Tuesday, August 4, 2020

2020 - The Lost Year











As 2019 drew to an end, we began learning about a weird, unknown virus hitting eastern China. At the time, like most, my family was more focused on the upcoming year. 

We were planning on growing our savings so we could buy a new home in 2021, we were preparing to visit some close friends in Florida, and we were looking forward to taking an international trip to celebrate my partner’s 33rd birthday.

Then the economy collapsed as that wired little virus turned into a monster. My partner was furloughed as Nashville shutdown, Florida became an epicenter of the pandemic in America, and thanks to rising case numbers, many countries won’t even let Americans visit anymore. And there’s still four months left to go in the year.

Individual years, decades, even whole generations have been referred to as “lost”.

During the American Civil War about 2% of the population was killed. By one estimate, over a fifth of all Southern men aged 20-24 died in the war. One hundred and fifty-five years later, the American south now seems to be bearing the brunt of COVID-19 as well.

World War I is said to have cost the “flower of European youth”, and World War II resulted in the worst carnage imaginable. But as bad as they are, wars are expected to cost lives and destroy families. Unfortunately, economies can too.

During the Great Recession, approximately 10,000 people took their own lives in the US and European Union, and countless millions had their worlds turned upside down from the hardship. Japan “lost” an entire decade from 1991 to 2001 as economic stagnation took over and the country couldn’t crawl its way back to the prosperity that had marked the second half of the twentieth century.

But, from Japan’s lost decade to the lost generation of Europe, one thing all of these examples share is that they’re local or regional. The American Civil War was, well, American. Even a global war like WWII didn’t actually rage across every inch of the planet. No battle was fought in Nigeria and the harbor of Rio De Janeiro was never a prime target of Hitler’s. COVID-19 on the other hand has swept every corner of the globe.

Unlike artillery shells whizzing by that you can hear (and even see), trillions of invisible viral bullets permeate our environment, waiting to take another victim. And in the battle against it, we have been forced to alter the lives of far more people than were ever affected by war.

From the gay couple living near Nashville, Tennessee trying to survive the entertainment industry shutdown of “Music City USA” to the citizens of Mumbai, India where upwards of half the population living in its sprawling slums may have contracted the virus, it seems no place has gone untouched.

With four months in the year left and 4.6 million US cases already, it’s not unreasonable to suspect the United States will have 9 million cases by Christmas, and that a million people will have died worldwide.

Economically, US GDP fell 32.9% (the worst quarterly drop ever) and that trend is being seen everywhere. The European Union has entered into a recession and the World Bank predicts that Russia’s economy will contract by 6% (deepening their economic crisis). In fact, the World Bank predicts that the global economy will shrink by a combined 5.2%, “with the largest fraction of economies experiencing declines in per capita output since 1870.”

COVID-19 has resulted in a lost year in more than just Brazil or Europe or in rich countries or poor countries. It has taken away an entire year of family plans and of people’s education and graduations, a year of savings and a year of vacations, it has placed millions at risk of eviction and caused emergencies throughout the medical community as routine screenings go unperformed and patients stay at home with their chronic illness rather than risk catching COVID-19 by seeing their doctor for regular care.

It has done this everywhere. On every continent, every country. Even in the few with no reported cases, the effects of COVID-19 have probably touched more individual lives in one way or another than any other pandemic in history.

The upshot is that while 2020 may be a lost year for many, it doesn’t have to be a genuinely lost year in terms of the lives of thousands and thousands of others. And COVID’s death and economic ruin doesn’t have to carry on into another lost year and beyond.

Managing economies made up of millions of businesses and billions of customers is complicated. Managing a pandemic is actually pretty simple. 

It may take a few years at a university to learn about things like “behavioral economics” but the blueprint for controlling infectious diseases has its foundations dating back to the Plague – the one that burned through Europe 667 years ago.

We know how to limit the damage of outbreaks without having a vaccine. It was done with polio, it is being done with HIV/AIDS, it has been done with each Ebola recurrence, and it can definitely be done with COVID-19. The specific rules may vary depending on the exact disease, but in each case those rules can fit onto a single note card. For the current pandemic that has stolen so much and is trying to steal so much more, the rules are basic:

1. Everyone sneezes or coughs on their hands, so wash yours

2. Don’t make it easy to spread, so socially distance yourself

3. Assume you have it, so wear a mask while around others

4. And don’t let false information stand in the way of keeping others safe

These are fundamental to stopping a disease like COVID-19, and that’s what makes them so effective. If we collectively can’t follow such simple tasks for the benefit of others, then 2020 won’t be the last lost year.

