“You know, when I was a kid, food was food. Before our scientific magicians poisoned the water, polluted the soil, decimated plant and animal life.” – Soylent Green
I pity the fool that thinks we’re done.
In 471 B.C., a group of soldiers of the Roman Republic broke camp one fine morning. The way the story works out, I’m pretty sure it was a Monday. Their plan was to go attack some smelly hill people under the command of the Roman Consul, Appius. As the horn sounded to leave the camp, the smelly hill people swarmed down on the Roman column from behind. In the defense of the Roman soldiers, this was way before the invention of coffee but after the invention of wine, so they probably weren’t exactly awake.
As an aside, I imagine that the whole of the ancient history can be explained by un-showered illiterate people who were hungover most of the time trying to run things. I guess this description also applies to congress, but at least the Romans dressed well and threw great parties. Can you imagine Bernie Sanders or Adam Schiff or Mitch McConnell being fun at a party?
Perhaps the artist was a talented person who had only ever seen birds with lazy eye and just imagined what a person might look like?
Regardless, the Roman column broke under an attack less expected than the Spanish Inquisition. The Roman historian Titus Livius, more commonly known a Livy, is the reason we remember this battle. Livy wrote that the reason the hill people stopped pursing the Romans were that the Romans were running away faster than the victorious hill people could wade through the dead Romans, but remember, the smelly hill people didn’t have coffee, either, so maybe they just got . . . tired. The Roman Consul, Appius, tried to stop the fleeing soldiers, but wasn’t able to do so, no matter how he tried.
Appius rallying the troops. Colorized.
When the Romans made camp far enough away that the mean hill people weren’t going to attack them, Appius lined all of the soldiers up. Every soldier was asked, “Where are your weapons?” Every standard bearer was asked, “Where is your flag?” Then Centurions that had fled the field of battle were identified.
All of these men were beaten, and then beheaded, because being beheaded wasn’t quite enough. That made a bad morning worse, but it didn’t stop there: of the remaining men, they drew lots. One out of each ten was executed for the overall cowardice of the unit. Why not ten out of ten? There were still lots of smelly hill people around, and Appius might have been faster than some of them but not all of them.
This latter part where one out of ten was killed lives on today in our language as the word “decimate,” from the Latin “deci” meaning “Lucy’s husband,” and the Latin “mate” meaning, “someone an Australian drinks beer with.” But, in a literal fashion it means losing one out of every ten, and has been a military punishment used all the way up into the 20th century, when the Soviets did it to at least part of the 64th Rifle Division after a very bad day at Stalingrad in 1943, though rumor has it no one had fun in Stalingrad in ’43. If you don’t believe me, read your “Argentinian” grandfather’s real diary.
I know you’re thinking, “Hey, John Wilder, that’s fun, but why are you talking about dead Roman bird-faced men when the economy is collapsing?”
To be clear, I don’t have any dirt on the Clinton family.
The United States labor force in February 2020 was 164.6 million. In the last three weeks, respectively, 3.0 million, 6.9 million, and 6.6 million people filed for unemployment, bringing that total to 16.5 million newly unemployed. For those of you without a calculator or fingers, that’s just over 10%. And as bad as the rest of the news is, I had to search for it, rather than it being front page.
Think of it, the second worst unemployment numbers in the history of the United States not being above-the-fold page one news. Instead? “Could have been worse. At least the sky isn’t dripping blood and lava.”
Employment in the United States has been literally decimated in the last two weeks. Sure, it’s not as bad as being beaten to death because of those stupid scary hill people who had the bad manners to attack before lunch or being a Russian (or a German) at Stalingrad, but it’s not good.
It is catastrophic. And next week will be more of the same, if not worse.
If we listen to some leaders, it could be “until August,” or if you listen to Bill Gates, “until the entire United States can be vaccinated and Windows 14™ implanted into their spinal column.” Neither of those two are acceptable, especially since some people, like Joe Biden, have no discernable spine.
He sniffs, he sucks, he scores!
But removing those restrictions is important. Even as farmers dump milk that they can’t put into supermarket-sized cartons and break eggs that they can’t put into 18-packs for Wal-Mart, the system is breaking down. At a certain point the economy is important, because a breakdown in the system might be just the key for some of the more fringe elements on the Left to begin to “finally try real communism” in the United States, which will end up with a bigger butcher’s bill than COVID-19 could ever create. Yeah, it’s a worst-case scenario, and I don’t think we’ll go there, but did anyone think the Fed and Congress could imagine $5 trillion dollars in extra debt. In a single month?
