Fitz File

          As we come to the end of the Trump Presidency one way or another, we are still setting records as a country for Corona Virus deaths and hospitalizations. There is awesome power within any government, but given the nature of the disaster and the steps we have seen work against it, any competent government would take the following steps.  A Pause on Public Activity      The only thing that matters is stopping the virus. Growing the economy, educating our children, addressing racial issues, all are meaningless if we cannot resume normality. This starts with doing everything we can to hold or slow the spread of the virus. I am under no illusions that a second “shut down” would be both politically costly and economically expensive. But if we are going to solve the problem of the pandemic, we can’t just rely on one side of the equation to solve the entire problem. Currently, we are vaccinating people at a far slower rate...

          While clickbait articles are a terrible scourge and must be destroyed for the good of mankind, they sometimes do offer a valuable look into the zeitgeist. I am sure most have heard news reports or seen headlines espousing some other market millennials have ruined. It has slowly evolved over the past few years to further encompass a disdain for capitalism in general. The flaws of the articles, lack of understanding of economics, and seemingly willful ignorance of inflation and wage stagnation aside, I do not agree the younger generations have a disdain for capitalism. But rather, it is the application of capitalistic principles to various markets and services that we do not agree with.           I often begin my arguments with a test, to understand whether or not a person actually believes what they say, or simply has not thought of a better way to explain their idea. My first question here is “do you have a pr...

               All 50 states require car owners to purchase and maintain insurance for their vehicle. Why would they do this? It doesn't make any sense, most people don't get into car accidents, most people don't ever use their car insurance. So why would a state require a car owner to purchase insurance? Because it's in their best interest to do so. A large portion of what governments do for their people is protect them from their own worst impulses. think about Social Security, it's something that people have to pay into that they can cash later when they are older. This was in response to millions of people losing their savings during the Great Depression. This is what governments do, they protect people. More specifically, this is what adults do, they hope for the best and plan for the worst, they make prudent decisions to make the best of any situation. This is what sets Donald Trump apart from adults.       ...

For some reason, opening schools has now become similar to the gun debate. Accepting that some parts of the process are completely out of our control, when they are. For the sake of argument, let’s accept that we have to open schools for the more than  50 million students  in the US primary education system. What can the government do on Monday, July 20th, 2020, to ensure students will be properly protected? There are two basic parts to this solution, the lead-up to the school year, and the school year itself. The federal government has a responsibility to institute as close to a knock-out punch to the virus as possible, and coordinated and well-financed assistance over the school year. It is essentially impossible to eliminate the virus from the United States by the time schools open in mid- to late-August. The virus is spread too widely, and there is a large enough portion of the US that does not care, to eliminate it in such a short period. However, the majority of people w...

     Most of us have seen the video  of a police officer kneeling on George Floyd’s neck. In even the most extreme circumstances, which this wasn’t, the police’s actions seem careless, cruel, and just wrong. Although there is some debate over what exactly killed George Floyd , the reason necessarily what is important? There has been quiet points made, on both the left and the right of the political spectrum that the numbers and facts do not quite match up to the narrative being pushed by the protests or the Black Lives Matter movement. For example, the police have killed around 1000 people each year for the past several years according to both the Washington Post , and Mapping Police Violence . I will always admit that these are the deaths we know about. However, I am not willing to engage in conspiracy theories and will only add at most 10% to any total before it gets ridiculous. Another fact is that police killings of black people was at a seven-year low in 201...

It is important to be clear about something in this pandemic: the mass quarantines and stay-at-home orders were not put in place because otherwise everyone would die. These orders were designed to keep the current medical infrastructure in place and allow for people who get the virus to have a greater chance of survival. According to the New York Times , the current number of worldwide cases is just above 3.5 million, with 251,457 deaths, placing the death rate at 7%.  This would make it seem like getting the virus is no big deal, but that was never the risk factor. In the same way everyone was surprised when the found their grocery stores empty, none of our systems are designed to serve every single person at the same time. But because of these prudent precautions, we have also thrown our economy into something it cannot handle: a slowdown of cashflow. I could write a whole other post on the foolishness of our precarious economy which  requires a majority of the populatio...

              It has been a habit of news organizations and political analysis alike to analyze the Trump Administration in terms of the amount of impact on future presidencies. Every action by a President creates an opening for future ones to act in the same way and use the past action as justification. This creation of a precedent for executive action is common way to measure the impact of a current presidency. But unlike others, this administration has become known for breaking with norms and other precedents. This includes everything from ignoring subpoenas and declaring emergencies, to pulling the country out of international agreements. Unfortunately, this large amount of changes seems to be more based on the undoing of the Obama Administration’s achievements rather than a genuine need for change. This could lead to an unsustainable practice of working to undo everything your predecessor achieved in order to score political points. I call ...