It’s kinda weird to find comfort in hearing somebody burst into tears because they are laid off, getting unemployment and have lots of time to do nothing. But that’s what happened to me. On the other side of the coin is the universal basic income crowd. Really, is self esteem only a meaningless catch phrase now? Can one really be happy with their hand out and glad for the pandemic? I’ve heard it’s true. If so, it’s the end of a great experiment and a sign of failure. But then it was a beautiful day today.
Good News is No News
J.C. Penney is declaring bankruptcy. That’s where my mom would buy my perfect t-shirts. Later they sold Big Mac jeans which were great for working in the woods. They’ve had some ups and downs, cheapening up their t-shirts and jeans, losing their way and finding it again. Ever done that? Locking their customers out did them in.
I wasn’t forced to sell t-shirts like the taxpayers were forced to fund GM, which by the way uses Japanese engines in their super patriotic diesel pickups.
The federal government doesn’t work that way. The Defense Department failed to protect the World Trade Center and not only didn’t anyone get fired, their funding was increased astronomically. If this is how they operate in the War on Terror, do we want them managing the response to an enemy like a virus that we can’t see and can strike anywhere?
Well, as my mother-in-law used to say, “We’re here now.” She was a Buddhist and didn’t know it. Anyway, there are two factors to take into account so we can recover and also avoid this disaster next time. Forty million unemployed is a disaster, and although 100,000 dead is horrendous, we have to realize that people are dying every day and of those 100,000 hardly any were not going down that road before the virus hit.
How did the response to this virus become an economic disaster? Social media is blamed for a lot of things these days. So much is not verified yet taken as gospel. Rather than some kind of conspiracy to chip us and ship us, I think it looks like simple economics. News is paid for by advertising. Advertisers don’t pay if no one is listening or watching.
After 9/11 we were all glued to our TVs. It was a profitable time for media. Lately, all the usual dire threats had become benign. People were beginning to return to their workshops, bicycles, and concerts. That’s not good for media and it’s not good for politicians who need to be saviors from Trumps and Antifa and so forth.
Nobody manipulated the media into blowing up a bad flu into a world emergency. It was just good business. The trouble is that long ago the safeguards of limited government (the Constitution and competition between states) was abandoned for the same reason common sense was abandoned regarding the virus. An old Burger King ad explains it, “Sometimes you gotta break the rules.”
Since Mom said it already, let’s take it from here.
The Centers for Disease Control estimates that symptomatic cases are 65% of total cases. Here are the latest numbers I could find among symptomatic cases:
- 0-49 years old; .05%
- 50-64 years old: .2%
- 65+ years old: 1.3%
- overall ages: .4%
- for all ages symptomatic and asymptomatic: .26%
In March, the World Health Organization estimated a 3.4% fatality rate. Anthony Fauci (who claimed AIDs would devastate the world population) estimated a 2% fatality rate. This is not .26%. And if you take into account collateral damage from this misguided war, the cure is looking more like it is worse than the disease all the time.
The governors of New York and Pennsylvania both ordered nursing homes to take contagious cases into places ripe for a disaster. Will they be charged with murder?
Will these politicians pay students and schools for lost tuition and time? Will they invite former business people into their homes when the shutdowns have cost them everything they own?
In Georgia, average daily deaths have dropped from 36 to 7 in the three weeks after they opened for business. In Florida, daily deaths are halved since shutdowns were lifted. In the state of Washington, public health officials have admitted that deaths from gunshots were counted as Covid-19. Hospitals get federal money for each case. There is a lot of incentive to cheat.
alternativebyfritz 