Brian Kim: Skepticism about $50 million EPA grant to study link between Pollution and Covid-19

 

Transcript

00:00
this is your stimulus check and second
stimulus check updates and also your
stimulus package update as of Wednesday
May 13th its stimulus update time let’s
jump right into the heroes Act this bill
is called a health and economic recovery
omnibus solutions Act it’s a mouthful
let’s see in further detail what’s in
this here is act stimulus package that
the Democrats wants so begin yes there
is a second round the stimulus checks
for twelve hundred in the heroes Act
you’ll notice that the majority of the
Republicans are saying that they’re
completely against this however we’re
getting mixed messages because President
Trump himself said I want to see a
payroll tax cut I want to see various
things that we want referring to the
Republicans I want the workers to be
taken care of we’re negotiating with the
Democrats
it looks like President Trump is open to
the second stimulus check as long as
Republican priorities are addressed
personally that sounds like a good
trade-off to me it it’s not even a trade
off this is a situation where everybody
wins people who are working will pay
less payroll taxes with the payroll tax
cut there’ll be you the worker paying
less Social Security Medicare taxes and
people get a second stimulus check it
that sounds like a good deal I don’t see
why that’s so hard
another major point is that the
Democrats want the $600 weekly
unemployment benefit extended from July
31st
to the end of the year to me I think
that would be insane to me that’s
unthinkable but you got to think is it
really if you’ve been following my
videos I’m covering the reopening of
other countries and other economies and
guess what they’re doing in the United
Kingdom the United Kingdom is extending
their furloughed worker program until
the end of October paying those people 3
approximately $3,000 a month
therefore I say don’t rule anything out
I don’t want to give anyone false hope
but these are crazy times and they may
be addressed by crazy measures but if
you do not me I’m all for people being
productive and working but this time I
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mean you seriously got to give people a
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break it’s it’s not the people’s fault
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for being unemployed or underemployed
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and for a lot of people this is the
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first time for a lot of people this is
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the first time that they’re getting
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unemployment benefits so this is all new
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to them to you I mean you complained you
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can blame the government you can play
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blame Kovac 19 but personally in my
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opinion this is just my opinion this
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this is not a time to blame the people
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for being unemployed so it’s not really
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people being lazy or unproductive I mean
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this due to what’s been happening what
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happened I just don’t see I don’t see it
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fair blaming the people for being on
unemployment there’s a lot of good
things in the heroes Act that I totally
agree with such as a ban on the utility
a ban on the utility companies cutting
Off water and electricity during the
crisis but then again there’s a whole
bunch of stupid crap there’s a whole
bunch of stupid spending that I don’t
agree with such as 50 million dollars to
the Environmental Protection Protection
Agency the EPA to fund programs like
examining the prevalence of coronavirus
and high pollution districts what the
hell does that even mean let me repeat
that if you don’t if you didn’t catch
what I said give 50 million dollars to
examine how prevalence coronavirus is in
high pollution districts of course of
course the corona virus is going to be
prevalent in high pollution districts
just like it’s going to be prevalent in
low pollution districts you don’t need
to spend 50 million dollars to figure
that out this is so stupid this is one
good example of something so stupid in
this bill I mean what about
idiots let me give you a crash course on
governments kickbacks and politics 101
the government gives the government
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gives 50 million dollars to the epa to
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investigate how coronavirus is doing in
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polluted areas if I’m a higher-up at the
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EPA
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you know guess what I’m gonna do I’m
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gonna hire my cousin’s company and I’m
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gonna pay my cousin’s company a million
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dollars to do this investigation work
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and he’s got he’s gonna get paid a
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million dollars and he’s gonna he’s
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gonna conclude with his examination
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report yep
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there’s coronavirus there it does exist
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in polluted areas you know that 50
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million dollars would have been better
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spent on something more meaningful like
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on people who actually need the aid all
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right let’s move on to frigging
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frustrated there’s also the mandatory
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masks on Amtrak you’re gonna get a lot
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of people fighting for their freedoms
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and liberties and then you’re gonna have
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people on the other side fighting for
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safe safety and health health and safety
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you’re most likely gonna pick a side or
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you’re gonna be indifferent but I say
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good luck in trying to change the mind
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of the opposition this is gonna be a
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circular circular argument so don’t even
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try changing the opinion of the
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opposition on this matter because it’s
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not gonna work it’s it’s gonna be a
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circular arguments there’s a 25 billion
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of funding for the post office however
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President Trump said he would only
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support this if the post office decided
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to raise their rates honestly I haven’t
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I have not had time to look into this if
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someone could comment I’d appreciate it
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if this were the case and you wanted to
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speculate again please let me know in
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the comments wouldn’t this be the best
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time to purchase forever stamps as like
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an investment and then just resell them
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on eBay or wherever
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you know once they raise rates if you
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could please help me on Kampala I’d
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appreciate that the centerpiece of the
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heroes Act is that aid to state and
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local governments for nearly 1 trillion
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dollars of the 3 trillion dollar
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proposal remember this whole this whole
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Democrat proposal is taking place in the
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House of Representatives the Republicans
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who control the Senate they’re saying
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that would you send us the bill we’re
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going to shut this down immediately
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they’re saying that it stands no chance
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because it doesn’t address the
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priorities of what the Republicans are
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looking for so there’s going to be some
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tense negotiations and as I said before
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there’s gonna be less bipartisan support
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compared testing those package one two
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three and four so they’re saying that
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this is stimulus package for because
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there’s stimulus package 1 2 3 and 3.2
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but honestly this is going to be the
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fifth stimulus package but expect less
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bipartisan support going back to the
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stimulus check the original stimulus
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check for the current stimulus check so
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stimulus check 1 please update your
07:47
information in the web portal today by
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noon otherwise you’re getting a paper
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stimulus check regarding the PPP loan I
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know many of you have been funded with
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SBA PPP loan you’re facing that
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eight-week time crunch I know many of
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you are hoping that the new legislation
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will extend a deadline for you to spend
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that PPP money on qualified expenses
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within that eight week window but just
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to place just to play it safe don’t
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count on it happening
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that’s just my recommendation I know
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today’s videos longer but due to the
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circumstances and all this news coming
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out was a longer video so thanks thanks
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again for joining me today that’s it for
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today and thanks so much please stay
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healthy and safe take care

