My usual beat concerns historical tax statistics and inequality ratios. This research program has made me profoundly aware of the use and abuse of statistical models. In absence of factual tests, the void has been filled by statistical forecasts, many of which suffer from some of the same fallacies as historical models. Compounding the problem is that these models are being created in real time. These models have contributed to social and political panic.

Economist Matt Kibbe and I talk about this problem along with public-choice issues associated with the lockdowns.