We in America are now beginning a national debate. Do we sacrifice health and safety – human lives – for the economy to reopen and get the country working again, or do we protect lives and continue with preventive measures by staying home and letting large segments of the economy continue to idle? Here are a few thoughts.
We’ve seen the news items about “spring break” parties that spread the virus to all parts of the country, with college students taking an “oh, well” attitude. Now, protesters in Michigan want to restart everything, no matter what happens. OK, we have a pretty good idea what will happen, if the experts are to be believed. There will be a spike in COVID-19 cases, the hospitals will be overwhelmed, first responders will get sick, elder care facilities will be infected, so on and so on. The same people out protesting now will be wondering what happened and will be pointing fingers. Let’s face it – Americans are not a patient people. We line up in droves to buy the latest iPhone, even when the older version worked just fine. We invent direct deposit because, well, we can’t wait. We need “call ahead” apps so we don’t have to stand at the counter waiting for someone to pour coffee into a cup for us. Now, the prospect of waiting a year or more for an effective treatment for a pandemic virus is just more than we can bear. We need it now, and we need it in vast quantities, and we need it everywhere. Good grief, people – we can’t even keep up with the demand for toilet paper. So, boredom and unemployment are creeping steadily upward, leading to a national frustration. That part is normal. Abandoning the course though, will most likely lead to increasing infections and a rising death toll. Do we really find that an acceptable trade-off?
Schools are adapting to online learning, and many parents are developing teaching skills whether they wanted to or not. (On a side note, perhaps now America’s teachers will be appreciated just a bit more.) Her Ladyship and I sit in a comfortable home, incomes securely deposited each month, while I make weekly rather than daily trips to the grocery store, and order everything else on Amazon. So, I can’t grasp nor fully come face to face with the desperation of those out of work, small business owners struggling to make payroll or laying off their dedicated employees, and all those businesses trying hard to do the right thing. My heart also goes out to medical professionals facing going into work each day, knowing that supplies will be short and that infection is lurking. My heart goes out also to elderly, frail people lying in care facilities, wondering what will happen to them. Fear must be absolutely consuming for them, and worse, their support systems – friends and family – can’t be with them.
All of this brings us to a central proposition. Does the economy work of people, or is the other way around? In the past, the villagers (peasant tenants) all worked to supply and support the Duke and Duchess, who sat in reasonable comfort in their castles and manor houses, being taken care of. They in turn supported the Royal Family. In more recent centuries, corporate family with names like Vanderbilt, Rockefeller, Morgan, and Astor largely replaced the Earls of Warwick and the Dukes of Marlborough in this country. But they did it the same way the nobility had done it for centuries, though – paying a pittance to their workers and amassing fortunes. Whether these monied folks owned mills, factories, mines, or railroads, they were remarkably unconcerned about the welfare and living conditions of their employees. They were the one percent of their day, and surprisingly, controlled far more of the nation’s wealth than the Waltons, the Kochs, the Gates and the Buffetts do today. The US workforce essentially worked for them and they controlled the population.
Where do we stand today? The relief checks are going out and folks are seeing a little relief. Amid the euphoria, however, is the fact that billions have been set aside to help the wealthiest corporations and industries – the ones that have been so successfully avoiding taxes, the ones setting up offshore accounts to hide profits, and, yes, the ones for whom the new tax codes were written and work extraordinarily well. It was on the news last night that a national high-end steak house chain has received massive COVID-19 impact funding, while a pizza shop owner interviewed in Chicago is still waiting to get on the list for assistance. His application hasn’t even been processed yet and probably won’t be for some time. That’s because the big banks are administering the money, and guess what – they’re giving it first to their clients. You may or may not have noticed, but the private task force the White House put in charge of medical supplies (and other things) is doling those supplies out to their existing customers rather than where the need is greatest. US companies making ventilators here have been selling them overseas, because the profit is higher. That’s why we’re running short. How many remember back in 2008 and 209, when the banks took the stimulus money, put it in their vaults, said “thank you very much”, and continued to foreclose on homeowners.
In the 21st Century, in a classless, democratic society, the economy should be working for everyone. In America, to a large extent, it does an ok job. However, humans drive the economy. It’s a vehicle by which we work and live well. For some, not so much, and we need to have safety nets in place to catch them. Those politicians and conservative media commentators that are putting the economy ahead of human life are entirely missing the point. They’re like the British absentee landlords who owned so much of Ireland during the Potato Famine in the 1840’s. Ireland continued to export tons and tons of food to Britain and British interests abroad while a million of its own people were starving. For whom was the economy working then? Has our fundamental understanding of economics not developed at all since then? Dr. Oz spoke on Fox News that he’d read an article in The Lancet, a science journal, that reopening schools now might inflict “only a 2-3% mortality”, so it might be an idea worth considering. Really? These are children, Doctor. Why would any rational human think it’s “worth considering” sacrificing them?
It’s time for the United States and its sane, rational, enlightened population to listen to the medical experts and follow their recommendations. President Calvin Coolidge is reputed to have said, in a 1925 speech to newspaper editors, that “The business of America is business.” That’s a limited and somewhat selfish outlook, sir. Sacrificing lives on the altar of business is not something our modern day egalitarian morality should ever consider or condone.
I'm Thinking...No! 