Tag: Reason

Cuomo’s Office Covered Up Nursing Home Death Toll Last Summer

Mary Pat Campbell
Cuomo’s Office Covered Up Nursing Home Death Toll Last Summer

Excerpt:

Cuomo aides kept nursing home death numbers quiet. A damning new report from The New York Times suggests Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s office knew as early as last June how deadly the governor’s plans were proving for nursing home residents, but still concealed this information from the public.

Early in the pandemic, Cuomo had ordered that nursing homes could not reject patients from returning to those facilities after testing positive for COVID-19 and being hospitalized. He also barred the deaths of COVID-19 patients transferred from nursing homes to hospitals after catching the virus from being counted among nursing home COVID-19 deaths.

Author(s): ELIZABETH NOLAN BROWN

Publication Date: 5 March 2021

Publication Site: Reason

Detroit Mayor Is Wrong To Turn Down J&J COVID-19 Vaccines

Mary Pat Campbell
Detroit Mayor Is Wrong To Turn Down J&J COVID-19 Vaccines

Excerpt:

The Detroit Free Press reports that the mayor declined to accept a shipment of 6,200 doses of the Johnson & Johnson one-shot vaccine. Why? At a press conference on Tuesday, the mayor asserted, “Johnson & Johnson is a very good vaccine. Moderna and Pfizer are the best. And I am going to do everything I can to make sure the residents of the city of Detroit get the best.”

What does the mayor mean by “best”? Duggan stated, “The Moderna and Pfizer vaccines are 95% effective if you get two shots. Johnson & Johnson is one shot, which is nicer, but it’s about 67% effective.”

Actually, in the United States arm of the Johnson & Johnson (J&J) clinical trial, the vaccine’s ability to prevent moderate to severe infection was 72 percent and it is 85 percent effective at preventing severe disease.In addition, the J&J vaccine has been shown to be effective against the new, more contagious COVID-19 variants that are now spreading across the country. And it is likely that many citizens would prefer the convenience of getting a one-and-done J&J shot as opposed to waiting nearly a month to get a second Moderna or Pfizer/BioNTech shot.

Author(s): Ronald Bailey

Publication Date: 5 March 2021

Publication Site: Reason

Montana Teacher Retirement System Pension Solvency Analysis

Mary Pat Campbell
Montana Teacher Retirement System Pension Solvency Analysis

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Excerpt:

The latest analysis by the Pension Integrity Project at Reason Foundation, updated this month (February 2021), shows that deviations from the plan’s investment return assumptions have been the largest contributor to the unfunded liability, adding $897 million since 2002. The analysis also shows that failing to meet investment targets will likely be a problem for TRS going forward, as projections reveal the pension plan has roughly a 50 percent chance of meeting their 7.5 percent assumed rate of investment return in both the short and long term.

In recent years TRS has also made necessary adjustments to various actuarial assumptions, exposing over $400 million in previously unrecognized unfunded liabilities. The overall growth in unfunded liabilities has driven Montana’s pension benefit costs higher while crowding out other education spending priorities in the state, like classroom programming and teacher pay raises.

The chart below, from the full solvency analysis, shows the increase in the Montana Teacher Retirement System’s debt since 2002:

Author(s): Jen Sidorova, Swaroop Bhagavatula, Steven Gassenberger, Leonard Gilroy

Publication Date: 1 March 2021

Publication Site: Reason

The ‘COVID Relief Bill’ Is Mostly an Expensive Bundle of Politically Motivated Giveaways

Mary Pat Campbell
The ‘COVID Relief Bill’ Is Mostly an Expensive Bundle of Politically Motivated Giveaways

Excerpt:

A sizable portion, about $500 billion, is a bailout of state and local governments that for the most part do not need one. While state tax revenues took a small hit from the pandemic and associated economic lockdowns, the damage is far smaller than was once feared. States should handle their own finances.

But it’s not just a bailout; it’s a bailout in which the funding is allocated based on the size of each state’s unemployed population. In other words, states that imposed draconian and unnecessary economic lockdowns during the past year are going to get a larger share of the federal cash than states that managed to balance public health needs and the economy—an arrangement that New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu rightly calls “outrageous.”

