Fed Chief says Wave of Tattoo Parlor Bankruptcies to Collapse Global Finance
Fed Chief says Wave of Tattoo Parlor Bankruptcies to Collapse Global Finance
The title of this has nothing to do with the text. I have trouble getting people to read these things and thought I would take a page out of the media’s playbook to draw the reader in. This is probably the last sentence most will read and that is why we are where we are today.
The media’s latest favorite saying is “Flattening the curve.” Since I have already complained about media vocabulary when it comes to Exponential and Proof, it is probably useful to explore whether they have this wrong, too.
The media’s latest favorite saying is “Flattening the curve.” Since I have already complained about media vocabulary when it comes to Exponential and Proof, it is probably useful to explore whether they have this wrong, too.
The logistic curve
The logistic curve
Exponential may be thought of as a piece of a larger curve known as "Logistic." The intuition behind the difference is best shown by a practical example. There was once a time when Walmart was opening a new location every week, or every day or every 12 seconds, the frequency is not important for the analogy. Someone calculated, based on that rate, the day would come when the entire planet would be covered by one huge Walmart. Clearly this was not going to happen. A major constraint was saturation. Eventually, if everyone had a Walmart within a mile (or 100 yards, the actual proximity is unimportant) the entire Walmart-buying public would be satisfied and no more Walmarts would be built. In fact, here is a graph of Walmart Distribution Center (DC) square feet in the US over three decades.
Note the shape above and how it compares to the “S” shaped logistic curve below. Also, note what happens below as you move the “shape factor” slider.
The equation which produces that curve contains an exponent
y =
1
1+
-ax
And the shape is controlled by multiplying -x by a shape factor, a, which, for this example, ranges from .05 to 6. Note that the upper and lower ranges of the curve are flattest when the shape factor is at the higher end of its range. Note also in that same higher range of the shape factor, the middle of the curve is the steepest. Conversely, at the lowest end of the shape factor range the middle of the curve is “flatter”. So the logistic function flattens either at the ends or tends toward flatter at the middle depending on how one manipulates the value of a. As usual, the Press has discovered a “buzz” word they know little about. What they do know is that when the shape factor is farthest to the right they must make as much as possible of the nearly vertical middle of the curve when the opportunity to stampede the public is greatest.
Defining what “flattening” means
Defining what “flattening” means
Below, if the progression of the pandemic is left to right with the horizontal axis representing time and the vertical axis the number of new cases, "flattening" at the right means the disease is reaching its upper limit because most of the population is infected and either recovered and immune or deceased. The red portion has an exponential shape not unlike that of compound interest. In fact, compound interest is so powerful because it has to do with an increase in a rate of increase. The same is true but in a negative way about pandemics. Note below the point where the plot color changes, known as the inflection point, when the rate of new cases stops increasing and begins to slow.
Technically, what we care about when describing the change of the shape is the inflection point where the curve stops being convex and becomes concave. One way to illustrate this is with a tangent line to the curve. While convex the tangent line is below the curve; when the curve is concave the tangent line is above (for a good time while quarantined you may use slider to see this).
So much for the theory. When possible it is worth looking at the data to see if our imagination is met with reality. Of course, the quality of the data is crucial, but we have to start somewhere. What follows is an analysis of new reported cases worldwide between January 22, 2020 and April 10, 2020, approximately 11 weeks. If those data is correct this is surely a troublesome shape. No inflection point in sight.
A comparison to last year
A comparison to last year
That is the best we can do with this year’s data describing a partial year. Let’s take a look at last year to see what we can learn from it.
Finding data for last year is not easy, taking several hours of searching. Here is my source for what follows (note the red circle on the left). The scale in the graphic stops at week 20 but the entire downloaded dataset is for 52 weeks. It is not helpful that last year data are delivered by week rather than daily. With some artful extrapolation we can expand it into the equivalent daily numbers for use below.
