All Categories - Classical Economic Principles

March 31st, 2020

3/31/2020

COVID-19 Update March 30th

3/30/2020

Tracking US Progress in Containing the Virus

3/25/2020

The timing of a recovery from the virus crisis

3/23/2020

Emerging Treatments and Vaccine for COVID-19

3/19/2020

Coronavirus update March 16

3/17/2020

March 12th, 2020

3/12/2020

February 20th, 2020

2/20/2020

Data through February 20th continue to show the virus being contained in most areas. The only place the virus is accelerating is in South Korea, where the numbers are accelerating due to an inflected person attending an event with 1, 000 people. The following charts show recent trends:

200220covid-19.pdf
File Size:	17 kb
File Type:	pdf

CORVID-19 (coronavirus update)

2/17/2020

There continues to be good and bad news surrounding COVID-19. The bad news concerns how contagious it is and how difficult it can be to recover from it. There are currently over 71,449 cases worldwide. Most of these, 70,553, are in China.
There are 881 cases outside of China. More than half of these, 454, are on the cruise ship in Japan where 12% of those on board are infected. The high numbers in China and from the cruise ship indicate how contagious the virus is.
There have been 15 cases in the US. So far only 3 are listed as having recovered. The US will get 14 more cases of Americans who are being transported back home from the cruise ship.
The good news is there have been only 5 deaths outside of China from the virus. Also, aside from the increase in cases from the cruise ship, the number of new cases in China and outside China has continued to increase at a progressively slower rate. We are not seeing the accelerating growth in infections outside of China that some have been predicting.
In spite of some encouraging trends in containing the virus in developed countries, potential problems still exist. The highly infectious nature of the disease as well as the difficulty in recovering from it would be catastrophic if the virus took hold in some of the poorer countries of the world. Click this reference for charts.
200217virusupdate.pdf

Book Review for Lifespan: Why We Age-& Why We Don't Have To

1/30/2020

Every now and then there is a book that provides major insights to the future. Lifespan by David A. Sinclair is that book.
David Sinclair is Professor of Genetics and Director of the center for biology and aging at Harvard Medical School. His book discusses how genetic research is creating the potential to change the way we live. I believe these discoveries will be a monumental factor reverberating through the future of medicine. They will greatly affect every person and every business in the world.
Sinclair is one of those deep thinkers with an intense curiosity. His interest focuses on basic, fundamental questions. Questions such as “What is life?” and “Why do we age?” Fortunately, he not only raises key questions, he answers them.
One of Sinclair’s great insights is to consider aging a disease, instead of something that is inevitable. If aging is a disease, we should be looking for a cure. Sinclair not only looks for a cure, he believes he has found it.
His book examines current popular views on how we can live longer, healthier lives. Views regarding diet, exercise, meditation, etc. Sinclair explains how each of these popular views impact us at the cellular level. He then uses the results from this research to either reinforce or reject these current views.
The game-changer comes when Sinclair describes the pathbreaking work his lab has done. It involves not only extending lifespans, but ensuring the continuation of youthful vitality and health. His lab has succeeded in making young mice old and old mice young.
The mega-game-changer is Sinclair’s claim that the basic genetic work is done. We now understand why we age and how to stop and even reverse it. Armed with this knowledge some have decided not to wait 5 to 10 years for the results of formal human studies that are now underway. With hints that we are able to restore youth and vitality at the cellular level, Sinclair and his associates have used their genetic knowledge on themselves and their relatives. Preliminary results appear to confirm their optimism of a major breakthrough in controlling the aging process in humans.
Sinclair cautions there is much we still have to learn about the aging process. However, with the basic work done, and with the vast amount of research now underway, we are on the cusp of a monumental change with respect to aging. It’s a change with implications and challenges most of us can only imagine.
I urge everyone to get a copy of Lifespan and to begin thinking about how we, our love ones and our businesses could soon be facing a very different future than the one we now imagine.