My oldest son fled California to our place in northwest Montana after Gov. Newsom’s shut down of the state. Of course, the conversation turned to the topic of the pandemic. I expressed my doubts about the wisdom of some of the extreme means to confront the virus. He said that I may be taking the threat too lightly. I said, “No, the threat is real but you can’t make idle a sizable portion of a labor force of 160 million people for any length of time. A shutdown even for a month is unsustainable. ” More to the point, as Harry Callahan of “Dirty Harry” fame said, “A man’s GOT to know his limitations.” Translation: A shut down has its limits … real, concrete-bridge-abutment-style limits.
Regardless, shutting down a population’s need to produce for any length of time and expecting no serious repercussions because you’re going to paper over the induced economic coma with “paper”, literally, as in paper money and bonds, is pure fantasy. Think about it. Squashing the livelihoods of the hospitality industry, suppressing production of anything bureaucratically defined as “nonessential”, eradicating a good slice of the transportation industry, etc., etc., will make the 25% unemployment rate of 1933 look small. Moreover, piling debt obligations onto the backs of the grandkids smacks of something pretty close to immoral, and economically suicidal.
Newsom’s gang in Sacramento – and Cuomo’s in Albany – are already operating on the thinnest of fiscal margins. Crushing the revenue pipeline for any length of time will force these guys to cry “uncle”. When the resultant mobs of the pitchfork brigades descend on the state capitol, the shut down will be in the rear view mirror.
Sure, getting sick has its hazards, but reverting back to hunting and gathering carries its own perils beyond a disease’s mortality rate. Get real. Rich societies – meaning those that produce lots and lost of stuff – make for rich health care. You can’t have the latter without the former. The Mayo Clnic and Johns Hopkins sounds better to me than the village shaman.
RogerG