For my family, the jury is still out whether we will be able to safely see our friends (as Florida grapples with continual daily case records) or if a new house is coming next year, but we will keep looking out for each other the way all families are supposed to.


--Jacob Bogle, 8/4/2020
www.JacobBogle.com
www.JacobBogleWrites.com

Friday, February 7, 2020

The Case for a Delaware First in the Nation Vote


Iowa has be the "first in the nation" caucus for Democrats since 1972 and for Republicans since 1976 because of the state's complex system of local caucuses, county conventions, etc. 

In recent times, questions have been raised about the fairness, continued viability, and democratic (or anti-democratic) nature of continuing to allow Iowa to be the first state in the country to hold a vote in determining who will end up being the candidates for president. These questions have gone into overdrive since the 2020 Democratic caucus, when the results took days to become known and no candidate was able to lay claim to the title of "winner" as Pete Buttigieg won the delegate count but Sen. Bernie Sanders conclusively won the popular vote count. 
Additionally, the 2020 Democrat field began with a diverse group of dozens of candidates but by the time of the caucus it was realistically down to four white candidates. 

Iowa is not a representative state when it comes to race and minority candidates have long held that giving Iowa the first spot (and the electoral bump winning the state provides) disadvantages minority candidates. This is compounded by the fact that the second state to hold a vote is New Hampshire, also a very white state.

The United States as a whole is 73% white, 12.7% black, and 17.6% Hispanic. On the other hand, Iowa is 90.6% white. Additionally, it's a fairly rural state with an urbanization rate of 64% vs. 80.7% for the US.

A big reason why supporters of keeping Iowa the "first in the nation" is that its small population gives lesser-known candidates the ability to build up support easier than in other states and for less money.

I'd like to make the case that if we are going to continue having a "first in the nation" contest, that the state should be Delaware.

First, some similarities. 

Like Iowa, Delaware is small. Indeed, it's the second smallest state in the country. (New Hampshire isn't much bigger, it's the fifth smallest state). It size would allow campaigns of any size the opportunity to gain traction and visibility without having to spend tens of millions of dollars.

With Delaware's small population, candidates could very easily shake hands with the majority of voters and pursued them to their side face-to-face.

In terms of potential Electoral College votes during the general election, Delaware has 4, between Iowa's 6 and New Hampshire's 3. But the state physically sits near Maryland, New Jersey, Virginia, and Pennsylvania. People who vote for similar candidates don't exist within the boundaries of a county or state, support bleeds into other areas. The border regions hold a greater mix of party preference before you head out into solid red or blue territory. 

Maryland and New Jersey are fairly blue and Virginia and Pennsylvania have acted as toss-up states in recent elections. Toss-up states are what matters during the general election and winning a nearby state in a caucus/primary can help boost turnout elsewhere. The combined EC votes of those states plus Delaware is 60. Currently, when you look at the states that touch Iowa, the EC votes equal 64. Again, very similar.

Delaware and Iowa are tied when it comes to how often the state voted for the eventual winner during the general election. Since 1972, both states have gone to the winner 9 times.

Onto the differences.

Iowa is 90.6% white. Delaware is 68.9% white. The US is 73% white. This makes Delaware much more representative of the racial diversity of the country. Despite Iowa's larger population, there are actually more African Americans living in Delaware than in Iowa, around twice as many in fact.

In terms of urbanization, 83.3% of Delaware's population lives in a town or city. That's near the national rate of 80.7%. Iowa's urban population is a mere 64%.

When it comes to education, Delaware also more closely matches the country. Over 33% of Americans have a bachelor's degree or higher. In Delaware it's 31%, Iowa is 28%.

Conclusions

Iowa is simply not representative of either the United States or the base of the Democrat Party. On top of that, the Iowa Democratic Party has lost all faith and trust of voters after the colossal botching of the 2020 caucus.

Delaware maintains the positives associated with Iowa (a small population that gives lesser known or underfunded campaigns a chance to break through) while providing a number of metrics that are much more inline with the country as a whole.

On top of it all, there's historic symmetry with the fact that Delaware was the literal first state in the nation, having ratified the Constitution before any other state. 

If the parties continue to insist on a single, first state to hold a vote, I think Delaware should be given serious thought. 


--Jacob Bogle, 2/7/2020
JacobBogle.com
AccessDPRK.com
Twitter.com/JacobBogle