The other side of the argument is, “Start everything back up. Now!”
That won’t work, either. You won’t see people crowding into quaint and cramped Italian restaurants, because nobody wants to get Coronavirus from the busboy. People want to see the infection numbers drop before they commit to getting into a stadium with 77,000 other people to cheer on the NFL®. Zero? Nope. But lower than the 30,000-ish daily (hopefully) peak of newly infected we’re seeing right now.
Well, I guess this is the hard part of the Art of the Deal.
And if you really want to see the fireworks over this idea, wander on over to Aesop’s place. Here’s a representative post. The genius (and the real nuclear part) is in the comments (LINK). As you can see, Aesop has a plan. The plan? Probably not. But it’s important, because it’s a plan.
One thing that is owed the people of the United States is the plan, complete with criteria and reasoning. We know, for certain, that after restrictions are removed that more people will die of COVID-19, and that every single death will be placed at the foot of Trump by the Left. Even though we know that collectively the Left couldn’t organize a hunger strike at a fashion show, we do know that they’re aces at blaming everyone for everything, just like The Mrs. blames me for not having the hardwood floor installed six years after having purchased it. Oops. The Mrs. messed up. She trusted me.
We also know that the devastation of job loss and economic collapse will create thousands of ‘silent’ deaths through despair and addiction. Trump will be blamed for that economic loss, as well. There’s no daily graphic for showing economic misery. Well, not yet there isn’t, but as soon as it sells in the news media? Expect it on the front page of Drudge® every single day.
You dirty birds. I have to apologize for this one since Misery the movie came out in 1990, but it’s at least cheap to watch on Amazon®. Which Pugsley and I did, after I wrote this. I guess we’re dirty birds.
When the time finally comes for Americans to emerge out of their basement bunkers fatter than Hillary Clinton after a wine evening with the ladies? And we’re caught up on all of that “must-see TV” (spoiler: fire insurance is a must if you live in King’s Landing®), what kind of a landscape will they see?
Americans are already getting antsy. It won’t last until August. I don’t think it will last past May.
The economy won’t be the same. Small businesses are in really bad shape. Since they don’t have a lobbyist like Boeing®, that steak house on Main Street? Owned by Ma and Pa Steakhouse owners? They don’t have anyone looking out for them. They’ll get loans, sure. But another loan on top of the mortgage on the restaurant? Another loan on top of the bills they have for the steaks sitting in the freezer because no one is coming in? Yeah.
That’ll help. Just like links from the chain of the anchor would help a lifeboat from the Titanic.
I’m an upbeat person, I really am. Work back through my posts, and I defy anyone to find me being downbeat. I’m not. I think that things will generally work out for me, at least until I die. That part will probably suck. Unless Anne Wilkes has a sledgehammer between me and the grave.
But one thing I want to stress is that hope isn’t a plan, and that hope isn’t your friend. Hope keeps you wishing for a future you wish to see, rather than the future you can work to have. If you hope that after Corona-chan is in the rear-view mirror, the United States will be the same, you will be disappointed.
If you hope that the world will snap back into “happy motoring” (thanks, Jim Kunstler) in June, you’ll find that hope will be a straightjacket. Hope is not your friend, to the extent that it allows happy thoughts to replace action.
Don’t hope. Do. And live. Hope is for amateurs and dreamers.
The United States as you knew her in February 2020 is dead. There. You have it. Deal with it and plan your life. You don’t have to be among the decimated.
But know this:
The United States is dead.
Let all of us go and find her. She is there, waiting for us.
I found Her! Here She is!
http://demonocracy.info/infographics/usa/us_debt/images/usd-us-debt_ceiling-2017-20_trillion_USD-v1.jpg
Every one of those pallets on the truck is $100M. Each individual tower is $1 trillion. View Her whole sad cage build up in graphic form at:
http://demonocracy.info/infographics/usa/us_debt/us_debt.html
Fortunately, there is one who can save Her, and He has a plan….
https://i.redd.it/y8j93gpamdk11.png
Back in my banking days, I saw one million dollars in cash, wrapped up for transport. It was kind of a pitiful little Borg block of currency, not Scrooge McDuck swimming worthy.
Well, that’s one way to soak up the extra money . . .
Maybe “hope” isn’t quite the right word, but we need some term to describe an attitude between despair (the idleness of futility) and complacency (the idleness of believing that it’s all Somebody Else’s Problem) that promotes active response. Identifying as Finnish-American, I’ll go with “sisu”. (See Wikipedia for clarification.)
