Since the pandemic crackdown started, the question was when would people start to realize that this was a huge blunder. In the first weeks, people were both scared and excited about what they were being told was coming. On the one hand you had the rush for supplies in order to camp at home for weeks. On the other hand, you had the excitement for an unplanned holiday at home. A month ago, most everyone was ready for a couple of weeks of curve bending and movie watching at home.
We are at the other end of this thing now. People have done all of the fun stuff they can do at home. It’s just tedium now. For many the fear of not having an income is beginning to take center stage. Small business is getting to the point where many will have to close up shop for good. Fear of the virus has now subsided for all but the most hysterical and fear of ruination is now beginning to fill the void. People are getting antsy and want to go back to their lives now. This is not fun anymore.
The streets are starting to get more crowded now. A week ago, you could ride around Lagos and not see a soul walking or driving. The weather has improved, so many more people are outside. More cars are on the streets. Most business is now thinking hard about going back to near-normal in the near-term. They don’t want to be too far ahead of the government’s crackdown orders, for fear of lawsuits, but they are pushing to end the madness and return to something close to normal.
That’s the thing that no one has considered. There will be real economic hardship this summer due to the crackdown. People will also be sharing their crackdown stories with friends and co-workers over the coming months. People will certainly notice that they don’t know anyone who knows anyone that got the virus. As these antibody tests confirm that the fatality rate was much lower than advertised, people will begin to wonder if this was worth the consequences.
Adolf Hitler said, “You can fool all the people some of the time and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time.” We are seeing a real-time test of that aphorism. For a while now, our rulers have fooled most everyone with the virus panic. Some people, like the curve-benders, will remain convinced the virus panic was necessary. They have no choice now. The question is will the bulk of the public conclude they were fooled into the Great Flu Panic?
This is where the aphorism breaks down. People seem to be quite happy being fooled on a regular basis. The rulers and the media have to mix things up, but being fooled into believing in some great threat to “who we are” is a feature, not a bug. Then again, prior hoaxes and panics have been cost free. People could enjoy them from the comfort of home and still go outside and keep their job. This time, there will be a real cost to this elaborate morality tale. Maybe this time is different.
Either way, we are about to move into a new phase of this madness. What will be the short- and long-term consequences of the crackdown? The stock market seems to think the V-shaped recession is the way to bet. The political class is hoping for devastation, as they think they will rid them of Trump. Economist can’t seem to agree on what comes next, as this has never been tried. There’s lots of red lights flashing in the debt markets and the supply chain. The next months will be interesting.
Maybe that will be how everyone forgets about this month of living like lepers and treating everyone like they stink. Before people can start to think about why they were locked in their homes, they will be directed to the next drama, the financial and economic panic of 2020. Perhaps the lesson here is the circus part of our bread and circuses is the government creating increasingly reckless panics seeing if they can blow it all up. Maybe this is all for their entertainment.
This week I have the usual variety of items in the now standard format. Spreaker has the full show. I am up on Google Play now, so the Android commies can take me along when out disrespecting the country. I am on iTunes, which means the Apple Nazis can listen to me on their Hitler phones. The anarchists can catch me on iHeart Radio. I am now on Deezer, for our European haters and Stitcher for the weirdos. YouTube also has the full podcast. Of course, there is a download link below.
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This Week’s Show
Contents
- 00:00: Opening
- 02:00: The Rich Get Richer (Link) (Link)
- 12:00: The Debt Bomb (Link) (Link)
- 22:00: The Food Chain (Link) (Link) (Link)
- 32:00: We Don’t Know Nothin’ (Link) (Link) (Link) (Link) (Link)
- 42:00: Rule By Corporate Pirate (Link)
- 47:00: Paranoid Weirdos (Link)
- 52:00: A Post From The Others (Link)
- 57:00: Closing (Link)
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