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Why doesn't America build more of the things that would have made it better prepared for a pandemic? An excellent debate here between @pmarca a16z.com/2020/04/18/its… and @ezraklein vox.com/2020/4/22/2122…
Short version: @pmarca We lack the will earlier generations had. @ezraklein It's the politics of "vetocracy" plus the short-sightedness of shareholder capitalism.
My take: These are not mutually exclusive explanations, but both understate the key role of the dysfunctional administrative state aka "kludgeocracy." static.newamerica.org/attachments/42…
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Niall Ferguson
@nfergus
Here is an update to my earlier article, which asked six questions of the Chinese government: niallferguson.com/blog#.Xp76zROZ… It includes a response to Daniel Bell: danielabell.com/2020/04/21/did… The original article is here: niallferguson.com/journalism/pol…
Update 1: it seems increasingly likely, though not yet certain, that the virus originated at one of the two research institutes in Wuhan where scientists study zoonoses.
Update 2: It is still not clear when exactly the central government knew there was a serious problem in Wuhan.
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Niall Ferguson
@nfergus
Six questions for Xi Jinping, US edition: 1. What exactly was going on in Wuhan that led to the initial emergence of SARS-CoV-2? bostonglobe.com/2020/04/06/opi…
2. How big a role did the central government play in the cover-up after it became clear in Wuhan that there was human-to-human transmission?
3. After it became clear that there was a full-blown epidemic spreading from Wuhan to the rest of Hubei province, why did you cut off travel from Hubei to the rest of China — on Jan. 23 — but not from Hubei to the rest of the world?
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Niall Ferguson
@nfergus
I see with increasing frequency the erroneous assertion that Moritz Schularick and I were in favor of "Chimerica"--the symbiosis between the Chinese and American economies before the global financial crisis. But that is a complete misrepresentation of our argument. 1/13
The first time we published, in 2007, we said it was the key to understanding inflated asset prices in the West and China's inexorably rising share of global manufacturing. The whole point of the word was that Chimerica might prove to be a chimera: wsj.com/articles/SB117… 2/13
Here's the long version: jfki.fu-berlin.de/faculty/econom… 3/13
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