Coronavirus: Return to sender — economists’ letter is gibberish

Posted on April 23, 2020 by Henry Ergas

Today in The Australian:
Like some books, there are petitions that deserve to be forgotten, not for the sake of their potential readers but to protect the reput­ation of their authors. The open letter by a bevy of economists urging­ Scott Morrison to keep the COVID-19 restrictions in place is a case in point.

About Henry Ergas

Henry Ergas AO is a columnist for The Australian. From 2009 to 2015 he was Senior Economic Adviser to Deloitte Australia and from 2009 to 2017 was Professor of Infrastructure Economics at the University of Wollongong’s SMART Infrastructure Facility. He joined SMART and Deloitte after working as a consultant economist at NECG, CRA International and Concept Economics. Prior to that, he was an economist at the OECD in Paris from the late 1970s until the early 1990s. At the OECD, he headed the Secretary-General’s Task Force on Structural Adjustment (1984-1987), which concentrated on improving the efficiency of government policies in a wide range of areas, and was subsequently Counsellor for Structural Policy in the Economics Department. He has taught at a range of universities, undertaken a number of government inquiries and served as a Lay Member of the New Zealand High Court. In 2016, he was made an Officer in the Order of Australia.
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12 Responses to Coronavirus: Return to sender — economists’ letter is gibberish

  1. stackja says:
    April 23, 2020 at 11:07 am

    These economists have pandemic experience? Or only socialist?

  2. Hay Stockard says:
    April 23, 2020 at 11:17 am

    These Economists must be good at passing exams. Otherwise they are as dumb as a box of rocks.

  3. Tim Neilson says:
    April 23, 2020 at 11:19 am

    Yes, this is exactly what’s needed here – people who are (or at least appear to be) experts in one area of input into a major decision pontificating about the totality of the situation.

  4. Mother Lode says:
    April 23, 2020 at 11:50 am

    there are petitions that deserve to be forgotten, not for the sake of their potential readers but to protect the reput­ation of their authors

    I must contest this.

    We cannot have a person’s reputation being only their creditable deeds while their discreditable ones are airbrushed from history. A person’s reputation should reflect what they are, not some mythical form.

  5. Cynic of Ayr says:
    April 23, 2020 at 12:09 pm

    Just another example that an education, and a bit of paper saying so, proves nothing, and isn’t worth shit anymore.

  6. a happy little debunker says:
    April 23, 2020 at 12:21 pm

    We live in a world wide web where everyone is an expert.
    Hence,
    Socialists can apply market mechanisms to control the weather.
    Libertarians condone the enforcement of social lockdowns.
    Economists are now also health experts.

    And nobody will ever change their minds.

  7. max says:
    April 23, 2020 at 12:27 pm

    Joe Biden’s health adviser Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel has called for the USA to be locked down for eighteen months, as though there would be no enormous and lasting consequences for such a policy. (Emanuel also has declared that no one over age seventy-five should be permitted to receive medical care. One supposes that he will make an exception for his 78-year-old boss.)

    https://mises.org/wire/anthony-fauci-when-politics-trumps-science

  8. max says:
    April 23, 2020 at 12:41 pm

    We have to live with this problem just as societies throughout history have lived with much worse, from the bubonic plague that roiled much of the world for centuries to smallpox epidemics, to the measles and polio epidemics of my childhood (I got measles and all of us were scared to death of catching polio, which ravaged one of my relatives) to the common flu of modern times. Thanks to capitalism—yes, capitalism—we not only see fewer pandemics in the world, but are better able to stand up to them.

    One can surmise that Fauci would never understand the role that capitalism has played in eradicating not only diseases around the world, but also poverty and hunger. As a public health bureaucrat all of his professional life, who sees the world in terms of budgets, spending, and following orders, he simply cannot fathom how private enterprise makes the world a healthier place, and so he cannot understand that one does not eradicate diseases by destroying an economy. And that, not any alleged “deep state” activities, makes him unfit to be the face of fighting the coronavirus.

    https://mises.org/wire/anthony-fauci-when-politics-trumps-science

  9. Harpo of Wolli Creek says:
    April 23, 2020 at 1:17 pm

    These economist goons apparently aren’t even aware that these virtue signalling petitions always end in major embarrassment for the signers.

  10. BorisG says:
    April 23, 2020 at 8:43 pm

    Trump has criticized the Georgia governor for opening too soon. Who is right?

  11. Robber Baron says:
    April 23, 2020 at 9:15 pm

    Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel

    Who is he? None other than the brother of Rahm, the current Democrat Mayor of Chicago and former chief of staff to Barry Obama. Quite the Marxist.

    It’s a club.

  12. Hay Stockard says:
    April 24, 2020 at 12:19 am

    Boris G,
    Which Georgia?
    Yours or the Yanks?

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