In New York, Keynes and Hayek Roll Over for Franz Kafka
In my opinion, one of the best rock and roll songs ever recorded was Check Berry’s Roll Over Beethoven. Utilizing a hard driving rock beat, Chuck asked the composer and his friend Tchaikovsky, to make way for “the rhythm and blues.”
Something like that is going on here in Lockdown Eastern Long Island New York. Instead of musicians being asked to roll over… it's economists. Both Keynes, who advocated for government stimulus and Hayek, who wanted the markets to sort it all out, are being asked to roll over for Franz Kafka. The very same Kafka that described the nightmare of being caught up in the absurdity of bureaucratic dictates. Kafka must be advising our government on how to wreck the economy for all.
One of the biggest employers here is the local boat yard. There are some 30 relatively high wage jobs at the yard. They come with benefits like health insurance and 401k’s. It is skilled work.
Most of the work is also solitary. Workers come in and are assigned a task on a specific boat. That would include mechanical repair, rigging adjustments or varnish and paint work. The craftsman are either outside or in a huge fresh air infused shed. The boats are several feet from each other. They often have their own tools and do not have to interact within social-distancing guidelines. While they frequently have breaks and lunch in a small area, it would have been easy to ask them when they bring their meals to eat in their cars, or on the boats they were working on.
From the time they leave home in their own cars and get on a ferry to their arrival at the yard, they do not have to interact with another person. The ferry is running so it is clear they have safety precautions in place. If there were special job situations that required close proximity those could have been postponed until the all clear is given.
Instead, the total shut down has thrown them on the unemployment line. Boat owners are another story. I am given to understand people in the Hamptons are paying hundreds of dollars to have chauffeurs deliver their mail.
However, it gets worse. A good friend has a small architectural practice in NYC. He specializes in public buildings like schools, housing and shelters. Most of his work is from the city. The city just shut him down too….by stopping all work even though all of his twelve associates were working from home.
These are long term projects, they will restart. But because the city isn’t paying its bills, he has to lay off the entire staff. Naturally they will file unemployment next week and the city and state will be paying them and getting nothing in return. While they get misery and despair.
Though Andrew Cuomo is a hero on TV, the granular reality out here is more nuanced. There was no rational reason I could fathom to shut down the entire boatyard, and absolutely no sane reason for the city and state to stop paying the architectural firm working on public projects. And I have just learned that the closures have been extended for another two weeks.
It is clear that of the $2 trillion CARES bill just passed will include relief for New York City and state. There is talk of an infrastructure bill to come next. Why start from scratch? The city should have kept the school/housing construction in progress, and then rolled them into the federal relief that is said to be on the way.
Yes, we needed to get the hospitalizations and death toll down fast, but just a few moments of thought could have saved jobs while saving lives. The problem is that bureaucrats tend not to pay attention to details. There were probably tens of thousands of workers in low interaction trades that could have continued to work.
Hopefully there’s a lesson that can be taken from this economic disaster naturally authored by politicians. Who knows, perhaps one day in Econ. 101, alongside Keynes and Hayek, they will teach Kafka and his influence on the Coronavirus shutdown.
