Dakota Beacon

Have you been listening to some of the great brains on our media telling us how to “survive” during the quarantine period?  Here is an example. Just listen - it is worth a few minutes and a case of nausea because we need to know the utter fecklessness and stupidity of the people who are sharing their wisdom with us.  Here’s a sample from FOX News:

1. “The bills keep coming in but the paychecks have stopped coming”.  (Really??)

2. Chuck Schumer says the big roadblock to getting some kind of relief to “workers” is that corporations/employers might get something and this whole thing is about the “workers”.  Who does he think employs the “workers”? The “Big Giant Head”? Does he (and, of course the Wicked Witch of the West, Nancy Pelosi) think the work just happens and paychecks just get sent . . . by some mysterious power we can’t see?  I don’t think I can stand to hear much more about the “evil corporations”. That said, it would be both pointless and evil (they really can coexist in one act) for CEOs to take this moment to raise their own salaries. It is also unlikely, when there is no production going on.  (It’s also prohibited under the terms of the “rescue” package.) Obviously we need to help businesses to stay afloat unless we want the “workers” to go back to no job.

3. Dan Crenshaw (R-TX) gets out there and explains the above, but then incredibly, says business “needs a timeline”.  There is no way to give a timeline. We don’t know the path of this virus! Even in the birthplace of the pandemic - Wuhan - there is no credible timeline.  There are a lot of lies, but no “timeline”. The softball cutie who was interviewing Crenshaw just let that drop.  

4. President Trump, who does not seem to have learned anything about making irresponsible predictions (“We’ve got 15 cases, that number is going to go down.”  Now he predicts this will all be over in 19 days. This is stupid. We don’t have any reason to think this will be back to normal in 19 days or any like that.  We see with the example of Hong Kong that “back to normal” means “back to the hospitals” when we think it’s over and it’s not. Until we can handle massive hospitalizations with equipment, useful drugs or other treatment and sufficient personnel, we have no business thinking we can go “back to normal”.   Certainly not in 19 days. And his saying that stupidly sets him up for extremely harsh criticism when it happens. Does he really want to take ownership of the coronavirus outbreak? It would appear so. The intelligent thing - foreign to Trump, I know - would be to say the truth this time - the truth being that he does not know, but that he is aware of both sides of this problem and will be watching for the best time to shift gears.  He’ll never be that smart. This guy always shoots from the hip. Just use common sense, please. We all want this over with. We can’t control this.

5. Comes now Chris Hogan, a “financial expert”.   With such experts we should be full-fledged members of the third world by sundown tomorrow.  He offers this: We can’t control the virus (correct), we can’t control Congress (not quite true - if we had the will we could move Congress in the right direction) but we can control our own behavior.  And his advice is to go into “conservation mode” - don’t spend money we don’t have to spend. What he means is “all unnecessary spending must stop immediately.” So this is going to be the magic key to restoring our economy, right?  He expands on this theme. Cut out the gym membership and other subscriptions. Well, that’s great. So what about the people who work at the gym? They are part of the economy, aren’t they? He says focus on the “four walls” - shelter, food, transportation (why transportation, I wonder? Don’t they deliver medicine and groceries?), and the clothes on your back.  The food? “We’re going to eat the food we have in our pantries.” Who has food in his pantry? Unless you can afford the hobby of survivalism and you’ve bought one of Alex Jones’, Glenn Beck’s or Ben Shapiro’s emergency food packages, most of us have not stockpiled food - most of us don’t have room for food that we don’t consume and this is especially true of people who live in apartments (which, by the way, is becoming the majority of Americans).  (I think I might have a bulging, expired can of sauerkraut somewhere in there - should we add botulism to the coronavirus load in our emergency rooms?) “The stuff we have in our freezer.” Yeah, I used to have a freezer before the flood of 1997, but I don’t have one now and neither do most people. Why he thinks transportation is important if we don’t go anywhere is an interesting question. Hey, not to the gym, or the movies or out to eat. These would be “luxuries” presumably.  But it is exactly these “luxuries” which are the backbone of the economy. If we don’t eat in restaurants, waiters and cooks don’t get paid, right? The customer service people, projectionists, concession delivery people and custodians don’t work if we don’t go to the movies, do they?