 

 

Hi Brian,

Your recent video in which you mentioned a $50 EPA million grant to study covid-19 and pollution got me wondering.

So, I did some googling (covid-19+pollution+study) and found that there actually is real scientific research to be done on the link between covid-19 and pollution.

According to a BBC news article, a 2003 study found that for Sars, an earlier coronavirus, victims were 84% more likely to die if they lived in areas with polluted air.

If this pattern carries over to Covid-19, this might explain why covid-19 deaths were higher in New York City than in some more rural areas.

On the one hand, knowing that pollution may exacerbate covid-19 might make us feel bad because it might make covid-19 deaths feel less random.

On the other hand, if it is true, it could be seen as a positive for those who live in less polluted areas and it could affect how we weight covid-19 trade-offs.

The BBC article I mentioned also links to one of the previously published studies for more details.
https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20200427-how-air-pollution-exacerbates-covid-19

I don’t know if that makes you feel any better about the money the government proposes to spend, but I was glad to learn that there was a least a rationale for the study.

 

Extreme events and how to live with them by Nassim Nicholas Taleb

24:28
is you know okay so there is a severe
error in reasoning and that that you
often hear by people giving you
empirical data and telling you for
example that were idiots to worry about
Ebola that killed two Americans when
more people slept with Kim Kardashian
that year okay so for example and that
was effectively the number they said
that more people slept with Kim
Kardashian in 2014 or worried about
Ebola then died of Ebola for example
right so now and then sometimes you see
numbers like these and this is the kind
of thing that that if you read something
called the New York Times and you still
read that nonsense this kind of stuff
you read in it which is factually right
but bogus okay well and the kind of
thing that teaches and psychology
department that so many Americans die
from eating too many hamburgers smoking
too much alcohol now let’s think about
it in terms of tails if I tell you or
let’s say Steven Pinker give the number
that 3,000 Americans died and their
bathtub every year
okay 3,000 people whereas three or two
have died of Ebola now let’s play
thought experiment if you read in the
papers if you go you know to Mars and
come back
and then read on you know on Google News
that two billion people have died what’s
more likely to have killed them diabetes
obesity is falling the rest stop
sleeping with Kim Kardashian or Ebola
Ebola there we go so you cannot compare
rule number one
thou shalt not compare a multiplicative
fat-tailed process in extremists and in
the sub-exponential class to a thin tail
process that has what we call Chernoff
bounds okay and that is in totally for
mediocre stuff simply because of the
catastrophe principle okay and then we
know for example that is very cheap to
protect yourself from Ebola you see the
probability that people dying from
smoking okay it’s multiplied by 10 next
year is 1 to the 10 – into 10 – 30 the
probability that that the the rate of
people who died from Ebola through
triples is not vastly higher you see so
you cannot compare processes thin tail
to fat tails are not comparable so this
is not empiricism this is called naive
ampere system it’s actually worse okay
so you cannot compare two processes like
these by saying we worry too much about
Ebola in fact we were too much about
diabetes and too little valley bola so
that’s one error of reasoning that comes
from not understanding fat tails now let
me show you the law of large numbers
everything you’ve learned in statistics
is based on a well functioning of a law
of large numbers no all right so in
other words you that as you add
observation this mean that you observe
would be very stable no and the rate is
square root of 2 square root of n number
of observations you agree all right
this is what you have on the left now on
the right for fat tail process the mean
exists but it takes much longer to
observe it
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much longer my only my anymore
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observations okay