People may not see it, but I believe that the COVID-19 Panic is forcing governments to react in ways that will soon cause more deaths than the corona virus itself. Quarantines of families and individuals who are living from paycheck to paycheck will either instigate a collapse of food supplies and distribution, or create a massive debit from the National Treasury. Either way, riots are likely. Ammunition is selling like candy in Texas already. People are scared, and they don’t have faith in government. Why should they? How much intelligence can be expressed in 160 characters?
The situation today—mid-March, 2020–is ridiculous: The media drama has made people think we’re running out of toilet paper, for crap’s sake! A self-fulfilling prophecy, of course: Stockpiling has wiped paper products off the shelves. I shouldn’t mention how stupid it is that people have already crashed the dust-mask supply chain, but monkeys associate dust masks with the medical profession, and medical professionals MUST know something...in spite of the fact that medical care—I mean, “mistakes”—are reported as being the third leading cause of death in the US.
A little ignorance goes a long way.
Masks do not protect the wearer from viruses. ‘Nuff said: Look it up yourself.
Shutting down businesses where contagion has not been detected seems sensible, at first. What’s going to happen to the more than three-quarters of the US population that lacks the means to feed themselves for more than a couple of weeks? The ones who go stir-crazy in quarantine? Will the small percentage of people who control the vast majority of the world’s wealth do ANYTHING to sustain the backbone of the economy: Those whose grueling labor built the infrastructure that keeps us all alive?
Do they want us to live? (Look up the Georgia Guidestones, for starters.)
The society we'll have after the Great Depression of the 21st Century is either going to look like Mad Max’s world, or—optimistically—something like the Matrix movies: Machines will be caring for isolated humans who are unable to meet even to breed. Perhaps we’ll be in pods, but shoebox hotels run by corporations are more likely, in the lifetime of today’s children. We already hear about driverless 18-wheelers, and drones are delivering groceries in major cities.
Personally, I hope the governments of Earth have a good plan, and can implement it in a way that is beneficial to the People of Earth that these governments exist to serve. Communism only works when there is a free market to sponge off of, and capitalism in chains is a death spiral...so, since governments have yet to show intelligence, my hopes for my retirement dreams are dim.
One good thing about this event: It may shift the US economy away from the military empire it's been focused on so long. It’s even possible that big pharmaceutical companies will learn to value human life over profit.
Am I too optimistic?