Finding data for last year is not easy, taking several hours of searching. Here is my source for what follows (note the red circle on the left). The scale in the graphic stops at week 20 but the entire downloaded dataset is for 52 weeks. It is not helpful that last year data are delivered by week rather than daily. With some artful extrapolation we can expand it into the equivalent daily numbers for use below.
The “flu year” is 52 weeks spanning two calendar years, starting in the 40th week of the first year and ending in the 39th week of the following year. Our 2019-20 Covid19 data starts January 22, which is the end of the 17th week of the “flu year” and is 11 weeks long (77 days). Thus the comparison of last year and this (so far) is weeks 18-28 inclusive of the two “flu years.” All of these shenanigans make me a little uncertain about last year’s data, thus also about the accuracy of the graphic below showing both of them on a single plot.
It is comforting to see a familiar (almost) logistic shape for all of last year (the 2018-19 flu year). But notice the top number on the vertical axis.
It is comforting to see a familiar (almost) logistic shape for all of last year (the 2018-19 flu year). But notice the top number on the vertical axis.
It is troubling to compare the same 11 weeks for last year and this year. This year shows ten times the number of cases over the same 77 days.
The media frenzy in the center of the curve
The media frenzy in the center of the curve
Clearly this year is worse than last. But is it really as bad as we have been lead to believe? We have heard that mortality numbers have been revised downward drastically. This raises a lot of questions. Has an opportunistic press, biased against the current administration, blown up this story to stop an economic prosperity that was expected to lead to a second term? Politics is a dirty business. Aided by a willing Press, the opposition knows no lower bound when stooping to regain power. This is true of both parties.
[The alert reader may notice a subtle inflection point in this memo where it tips over out of the comfort and security of a precise mathematical model into the whacky world of Conspiracy Theories. That is, however, what happens when you leave the ivory tower of theory and venture out into the messy real world. One of those cracked pot theories occasionally becoming reality is known in the business as a “black swan.”]
Back to tattoo parlors
Back to tattoo parlors
“So what!!” one might reasonably ask. The point is that we are looking at the wrong inflection point.
There has been a debate for centuries over what is sometimes called “The Mind-Body Problem” and that lies at the heart of this matter. We hear a lot about “Herd Immunity” in relation to the body. Why are we unconcerned with Herd Contagion of the mind? The debate today should be about which is more important, preserving a finite number of bodies today or all the minds of those to come in the future. The relevant inflection point is really a tipping point, that moment when the endless direction from government destroys the will to act outside of government permission.
I am not an epidemiologist. Nor am I a mathematician or a statistician. I am just a guy with a computer. But I am free to do my own thinking. At least so far. I work through exercises like this to (a) perform gymnastics to keep my mind limber; (b) explore data that exists such as it is to see what I find; and (c) question the “conventional wisdom” behind many things blasted at me by the media every day. In short, I work to think about how my life is evolving, the way my mind and body are connected and how what I think about today will affect all of the thinking in perpetuity after I am gone.
What I am sure of is that beyond plague and pestilence, more than fire and flood, what we all need to fear most is soul-crushing government. For years politicians have used health care, with the fear and risk it involves, to manipulate us. Now Nature serves up a Bad News Buffet so why are we not surprised when government comes to the table, grinning from ear to ear, with nothing but a fork? Taking over health care and calling it their own has been on the government wish list for decades. Not only does it represent one-sixth of the economy, but it helps them control those who most need the health care system, the ones most likely to vote and most likely to die, old people.
Sadly, this aging element of society also represents the last segment willing and able to work and think. Half the people in the country work for a living, the other half vote for one. Government sponsored education has delivered generations of children who memorize and regurgitate rather than think.
So, today’s Mind-Body problem is about choosing between a comparatively short and unpleasant encounter with a virus or the long slow suffocating death under the heal of an oppressive government. The former is the death of the bodies of some of those here today, the latter is the death of mind of all who follow and along with it freedom, respect, self-reliance, independent action, dignity and honor. For weeks now we have been a nation of sheep, slavishly obeying the dictates of our supposed “betters” in government. These “betters” sit at home while their government paychecks, comprehensive health care and generous retirement programs continue to flow smoothly and regularly in their direction. The “betters” have (momentarily) convinced a (momentarily) trusting public to give up their self-reliance because someone else will take care of them. There is no evidence in the history of mankind that this has ever happened on any sustained level.