I saw a report that home garden seeds were roped off from sale as “non-essential” in Vermont, and on-line seed sellers coping with minimal staffing by taking only commercial seed orders. If you plan to grow a food garden (and you should, if you can), you might need to plan around what you can get, rather than what you would prefer.
I’ll go with that. As long as it drives action – that’s the start. Most often, complacency is part of hope.
The Mrs. ordered a flat of veggies that show tomorrow. If we can keep them from freezing, we’ll have tomatoes to throw away in August. Yay!
My point as well: Let’s get this party started, and get everyone out of COVID Jail ASAP, but sensibly, not by throwing open the floodgates.
Sorry the comment thread you referenced is now somewhat choppy, but I spent yesterday on Troll Patrol.
OT: I had no idea you developed this series for TV.:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tS1yh6uCo5c
TV show creator, and romance novelist beloved of Columbian drug lords?
Man, what a life!
Ha! And I just watched the Spenser movie on Netflix. It was okay.
Yup. ASAP. People are getting antsy.
BTW,
What if the point this has to end by is “After it’s spread to everyone, and we have millions dead, because people are stupid, but to rack up such an enormous bodycount, you really need government help“…?
Not predicting this by any means, just thinking out loud.
Great point, and a great post today. I’m just gonna be watching. From my basement. Ever see Counterpart?
So, what’s the real reference here?
” If you don’t believe me, read your “Argentinian” grandfather’s real diary.”
No coffee yet this AM, ya see…
I think he’s referring to the escape of some German Nazis to Argentina during/after WW-2, who created new biographies for themselves that had nothing to do with Germany.
Ding!
Zey ver on vacashion zat veekend. Lathechuck nailed it.
” the second worst unemployment numbers in the history of the United States not being above-the-fold page one news. ”
I am not convinced about the importance of these numbers. Unemployment typically measures the health of an economy. If I can’t find a job doing something people are willing to pay for, then the economy is not good enough that people have extra money for whatever it is I am selling (assume for the sake of argument that I have a marketable skill)
The current situation is slightly different in that there is a desire and a need for many of these skills, but the government has decided not to allow any of them. I have money and I would like a widget. The local widget maker, however, is shut down because the government has decreed it. My local widget maker was a one man operation. He wasn’t going to catch or spread the virus by continuing to make and sell widgets with reasonable precautions. It is a $5000 fine if he sells a widget however.
Another example is gardeners and roofers. Shut down, at least in our state, by order of the governor. Gardeners? Working outside with no required human contact? Unemployed.
On the blame game side of the equation, long article in the Washington Post yesterday about how horribly Trump is doing and how Jay Inslee, governor of Washington, could have done it so much better. No mention, oddly, of how they all called him racist when he shut down travel from China in January. Much distortion along typical leftist lines, still spouting the old “Trump told states they were on their own” memes, etc. The comments, the few that I bothered to read, were uniformly “orange man bad”. I don’t normally read the WaPo but it popped up in something I was reading about and then I was curious as to what they had to say.
That’s a good distinction, but none of those people are getting money. Will the checks make a difference?
The other side: there’s something corrosive to the soul for a man who can’t get work.
It is pretty clear that these “small business loans” are going to mostly go to huge companies. Many banks are swamped with the loans so they aren’t even taking new applications. Meanwhile the “Main Street” loan program that just rolled out offers a minimum one million dollar loan. Most actual mom and pop small businesses couldn’t swing that kind of loan in good times.
I am not that concerned about the workforce participation numbers. My position is that many jobs are useless and shouldn’t even exist and that we would be better off as a nation having a lot more moms at home with their kids instead of shuffling paperwork in a cubicle. But having real businesses closing down is a serious problem as many of them won’t reopen and the workforce in 2021 is likely to be far more skewed toward people working in service industry jobs at huge global corporations rather than small businesses. That means it is going to get a lot harder for a lot of people to speak openly about controversial topics for fear of getting a call from Karen in HR about your Facebook post.
Great point – working for mom and pop? They like you more than they like Karen.
Makes me wonder how many mom and pops will get vultured up in the coming years?
Off topic – congratulations on being on Zero Hedge! Soon we’ll have to call you MISTER Wilder.
Keep up the good work.
First, thank you.
Second, never. I’ll always be John.
Hard things are HARD, darnit. It’s possibly the best thing that’s happened to the West, and this country in particular, in Decades.
We’ve been reading about the feminization of men, the insanity of gyno-centric society, the growth of man-boobs and hair-knots and pajama boyz and what-nots. All stemming from a half century of easy, safe, wear-a-helmet-life here in the civilized world.
And, just like that – we’re on our asses wondering what to do.
