“They call it a panic room. I know that’s a difficult concept for you, because for you, every room is a panic room.” – Monk
I hear that the Australians have really started hoarding toilet paper – they are superstitious about problems down under.
What’s essential? Right now, there are hundreds of Federal bureaucrats asking exactly that question.
That scares me.
Why? The Federal government could cause an ice shortage in Antarctica if they were given a mandate to make more ice, so I’m not hopeful that they’ll make the right decisions. It should probably scare you, too. When Hurricane Ike hit Houston, we were there. Here are some examples of the great competence that was on display from our Federal, state, and local governments:
- Radio telling us to go the FEMA website for crucial information. During a power outage. Where cell phones weren’t working. So, I assumed we were to access the FEMA website psychically.
- Radio telling us to go and bail out “first second responders” because they didn’t have food or water, because no one can plan for a Hurricane in Texas, right?
- FEMA water showing up over a week later after power was nearly completely restored. Oh, and you could get one case. In contrast, a local radio station had a semi-load of bottled water delivered for distribution in only two days.
Okay, I may have yelled at a hurricane like this during Hurricane Ike after a wee bit of wine. No flag. But there was a bathrobe and it was after midnight. Does that count?
Federal response is good for, oh, responding late and poorly to any real event. And why did I call government people “second responders” up above? Because they are generally the second (or later) person to respond to any crisis. In most cases, you’re the first responder. Fire at your house? It’s you and your trusty extinguisher or cell phone.
Bad guy in your hallway? First responder is you, because the average police response time in the United States is ten minutes. Then? They’ll generally not run into the house like Rambo on steroids, they’ll come in slowly so they can go home that night. It’s not unlikely that you’d be alone with that robber for fifteen minutes after you made the call to 911.
Do you think you’ll have time to take selfies with the burglar? Maybe share photos of your kids and amusing anecdotes? The old saying is right: when seconds count, the second responders are minutes away.
One burglar stole all my lamps. I was upset, but I was also delighted.
It’s not that I dislike the government, I think their inefficiency is cute and endearing in the same way that dealing with a young child is. If government were actually efficient at anything that would scare me. The government (at every level) is horrible at coordination and planning, as illustrated by my examples above, with the exception of taxation, where money is on the line – they won’t even give fishermen a break on their net income. Individuals that are motivated by profits, however, are exceptional at planning and fixing bad situations. Plus, do you really want to be 100% reliant on government for anything important (besides national defense)?
Let’s take an example: food lines are a constant theme of Socialism. I know Bernie Sanders says, people lining up in lines for scarce food, “is a good thing.” But in capitalist systems, the food waits for you, in abundant variety. Why? So people can make a buck. That’s why we have more than one kind of beer, and one kind of ketchup. Heck, in the local Wal-Mart® there are like 8 different kinds of Heinz™ ketchup in five different sizes. The market works to satisfy you, in ways great and small. Especially if covering yourself in ketchup is what satisfies you. Mmmm, jalapeño-ranch ketchup.
I got some Heinz™ ketchup in my eye, and now I don’t need glasses anymore. My optician said that Heinz®-sight is 20/20.
The profit motive is at work even during this COVID-19 panic. I heard this week an amazingly Good Thing. At work, I heard we were waiting for some widgets and some polishing compound for a racknpinion molecule, and heard that there was no shipping on some of the stuff we wanted. None. Every single truck that normally shipped gizmos and lefthanded-transaxle wax was being put into hauling food.
That’s a lot of trucks. As confirmation of this, The Boy went to go retrieve his things from his dorm, college having been cancelled for the End of the World®, and noted that there were huge numbers of trucks moving on the interstate. The Boy estimated there were probably 150% of the number of trucks he normally sees, and this was on a Saturday. State Troopers were entirely absent. Even the cops want the food to move.
So, next time you get pulled over, just roll down your window and start a nasty dry cough. I’m betting the lights go off and the trooper heads out . . .
This was accomplished not by bans. Not by government edicts . Just, “the people are scared and want more food? Give it to them.” This is easy because there’s plenty of food in the system. The corn that’s being turned into Tostitos® was grown with sunlight from 2019. Next year’s Tostitos have yet to be planted. Rice? We have tons. Fuel? As I told you several weeks ago – it’ll be the cheapest in the past 20 years. Taking inflation into account, it may be the cheapest in history, so cheap you’ll be able to start bathing with gasoline instead of tap water, like Jeff Bezos does to clean grease from his moving parts.
You can shut down some parts of the free market because they’re non-essential – we did that in World War II. My folks tell stories of rationing of sugar and sewing needles and tires. And at some point those semi-trucks hauling the radishes and rutabaga and rhubarb and redfish will need new tires. They’ll need oil changes, and wiper fluid, and the drivers will need coffee and meth.
And farmers must farm, and ranchers must ranch, and people must be ready to pick the pizza rolls from the pizza tree when they are ripe. Someone has to milk the mice. But farmers live for that, so as long as they have gallon milk jugs, they’ll keep filling them. Economic incentives are still working.
The longer we go on with “nonessential” businesses being closed, the more businesses will become essential. In Modern Mayberry, we regularly close down non-essential businesses. It’s a day we refer to in our local dialect as “Sunday”. On Sunday, if Wal-Mart® or a fast food restaurant doesn’t have it, you’re not getting it. That was one of the bigger changes in moving here from bigger cities – businesses close down on Sunday, and the hours aren’t all that long on Saturday. Most businesses close at 5pm.
So, we live with non-essential shutdowns all the time. It’s hard to argue that the steak restaurant is essential to the public, though it’s certainly the opinion of the waitress and the owner that it’s essential, but even they agree to close it down on Sunday and Monday.
It’s the first five days after Sunday that are the always the hardest.
In a true governmental paradox where bureaucrats live on a different planet than the rest of us, schools are closed but daycares remain open. Having the grimiest, most germ-laden creatures on Earth (first graders) congregate for seven hours at school is wrong, but having those same infested viral fermentation pots play together for eleven hours at a daycare is okay.
I guess daycare workers need better unions.
But reasonable people could work together and come up with a definition of what’s essential. My job isn’t. Not today. In a few months? Maybe, but probably not. In a few years? Yeah, somebody needs to do it, for sure. And most jobs, even within essential industries aren’t essential. HR? Let them work from home, or better yet, work from Nome or the bottom of the ocean for the next year.
Heck, I’d be surprised if productivity of home workers wasn’t greater than working in a traditional office setting. I had read a statistic when I was starting off at work after college, and it said that up to 2/3 of the average office worker’s day was wasted. But how do office workers waste time? I had one boss who would just pull up a chair and talk. For sometimes two hours or more. About, well, whatever.
Before you snicker, around the same time I read a statistic that said something like 40% of industrial repairs fixed the wrong thing. But it’s hard to take a steel smelter home to fix it, unless you sneak it out in your big lunchbox.
Anyway, we’ll soon be seeing what government bureaucrats feel is essential.
I’m just hoping it involves beer . . . .
