Personally,
I have never been happier to be working at my dreary job in a big-box store
than I am now. If I were not working, I
would be seriously worried as we descend into this government-mandated economic
nightmare. In a way, I think this will
be like the Great Depression. If you ask
people who lived through it what it was like, they often say, “Well, if you had
a job, you were OK.” This may be much
the same story.
Also,
if I were just sitting home watching the world collapse around me, it would
drive me nuts.
*
Prediction:
a month from now, the frenzy and panic over a shortage of ventilators will be
an embarrassment to those who engaged in it.
*
I
frequently hear (in a condescending tone), that people are being silly to empty
store shelves of toilet paper, bread,
eggs, and other commodities. “There’s
plenty of trees, wheat, chickens---why are people doing this?”
It seems
perfectly reasonable to me. Every day,
the TV and the newspapers crank up the fear one more notch and consign any
encouraging news to page 23. Why would it
be surprising that ordinary citizens would fear martial law, a complete
breakdown of order, draconian isolation orders, and being locked in their homes
for the next six months? That’s pretty
much what we are being led to believe every day, so why wouldn’t you want a
stockpile of TP?
*
Speaking
of toilet paper, the corona panic again teaches us the foolishness of so-called
“anti-gouging laws,” though politicians never seem to get the message.
If
prices were allowed to respond to demand, there would be no hoarding because
nobody would buy more toilet paper than he needed. If it cost $10 for a 4-pack, you would buy
ONE 4-pack, and you would only do it if you truly needed it. Very soon, as consumers saw there was no
shortage, prices would drop back down to normal levels.
Prices
carry information about markets. This is
the purpose of the price system.
Periodically, when there is a hurricane in South Florida, plywood will
become scarce and the price (if it is allowed to), will triple. When that happens, all that plywood sitting
idly at Home Depots in Georgia somehow jumps onto trucks and winds up in Miami
a day later. Magic.
Does
America need more ventilators? If so,
threatening GM, and demanding production at cost or below is the wrong way to
get them. Instead, publish the specs for
what is needed, suspend all regulations that restrain the market, and get out
of the way.
*
In
addition to the numbers of corona cases and deaths that make our headlines
every day (by state, by city, by zip code), shouldn’t we be seeing numbers of
those who died yesterday from our seasonal flu?
*
Dissent
or resistance from the program of mandatory business and school shut-downs is
drawing an increasing level of police power from the mayors and governors and
others who are determined to keep us unemployed and sheltered in place. Now there are snitch-on-your-neighbor
hotlines and cops knocking on doors. One
reason dissent cannot be tolerated is that if an area stayed open and
experienced the same amount of corona pain as a locked-down area, it would
throw serious doubt on the efficacy of the social distancing rules being
imposed. Those who would use the
public-health rationale for these unprecedented incursions on our basic human
rights cannot allow those types of questions to be asked.
Copyright2020MichaelKubacki
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