For weeks, as the novel coronavirus has spread across the globe and infected hundreds of thousands of people, there have been the skeptics — those who say “social distancing,” while proven to slow the spread of COVID-19 and save lives, isn’t worth the economic cost.
It’s starting to come into focus. “The economy” and humans have been in a symbiotic relationship, but when things shift suddenly, the parasitic aspect can predominate. The difference between us and them is that we’re worried about the economy being parasitic on humans, and they’re worried about the reverse.
Kudlow: "we’re going to have to make some difficult trade-offs.” As in, we are going to have to trade your life for the sake of my stock portfolio.
Monstrous, yes, and also, predictably, monstrously stupid. One, the death panel giving a million olds the thumbs-down is going to be a wee drag on the economy and the stock market. Two, the death panel is run by the coronavirus, to whom Larry Kudlow doesn’t look like “the guy whose portfolio must be saved,” but like “one of the olds.”
Trump is losing money because his hotels, golf clubs, and restaurants are either shut down, or not generating the same revenue. That’s his motivation; ME, ME, ME, same as it ever was.
They’re not going to believe it’s real - until the death toll exceeds the annual death toll of a typical flu season.
That’s the number they cling to. That will be when it gets ‘real’ for them. Until then it’s business as usual. (of course it will be too late - but this is how opportunists work. Fuck you - I got mine.)
So what exactly are Patrick and Co are proposing? The over 70 crowd for most part doesn’t work anymore, so I guess they want them to ride the public transit. eat in restaurants, and go to the gym and if they get sick just quietly die in their bedroom to not overwhelm the hospitals, and once they all kick the bucket the stock market is going to rebound?
Maybe it’s time to dust off “Trump’s Razor” (when Trump does something, it will be for the stupidest possible reason consistent with observable events). Among his few real businesses, he’s a hotelier. His branded hotels and resorts — probably a creaking, towering mess of interwoven debt schemes even before this hit — have seen their revenue disappear.
He is literally dumb and selfish enough to be grasping at economic straws like this because his own bottom-line is affected. His self-interest is total, but it’s not only his self-interest in being re-elected