I read in my Men’s Health last night that, according to recent studies, 7 out of 10 Americans don’t have $1,000 in their savings account. 70%.
And the people making this quarantine policy are probably mainly concerned about which stocks have lost value, and which they might need to sell. They have NO FUCKING CLUE.
And I don’t think people get how interconnected everything is. If I lose my job and can’t pay my rent, then my landlord can’t pay somebody else. Maybe she can’t pay the bank, and the bank eventually goes under. All the money is lost or has to be paid out by the FDIC. The FDIC, in turn, is largely a confidence game. They only have about 5% of the money they need to cover our financial system. Congress can now, apparently, vote them an infinite amount, so I’m leaving my money for now in the bank, but this whole thing will be inflationary.
Inflation, in turn, vitiates the value of everything lenders do, and we live in a lending economy. And it goes on and on and on. The longer this labor lockout–that is more or less what it is, with the rich doing the locking out for their own perceived benefit, and at the cost of the poor–lasts, the harder it gets to deal with.
Death we can deal with. Give or take, about 200,000 Americans die a month of something. Another 200,000 in a year is a statistical blip that will be horrible for those involved, but not horrible for everyone. A larger and worse, a GREATER Depression, will affect all households, all kitchens, all lives.
This thing really needs to end. Pushing it past, at the latest, the middle of April–when we will have numbers if this thing is blowing up, or–as I expect since the labor lockout was too early, and too severe–our hospitals are actually losing money and laying off personnel for lack of work, would be foolish, cruel, and historically unprecedented in its stupidity, short-sightedness and callousness.