I’ll tell ya what happens next. The herd gets culled, the weak quickly learn to get strong, and this country of ours comes roaring back with a frickin’ attitude that cements our position as the number 1 World Power – for as long as it takes to forget all of this, get complacent again, and start the cycle over.
Or, I’m a Pollyanna with a cute braid. I prefer to believe I am right.
Wonderful comment. And, yes, when hard times come? Frivolity drops away. All the problems we’re creating because life is too good disappear when real trouble hits.
On your side!
Is there not the problem with the Green Band that you tested good Yesterday, but you need to be tested EVERY DAY thereafter?
That is the logical conclusion until 1) a cure or 2) all susceptible people are dead.
I see a local BS problem to “how bad it is”. Old people who tested positive not dying. People in hospice, who tested positive, Not dying. Dad has failed to catch it 3 tests now. Have any of the Roosevelt crew been hospitalized? (None that I saw yesterday).
Yes. The Roosevelt is the first real lab setting for a small town transmission rate, recovery rate, etc w/the population all basically free of assorted old age, disease and what-not co-morbidities.
Be good to know the numbers.
Yup.
Yeah, like I said, that’s not IT, but we need to get to IT soon. People are restless.
April 16: USNS Teddy: 650+ infected; 1 dead (41-yr-old chief); five other sailors have been hospitalized, one in critical condition.
SecDef Esper: “of the 600 or so that have been infected, what’s disconcerting is a majority of those, 350 plus, are asymptomatic,”
(How in the HELL he didn’t know that 3 weeks ago, like everyone ELSE paying attention did, is beyond belief!)
‘Bread and Circuses’ is the cancer of democracy, the fatal disease for which there is no cure. Democracy often works beautifully at first. But once a state extends the franchise to every warm body, be he producer or parasite, that day marks the beginning of the end of the state. For when the plebs discover that they can vote themselves bread and circuses without limit and that the productive members of the body politic cannot stop them, they will do so, until the state bleeds to death, or in its weakened condition the state succumbs to an invader—the barbarians enter Rome.” – Robert A. Heinlein
Lothar, love Robert Anson Heinlein. I remember reading him before I hit my teens.
Great quote. Perfectly timed.
Good times create soft men. Soft men create hard times. Hard times create strong men. Strong men create good times.
Looks like my grandkids or kids will be strong men. The phrase has a lot of wisdom.
Still waiting for accurate numbers about this “terrible virus”.
Nothing adds up. Less than .04% of TESTED cases have resulted in death, which is worse than a regular flu, but what’s the real number if you include UNTESTED people? Just curious is all. The CDC estimates for regular flu seasons are all over the map, and their current projections are too. WAY OFF. I realize the quarantine has had an effect; I just don’t see the numbers working. Everyone’s numbers are at best well educated estimates, but the range is all over the place.
Where are all the “5 minute” tests?
If we tested people, we could put negative tested people back to work. And target treatment for positive tested people before they become bad enough to admit to the hospital.
Where’s approval for use of EXISTING medications (hydroxychloroquine and others)?
If again, this is the mother of all virus’, wouldn’t it make sense to try anything? Just have people sign a waiver, if you’re afraid of getting sued. Every visit to a dentist now requires a sign off for Pete’s sake!
Why hasn’t Trump fired the heads of CDC and FDA yet?
Proven incompetence on a grand scale. Criminally negligent at best. Come to think of it, who exactly has he fired throughout this entire debacle?
There are many questions to be answered, and it needs to happen soon, or people will simply disobey any new regulations or orders (none of which will stand up in court without a declared “State of War”), en masse.
These will be the second and third tier effects of shutting down the country, and I fear they could be much worse than the virus itself.
I for one have decided to wait until the end of the month, out of respect for other people, but after that I’m going back to normal unless there’s an epic die off. And I would advise the rest of you to do the same.
What I find interesting is that when someone starts to ask those sorts of questions, they get labelled a “denier” which is what anyone who questions the official narrative gets labelled (and/or “racist”). The questions were are told we absolutely are not allowed to be asking are precisely the kinds of questions we must ask.
Ain’t that odd?
It’s almost as if they don’t want to know the truth!
I’ve tried on numerous “right leaning” websites to find answers to my questions only to be labeled dumb and ridiculed for my dumbness, but I won’t back down.
Until we know the truth, this is a matter for discussion, not snarky derision. Those who can’t see that are the problem, not the solution.
100% you are right. And the data keeps getting more damning every day.
Yes, in my state, more people died of too many Ruffles than COVID in the same time period.