Author(s): Eric Boehm

Publication Date: 3 March 2021

Publication Site: Reason

Democrats Demand Bureaucrats Regulate Bureaus More Heavily

Mary Pat Campbell
Democrats Demand Bureaucrats Regulate Bureaus More Heavily

Excerpt:

Sens. Blumenthal, Bob Casey (D–Penn.), and Amy Klobuchar (D–Minn.) introduced the STURDY Act last Thursday. The legislation would require the federal Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) to develop more rigorous standards for dressers and other free-standing “clothing storage units” to prevent them from tipping over.

Deaths from falling furniture have attracted increased attention recently. According to the CPSC, which has released a series of reports on these incidents, 571 people, including 451 children, have died in the last 20 years from accidents involving unstable TVs, furniture, and appliances.

Most of these fatalities involved either falling TVs or falling furniture. Incidents involving only a tipped-over dresser or bureau, the subject of the STURDY Act, have produced 115 deaths in two decades.

Author(s): CHRISTIAN BRITSCHGI

Publication Date: 1 March 2021

Publication Site: Reason

The Relationship Between Public Pension Investments and Declining Bond Yields

Mary Pat Campbell
The Relationship Between Public Pension Investments and Declining Bond Yields

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Excerpt:

The visualizations display how private equity investments have grown in popularity. Private equity allocations are now the third-largest asset class for public pension plans, growing from 3.62 of nationwide plan portfolios in 2001 to 9.15 percent in 2019.

Portfolio managers should be free to pursue whatever investment philosophies they believe are in the best long-run interests of their plan members. However, policymakers, pension plan members, and taxpayers should be aware of these trends and the risks that come with them. Pension systems and lawmakers need to address the growing risk of volatility in ways that maintain a plan’s resiliency to unpredictable market factors. Also, plan stakeholders should be wary of a situation where the tail wags the dog—with pension systems swapping safety for risk and volatility as they chase outdated and overly optimistic investment return assumptions.

Author(s): Jordan Campbell

Publication Date: 25 February 2021

Publication Site: Reason

Jason Riley: Thomas Sowell’s Unique Insights on Race, Economics, and Politics

Mary Pat Campbell
Jason Riley: Thomas Sowell’s Unique Insights on Race, Economics, and Politics

Excerpt:

Thomas Sowell is one of the most influential economists, syndicated columnists, and social critics of the past half-century, having authored provocative, best-selling books on everything from race relations to childhood development to, most recently, Charter Schools and Their Enemies. His masterworks include Knowledge and Decisions, which uses Friedrich Hayek’s insights about distributed information to explain both how markets work and why intellectuals disdain markets; A Conflict of Visions, which explores the ideological origins of political struggles; and Basic Economics, a best-selling primer now in its fifth edition.

Sowell’s inspiring life—he was born black and poor in North Carolina in 1930 and received his Ph.D. from the University of Chicago at the age of 38—and expansive work are now the subjects of a new documentary, Common Sense in a Senseless World (watch here) and a forthcoming biography titled Maverick.

Author(s): NICK GILLESPIE

Publication Date: 24 February 2021

Publication Site: Reason

Despite Starkly Different COVID-19 Policies, the U.S. and the U.K. Saw Similar Drops in Cases Around the Same Time

Mary Pat Campbell
Despite Starkly Different COVID-19 Policies, the U.S. and the U.K. Saw Similar Drops in Cases Around the Same Time

Excerpt:

Despite the stark difference in policy, both countries saw remarkably similar COVID-19 trends this winter. According to Worldometer’s numbers, the seven-day average of new cases peaked in the U.K. on January 9; it peaked in the U.S. two days later. That number then fell sharply in both countries. As of yesterday, it was down 81 percent in the U.K. and 73 percent in the U.S.

