term rolling blackouts reminded me of the miners strike in the 1970s, during which a large proportion of it came from coal fired stations. However, the real issue is local distribution, not so much the capability of meeting the demand at the top end. Have a look at my comment nearby on this.
Miners strikes, dustbin workers strikes, power workers strikes!
And the good Mrs. Thatcher had already stockpiled coal like there was no tomorrow.
Add to that, Scargill playing right into her hands, like the great busted ego he was.
The other matter is the potentially increasing popularity with private charging points, i.e. at your house. Some have it already, some not. Apart from the obvious need for an off-road place on you property, the capability of the local distribution cabling is another issue. I don’t think the firms that handle the district network (District Network Operator (DNO)) have been planning ahead for that. Recently, in my area, they have had to renew a lot of buried cable due to faults caused by insulation failures. What they did was more or less like for like, given the sizing of the local transformer and the cabling installed. Also, some houses are done with a short spur that feeds both, and it would have to be split into individual spurs if they wanted EV charge points. Some footage about what happened here: https://youtu.be/LS8VFhRMsYY Towards the back end there are some notes about this matter, esp the IET standards relating to that.
In simple terms, the local networks are not supposed to cope with everyone drawing their maximum load at the same time, on the basis that there is usually an element of diversity, with most domestic things. However, EV charging is treated differently, as it’s possible for long term continuous loads to occur simultaneously. So they would either have to ramp up the cabling, or introduce remote automation of “load management” (BS7671 722.311.201) to spread the load (inimical to the current system with multiple different utility firms on the same cable).
Excellent detail from someone who knows what the F they’re talking about. You won’t “fail upwards”.
They do not need to install any more charging points because the idea is to end the era of cheap mass transportation for the hoi-polloi. Ever since the expansion of the railways the elite have been horrified at the idea of travel freedom for all. Well with the EV nonsense they will finally put a stop to us all travelling all over the place.
I understand the bulk of EV sales are corporate on lease deals and making use of tax breaks, the whole concept of EVs does not work for ordinary folk on modest incomes and so when ICE cars are phased out it will be on your bike, on the bus or walking.
Most of the big car makers like Ford are already gearing up to stop the production of cheap and cheerful cars like the Fiesta and focus on selling smaller numbers of top end EVs. There may be some micro lightweight EV’s like the Citroen Ami (souped up mobility scooter) for those who need some local transport. But otherwise I rather feel that the idea is that the era of everybody having a Ford Cortina parked in the drive is being consigned to history.
I talk to the main ICE engineers who tell me that EVs are the Betamax of the automotive industry
Take away government subsidies and fleet sales would end! Fleet sales are the only thing keeping these farcical sales numbers up
Let evs compete in the real world without government aid and sales would fall on their arse!
…Michael Gove, the levelling-up secretary…
“Levelling-down secretary” would be a more accurate description, and would fit in well with ‘Net Zero’, since that’s where we’re heading as a civilisation.
Electric vehicles are not green, they are not viable except as expensive run arounds for those with money but no sense and actually on a worldwide scale are way more polluting than ICE vehicles. They are the globalists way of adding window dressing to a global problem that doesn’t exist. In other words a SCAM.
Apart from the arguments on whether electric vehicles are as carbon neutral as claimed, in my little town of Rye there are to my knowledge only four charging points, and those are all in a hotel car park. The centre of the town is a pedestrianised area, so there is no street parking. There is no electricity supply to either of the garages we have. So charging an electric car is impossible and the prospect of more charging points is remote.
That said I still wish to see a clear analysis of the relative contributions of fossil fuel emissions, other man made activities such as deforestation, and natural phenomena such as volcanic eruptions and ocean current variations which remain outside human control to whatever real climate change is or is not occurring.
We were persuaded to lease an EV through my business last year because of the significant tax incentives that are available. Were they not, our family transport [600+ miles per each tank of diesel] would have remained unsold. Our son lives in Derbyshire, we live in Cornwall. Visits north to see him are always tinged with concern over charging…..as highlighted by previous commentators….even though we have an indicated, not actual range, of 340 + miles….another joke!
When this lease ends in 2 years time, we will be going nowhere near another EV and we will buy another ICE car. The EV will have depreciated stratospherically, have to sit in a field, 2 metres from any other EV for fire safety reasons and probably remain unsold
So in nearby Frome, one car park on the edge of town has turned over six parking places to being charging bays. Out of around 20 in toto.
Some weeks back.
The charge units are still not in use, with bags over them. No indication of when they may be available.
Paid for out of the rates, I’d guess.
This is a joke, but a really really bad one.
See above. Ours were 18 months to become functional. All that’s needed now is for someone to use them! Great value for money!
I live in a small west country town where, I estimate, 70% of car-owners, have no facility to charge an EV from their own house. A couple of years ago, TWO electric chargers were installed in one of the town’s main car parks.
The idea that the infrastructure will be in place by 2030 is ludicrous. And that’s even IF people want and can afford an EV. Most can’t and many don’t want one.
Here in a Mid-Wales seaside town the council installed a double charge unit (user provides own cable). It was placed 18 months ago, then they dug up a pavement again for a new cable and marked 2 places. 9 months later they come and add another point along side. Eventually reinstating the tarmac and adding more markings. During all this time not one was functioning until 6 weeks ago. Since then I have seen one electric van (who on earth would want an electric Tansit van in a rural, hilly, area?!) use this amazing facility – not.
Virtually the only EV’s you see in this area are visitors with their Teslas.