{"id":12519,"date":"2020-05-05T21:25:09","date_gmt":"2020-05-06T04:25:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/?p=12519"},"modified":"2020-07-23T21:31:39","modified_gmt":"2020-07-24T04:31:39","slug":"coronavirus-and-the-great-lockdown-a-non-biological-black-swan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/coronavirus-and-the-great-lockdown-a-non-biological-black-swan\/","title":{"rendered":"Coronavirus and the Great Lockdown: A Non-Biological Black Swan"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The following article is from my colleague, Paul Roderick Gregory, in Real\u00a0Clear\u00a0Markets<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

We stand on the precipice of\u00a0\u00a0the greatest economic disaster since the Great Depression. It is associated with the exogenous shock of\u00a0\u00a0a novel Coronavirus that originated in Wuhan China and quickly spread into a worldwide pandemic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The sequence of events leading to this crisis, not the virus itself,  deserves to be called a \u201cBlack Swan.\u201d Biology dictates that pandemics will recur and at unpredictable intervals. Pandemics claim human lives, ruin health, and depress economic activity, but they are not expected to alter the shape of society as we know it. The Medieval Black Death is an exception. Coronavirus could be as well with wrong policy choices.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Coronavirus Black Swan is due to what the International Monetary Fund calls the Great Lockdown<\/a>; namely, the political and administrative decisions to shut down much of the world economy in the hope of mitigating the Coronavirus pandemic. World leaders, with few exceptions, deliberately opted in favor of our ongoing \u201cnon-biological Black Swan\u201d emanating from Coronavirus.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The following article is from my colleague, Paul Roderick Gregory, in Real\u00a0Clear\u00a0Markets We stand on the precipice of\u00a0\u00a0the greatest economic disaster since the Great Depression. It is associated with the exogenous shock of\u00a0\u00a0a novel Coronavirus that originated in Wuhan China and quickly spread into a worldwide pandemic. The sequence of events leading to this crisis, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p466Sb-3fV","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":12262,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/questions-about-the-coronavirus\/","url_meta":{"origin":12519,"position":0},"title":"Questions about the Coronavirus","author":"victorhanson","date":"March 25, 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"Victor Davis Hanson \/\/ National Review More data is\u00a0critical in understanding the virus\u00a0in general and in particular its transmission in particular countries. 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Experts\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":12695,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/victor-davis-hanson-election-a-choice-between-rule-changing-and-respect-for-constitutional-norms\/","url_meta":{"origin":12519,"position":5},"title":"Victor Davis Hanson: Election a choice between rule-changing and respect for constitutional norms","author":"victorhanson","date":"November 1, 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"Victor Davis Hanson \/\/ Bozeman Daily Chronicle In traditional presidential campaigns, the two major parties offer contrasting ideas and policies. The Democratic and Republican candidates barnstorm the nation to make their cases. Not this year. 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