Within a few weeks, regardless of how any curves are shaped, government will find out that things do NOT flow so smoothly. They will learn what we all know: that they can print all the money they want but unless a significant portion of society makes something of value to trade everything will come tumbling down around us.
Here is a thought experiment. Imagine the right, flat end of a mature logistic curve. We only rename the vertical axis. Now to the optics (the media LOVES optics). Picture a farmer on his tractor out in a field. Government agent approaches with a bushel basket full of trillion dollar bills. He offers them to the farmer in return for a bushel of carrots (use broccoli if you don’t like carrots). But the farmer refuses.
There has been a debate for centuries over what is sometimes called “The Mind-Body Problem” and that lies at the heart of this matter. We hear a lot about “Herd Immunity” in relation to the body. Why are we unconcerned with Herd Contagion of the mind? The debate today should be about which is more important, preserving a finite number of bodies today or all the minds of those to come in the future. The relevant inflection point is really a tipping point, that moment when the endless direction from government destroys the will to act outside of government permission.
I am not an epidemiologist. Nor am I a mathematician or a statistician. I am just a guy with a computer. But I am free to do my own thinking. At least so far. I work through exercises like this to (a) perform gymnastics to keep my mind limber; (b) explore data that exists such as it is to see what I find; and (c) question the “conventional wisdom” behind many things blasted at me by the media every day. In short, I work to think about how my life is evolving, the way my mind and body are connected and how what I think about today will affect all of the thinking in perpetuity after I am gone.
What I am sure of is that beyond plague and pestilence, more than fire and flood, what we all need to fear most is soul-crushing government. For years politicians have used health care, with the fear and risk it involves, to manipulate us. Now Nature serves up a Bad News Buffet so why are we not surprised when government comes to the table, grinning from ear to ear, with nothing but a fork? Taking over health care and calling it their own has been on the government wish list for decades. Not only does it represent one-sixth of the economy, but it helps them control those who most need the health care system, the ones most likely to vote and most likely to die, old people.
Sadly, this aging element of society also represents the last segment willing and able to work and think. Half the people in the country work for a living, the other half vote for one. Government sponsored education has delivered generations of children who memorize and regurgitate rather than think.
So, today’s Mind-Body problem is about choosing between a comparatively short and unpleasant encounter with a virus or the long slow suffocating death under the heal of an oppressive government. The former is the death of the bodies of some of those here today, the latter is the death of mind of all who follow and along with it freedom, respect, self-reliance, independent action, dignity and honor. For weeks now we have been a nation of sheep, slavishly obeying the dictates of our supposed “betters” in government. These “betters” sit at home while their government paychecks, comprehensive health care and generous retirement programs continue to flow smoothly and regularly in their direction. The “betters” have (momentarily) convinced a (momentarily) trusting public to give up their self-reliance because someone else will take care of them. There is no evidence in the history of mankind that this has ever happened on any sustained level.
Within a few weeks, regardless of how any curves are shaped, government will find out that things do NOT flow so smoothly. They will learn what we all know: that they can print all the money they want but unless a significant portion of society makes something of value to trade everything will come tumbling down around us.
Here is a thought experiment. Imagine the right, flat end of a mature logistic curve. We only rename the vertical axis. Now to the optics (the media LOVES optics). Picture a farmer on his tractor out in a field. Government agent approaches with a bushel basket full of trillion dollar bills. He offers them to the farmer in return for a bushel of carrots (use broccoli if you don’t like carrots). But the farmer refuses.
There are two - and only two - things government can and should be doing: (1) Enforce property rights and private contracting in the justice system and (2) prevent invasion by a foreign element. So today (April 15, 2020) the courts are closed, the borders are open and we are locked up.
Well done.
Well done.