Illogic

President Trump has fallen into the condition known to the Germans as Musstunismus: something must be done, this is something, so let's do it. Facing growing concern in the US about Covid-19, he has banned visitation rights from most of Europe.  Note that he has not closed his more vulnerable border, the Pacific west coast facing China and South Korea, the nations suffering most from the infection. In fact, California has already recorded over one hundred cases of Covid-19 infection and (at the time of writing) four people have died of the corona  virus in the State. It would make more sense even this late in the day to ban interstate travel, and crossing land borders with Canada and Mexico, until the epidemic has run its course.

Even his ban on inward movement from Europe has some glaring lacunae. For a start, the UK, where the disease has unfortunately already taken hold (new cases are being reported which have no connection with existing Covid-19 hot-spots), is excluded. Moreover the travel restrictions exempt Trump-owned golf resorts. US citizens are exempt from the controls. One has to conclude that Trump's diktat is less a serious attempt to combat the spread of the disease, more an appeal to the xenophobic element in the US populace which helped elect him in 2016 and which he hopes will do so again this year.

Here, the Chancellor of the Exchequer aided by the Bank of England has introduced measures to give more money to his natural supporters with the aim of stoking up the economy. As mentioned in this blog before, the people who do not need hand-outs tend to save additional income rather than spending it. The people who really need money, those on basic wages, will spend any increase because they have to, and the immediate benefit will be to the local economy. Trickle-up works, trickle-down hardly ever does. Instead of announcing as part of his emergency measures an immediate increase in the national minimum so that it genuinely is a living wage, Chancellor Sunak has waved a vague promise that it may reach £10.50 per week in 2024 - by which time inflation will have eaten away the value of the "increase".