67: 2. When Politicians Panicked: The New Coronavirus, Expert Opinion, and a Tragic Lapse of Reason. The conversation reviews the governors' initial promise of two-week lockdowns, noting that centralized power is rarely relinquished. The economic crisis deepe

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John Batchelor

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🗓️ 9 November 2025

⏱️ 8 minutes

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Summary

2. When Politicians Panicked: The New Coronavirus, Expert Opinion, and a Tragic Lapse of Reason. The conversation reviews the governors' initial promise of two-week lockdowns, noting that centralized power is rarely relinquished. The economic crisis deepened as epidemiologists and experts supplanted the collective knowledge of the marketplace, resulting in central planning, mass unemployment, and debt. John Tamny contrasts the COVID-19 response with the 1968 Hong Kong flu pandemic, which caused the equivalent of 250,000 modern deaths but elicited virtually no political or market reaction. The difference lies in technology: 50 years ago, without Zoom or delivery services, lockdowns would have caused mass discomfort and riots, preventing politicians from acting. Lockdowns happened because they could, not because they had to.

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0:00.0	I'm John Bachelor. This is the new John Bachelor show on CBS Audio Network, John Tamney, the columnist, the editor, and now the author, John Tamney, when politicians panicked.
0:25.2	The new coronavirus, expert opinion, and a tragic lapse of reason.
0:35.1	The markets have now reacted late March of 2020, but government is getting into the contest.
0:41.5	Government in the states, Mr. Cuomo, Mr. Pritzker, Mr. Newsom, and the other governors have issued orders. It is not clear at this point to the American people that these orders are
0:47.9	going to be enforced by police power, although the state governments have that option, the city
0:53.8	governments have that option. the city governments have that
0:54.6	option. It looks that the governors are counting on Americans to do the right thing. For how long
1:00.5	is an open question? There are different expectations. But at no point, and Mr. Tamney, I check
1:07.1	with you on this because my memory is dim and your book states very clearly that the
1:13.2	governors indicated early on that this would not last a long time. Did they give a timeline,
1:19.3	John, how long the lockdowns? They talked certainly about two weeks. That was the word
1:26.1	because the view was if people will go and hide for two weeks,
1:30.4	that will flatten the curve and that will give hospitals the times to adjust.
1:34.7	But as we know through a history, once you hand over that kind of power to someone else,
1:40.5	it's rarely given back, and it certainly wasn't in this instance.
1:44.3	I only know New York City because I was walking the canyons by myself. And late March,
1:50.9	April, May, by myself, John. The American public responded to the experts, and you
1:59.5	roll out the experts. I don't fault them, John. They don't have crystal balls.
2:04.7	They go on models. They go on expectations. There were a lot of contradictory remarks about the virus,
2:10.5	what it would do, who was most vulnerable. You don't fault them either, John. The puzzle is why it was
2:16.7	the experts who became the leaders of the economy. There's the mystery you've raised, John. The puzzle is why it was the experts who became the leaders of the economy.
2:19.8	There's the mystery you've raised, John. Was it obvious in late March that the economy was going to
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