Daily deaths are also falling in both countries. As of yesterday, the seven-day average in the U.K. was down 61 percent from the peak on January 23. In the U.S., it was down 43 percent from the peak on January 26. Given the dramatic drop in daily new cases that began more than a month ago, daily deaths should continue to fall.

…..

The same story of starkly different policies and similar outcomes emerges from a comparison of Texas and California, the two most populous states. While California Gov. Gavin Newsom ordered a new lockdown on December 3, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott did not impose new restrictions, and the state remained largely open. Yet since mid-January, the two states have seen almost the same drop in the seven-day average of newly reported cases, which has fallen by 85 percent in California and 81 percent in Texas.

Author(s): JACOB SULLUM

Publication Date: 22 February 2021

Publication Site: Reason

Kentucky Legislature Considers Changes to Teacher Retirement Plan

Mary Pat Campbell
Kentucky Legislature Considers Changes to Teacher Retirement Plan

Excerpt:

The Kentucky House recently passed a state bill that would place newly-hired Kentucky teachers into a new “hybrid” retirement plan design. The new hybrid plan would blend a “foundational” defined benefit pension plan with a “supplemental” defined contribution plan as a means of de-risking the Kentucky Teachers’ Retirement System, which is only 58.4 percent funded today.

The legislation, which is now before the Senate’s State and Local Government Committee, ultimately seeks to control future employee, retiree and taxpayer costs. The Teachers’ Retirement System of Kentucky already has nearly $15 billion in unfunded liabilities.

An actuarial analysis of the bill, House Bill 258, projects that it would save Kentucky $3.57 billion over 30 years. While the legislation is not a panacea, if enacted, it would be a positive step in the right direction for Kentucky’s overall public pension challenges, which rank among the most difficult in the nation.

Author(s): Alix Ollivier

Publication Date: 19 February 2021

Publication Site: Reason

Why Does Janet Yellen Suddenly Sound Like Trump on Trade?

Mary Pat Campbell
Why Does Janet Yellen Suddenly Sound Like Trump on Trade?

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Fewer workers are employed in manufacturing, but the average worker is earning far more per hour. This is a problem? Meanwhile, American manufacturing output is significantly higher today than it was when the WTO was established. In fact, even at the lowest point of last year’s COVID-19 recession, manufacturing output was still higher than it had been in any year before 1997.

Author(s): Eric Boehm

Publication Date: 12 February 2021

Publication Site: Reason

Elizabeth Warren and the SEC Should Let the GameStop Lulz Go On

Mary Pat Campbell
Elizabeth Warren and the SEC Should Let the GameStop Lulz Go On

Excerpt:

Of course, if there’s one thing America’s national political class does not like or understand, it is lulz. Lulz are inherently chaotic and disorderly, and that tends to cause headaches for most anyone with a bureaucratic bent. But it also produces reactions like one we saw yesterday, in which Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D–Mass.) used the GameStop episode to call for intervention by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). 

It’s not at all clear what the SEC could do to stop what is essentially a financial market flash mob, aside from ensure that no large institutional investors are secretly in on the WallStreetBets side of the trade. If that’s the case (and it may well be, though who knows), then the SEC will probably end up taking some sort of action based on existing rules designed to prohibit fraudulent pump-and-dump schemes, where stocks are artificially boosted and sold off. 

Author(s): Peter Suderman

Publication Date: 28 January 2021

Publication Site: Reason

How the Federal Reserve’s Actions and Low Interest Rates Impact Public and Private Retirement Savings

Mary Pat Campbell
How the Federal Reserve’s Actions and Low Interest Rates Impact Public and Private Retirement Savings

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Excerpt:

The extended period of low interest rates we’re in is not only creating challenges for public pension systems across the nation, but it is also negatively impacting people who are relying on their own savings to fund their retirements.

A common strategy for generating retirement income is to invest savings from an individual retirement account (IRA) or 401(k) into income-producing assets such as corporate bonds. But interest rates on corporate bonds have been falling in recent decades, reaching multi-decade lows in 2020.

Author(s): Marc Joffe

Publication Date: 20 January 2021

Publication Site: Reason