6. In a matter of seconds, Hogan gives us what is perhaps the worst advice of our lives - call your mortgage holder and work out some kind of plan with them when you can’t pay.  I have discussed the folly of this approach in previous articles. And don’t think for one second that a “record” of your “arrangement” will protect you when your home is foreclosed.  It won’t. It didn’t help my parents. And they even lawyered up. It won’t help you, either. You need to demand that the government protect your loan inasmuch as they shut down your income.  And while you’re at it tell them that xenophobia turns out to have been a good strategy after all. We should have shut down travel and borders immediately and without regard to the idiots who told us that viruses don’t respect borders.  Precisely. The worst idea is to call your mortgage company. Hogan has obviously never been threatened with foreclosure.

7. Hogan tells small businesses to “conserve”.  He advises they not make extra payments on loans or to creditors - stick to the minimum payment.  This is more pointless advice. I’m sure that small businesses are not making extra payments on loans or to creditors as they are laying off valued employees. 

8. Here is some practical advice - get your affairs in order, write your will.  No, seriously. It is good advice. When you get to this part of the conversation you realize how important it is not to count on or desire a 19-day deadline for going back to business as usual. 

9. Finally, Cal Thomas correctly points out the danger of allowing all of our drugs to be manufactured in China.  To his concern about their having absolute life-and-death control over vital drugs, I would add my own - a country that would export dog food laced with melamine, which killed our pets, is not to be trusted to send us drugs that won’t kill us as well.  What are we thinking?  

Now, go back to the top of this article and click on the link to listen.  Take a moment and as you listen, think about my suggestion that the federal government loan at zero interest, the money to creditors, lenders, mortgage holders, etc., to freeze payments on accounts for 12 months so that people are able to keep their homes, their businesses, their vehicles, their credit, in the meantime, which is what I have been repeatedly urging (alone I might add).  Empty talk of 19 days might serve in the moment, but it is not reality, it is not helpful. We have seen that this virus has not just “gone away” after a few short weeks - we should expect that when we re-open business as usual we are merely unleashing it again. When we do, we had better be prepared. Will we have 100,000 ventilators in 19 days?  No? Then quit blathering about 19 days. Will we have enough medical personnel? Enough effective drugs? No? Then shut up about 19 days. It is only cruel in the short term and will be devastating in the long term - you, sir, will be labeled a liar - and a liar about things that really hit home. So don’t do it. If you feel like saying that again, snap a rubber band on your wrist or pinch yourself or something.  Stop it. 

And while we are at home, learning to knit, brushing up on our French, reading a novel, writing our book, inventing a new recipe, weaving baskets, let’s mull over what to do with and to China when we are back up and running again.  

Israel is sending us donations of chloroquine.  They are our friends. Taiwan is sending us hazmat suits and masks.  They are our friends. Red China? They sent us a deadly virus. It is time now to consider whether we should continue to trade with them at all, whether we should perhaps cease to recognize the People’s Republic government as legitimate and perhaps instead recognize the government of Taiwan as the official government of China.  It is worth considering. In the meantime, we should gear up to sue the pantaloons off the government of the People’s Republic of China. It should be a class action suit involving every nation which has lost money on the deal. Also worth considering is that our “ally”, Canada, under Justin Trudeau, just donated 32 tons of face masks and other emergency medical supplies to . . . China.  Now Canadians don’t have what they need. Of course they could have ousted Trudeau last fall, but the Conservative Party put a mannequin at the head of their party and no one had the backbone to support the People’s Party candidate, Maxime Bernier. Well, they were not really wrong to vote against the party of the hopeless and ineffectual Andrew Scheer (the “Conservative” Party) because in all likelihood, had he been Prime Minister, he would have consulted with Trudeau, and then sent the supplies to Red China.  We need to know who our friends are and more importantly, who our enemies are. And who are the bff’s of our enemies.

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