Journaling the Coronavirus (COVD19) Pandemic, Reflection #36
April 19, 2020
As the nation shuts down.
Although the door is closed and the signs are up, the nation has not achieved full shut down status just yet. The effects of shutting down are what I am writing about. The effects will be both short term and long. In the short term, it will become about paying bills and food. It will be about keeping the heat, lights, and water on. It will be about maintaining the Internet, phone and television services. Those things are going on right now. But, over time, what will be the effect if this shut down extends into the end of May or the beginning of June, or even beyond?
Education will take a hit like never before. Colleges will not reopen and those that do will not have enough students to pay the bills. The shock to the system of the citizenry will be too great to allow young people, or old, to bother with the now frivolous-seeming time and money spent on higher education. Businesses will not reopen because of rent they have not paid but will still be owed. Suppliers of those businesses will fail because they will no longer take credit. Cash on a barrelhead is what will be demanded and that barrelhead will soon become an inert empty anvil. Independent gas stations will fail because the price of gas is so low and the incidence of people purchasing diminishing at a frightening pace. Gas sales are down 70% in Wisconsin alone. Attorney operations will fail because accidents and enforcement of the motor vehicle rules are down more than 70% almost everywhere, and most courts not handling capital crime are shuttered for the duration. Civil law has already died almost everywhere. Police ranks will thin, as there becomes little for the police to do (already laying off officers in Lake Geneva). Hospitals will fail because nobody wants to go and there are not nearly enough Coronavirus patients to pay the bills. Nobody today wants to even drive by a hospital, and besides, so many virus-attacked people are poor and don’t have insurance. Real estate sales are in stasis which means that realtors are without commission and realty offices either.
The shut down of America becomes an ever more silent and deadly struggle of endurance. Who has the reserves to see it through? I have listed just a few of the areas that will be impacted as this goes on. There will be many many more, and, in fact, the list is pretty much endless. You see, the nation has depended upon the ‘flow’ of money and not money itself. Like a river’s water driving a huge water wheel or turbine, when the water stops moving so does the turbine…and EVERYTHING the turbine powers.
Years ago I wrote a series set in a period 25,000 years ago
Focusing on Social Evolution.
Similarities today?
Read Volume One, The Boy
Autographed Paperback
eBooks Volume One and Two
Also leave your comments, share your experiences, or just rant Below
I really worry about what we have left for our children.
Don’t worry about what you have left…worry about protecting them this very minute. This thing is
a long long way from over and I cannot find, in my predicting self with all this life experience, how this
ends any way without violence. The emotions have just begun to rise in this thing and hunger has not truly ‘set in among
those who’ve lost jobs and now cannot feed the kids…
Semper fi,
Jim
it is a big siphon or whirlpool effect
I used to think that shopping malls were the biggest white elephants of our lifetime. Forty years ago, developing shopping malls was a great idea – today, they are millstones around the neck of neighborhoods and investors alike.
After coronavirus forced everybody to work from home and social distance, I think we will see the steep decline of commercial real estate in urban centers. Who is willing to ride public transportation for an hour to pack into a poorly ventilated glass tower to sit cheek by jowl with hundreds of people who just did the same thing? Traditional urban office buildings may not disappear overnight, but rents will drop like a rock before they are converted to condos or abandoned altogether. I see the overbuilt skylines of American cities, and I see the Maginot Line.
Some people do not share the sociometric of association…and therefore can be quite comfortable being ‘alone in the forest’. The
common man and woman, however, get an enormous social return from gathering in flocks or simply rubbing shoulders as they hand out
or walk around. You are obviously of the ilk that is quite comfortable without those supporting columns of social life around you,
but the rest…well, there’s going to be trouble here…
Semper fi,
Jim
Since the time of Ronal Reagan’s conversion of the US economy to a “service economy” we have been building a house of cards. With relatively little of consequence being built in the US, the velocity of money has been dependent on bullshit like eating out, shopping for crap, and phone/data plans.
I see our economy contracting to local food production/distribution in rural areas and manufacturing coming back to urban areas.
It’s the only way to ensure some stablity until a vaccine is available.
Developing manufacturing in the rural areas is not something that can be undertaken either quickly or without a whole lot of thought planning and money.
There’s no labor force out in the rural areas. There are limited services for high capacity electrical lines, gas or water.
And so on, not to mention that form scratch to completion a factory would take a couple of years to get built and up and running if those other
problem were overcome. being rural and alone is not the answer…even though satisfying to think about.
Semper fi,
Jim
The children of depression era parents will recall their parents telling them they should have 3 to 6 months income in a savings account to tide them over rough spots. This is a rough spot.
3 to 6 months savings in the USA. All I can say to that, about the reality of American life is: “REALLY?”