In the men’s room at the Windsor Theater in Hampton reads a sign instructing employees to wash their hands. Then under that it says, “Actually, it is probably a good idea for everyone to wash after using the bathroom.” Wise advice.

The media and politicians are going nuts over this coronavirus. The media is supported by donations and sales of advertising. There would be no media if the news were nothing but stories like “Fritz skins his knuckles installing a thermostat.”

Politicians would not have voters bowing down in adoration if they didn’t promise to save us from some catastrophe.

Winston Churchill, consumer of a quart of whiskey per day, put it well: “Never let a crisis go to waste.”

An average of 389,000 people die every year from the flu. So far 4,627 have died from coronavirus (Covid-19). In China there have been 3,200 deaths out of 1.4 billion people. It is rare to see a male over 12 years old in China who doesn’t smoke. Satellite images of China show drastic reductions in air pollution since industrial production ground to a halt in response to the virus. Now they’ve closed all the emergency hospitals there because of a lack of new cases.

The elderly are most susceptible to respiratory infections, and scams. In reaction to the “pandemic,” there have been endless calls for government “stimulus,” to boost an economy at a standstill.

But already the M4 money supply is growing at 6.9% annually. “So what?” you might say. Money supply or interest rates are tools used to manipulate the economy. They both do the same thing.

After years of “stimulating” the economy in order to reward donors, it has finally come to a point where the delusion is running out of gas. The low unemployment and strong economy was built on feet of clay produced by easy money. The easy money was conjured out of thin air. The devaluation of savings that resulted from an increased supply of money was finally coming back to bite people who worked hard and relied on interest and investments for retirement. I’ve talked to several retirees who had relied on disciplined savings plans who now fear they will be seeking employment in their eighties.

The rules have not changed so much, as the reality is slapping them in the face. I have friends who took the Honor Flight to Washington D.C. They were accompanied by caring helpers who gushed about their service and how much they were appreciated. Yet all along these veterans were systematically being drained of their hard earned wealth by the 2% inflation and stability mandates of the Federal Reserve. As new crises threatened, inflation was used to make spending seem more urgent than saving.

The seriousness of the coronavirus can’t be denied, especially by the 21 families of victims in one nursing home in Washington where, by the way, multiple violations of sanitation rules had been found in the past. But in the big picture consistent rules of hygiene which prevent a broad spectrum of illnesses would be more effective than the panic that is ruining livelihoods everywhere.

An economy in imminent danger of collapse has been toppled by a bug.

Franceska Mann, arrived at Auschwitz in 1943, when ordered to strip, she did so provocatively, distracting the guards. She grabbed the roll call officers gun and shot him dead, then wounded one more before other prisoners joined her rebellion, before all being shot dead, 1940’s

Regarding your editorial “The Coronavirus ‘Stimulus’” (March 4): Reducing the fed funds rate to 1% will do nothing to stop the spread of the coronavirus but will severely increase the pain already suffered by millions of senior Americans. They saved their money, as they were taught to do in the 1930s and ’40s, bought only what they could pay for during their earning years, and foolishly expected to live off their savings in their old age.

We’ve got to ride this global warming issue.
Even if the theory of global warming is wrong,
we will be doing the right thing in terms of
economic and environmental policy.