Market Failure
Republican’s stock answer (other than cut taxes) to all problems is: leave it to the market and the market will fix what ails us. Except the market is failing us now.
We still can’t get testing at the levels we need in order to reopen the economy.
We still don’t have enough PPEs for our doctors, nurses, policemen, firemen, and other first responders.
Not enough large companies have converted their systems to helping provide what we need to get out of this pandemic. So far, it’s generally the mid to small sized businesses that are leading the way.
We can’t say capitalism is successfully fighting the pandemic. Instead, the pandemic has laid bare what capitalism and our culture wars have wrought – a creaking economy that can’t produce what America needs. Shame on you, capitalists! So much for market capitalism.
Georgia
Georgia is re-opening its economy in a “strategic” way. The governor claims that the state has sufficient testing to enable monitoring, identifying, tracking and cordoning outbreaks. Businesses will have to maintain 6 feet distancing and employees and customers will have to wear masks. And of course, sanitizing and hand washing is de rigueur.
So how does that work for hairdressers? Hairdressers do not have 6 feet of arms.
How about movie theaters? Are employees ready to police customers so that 6 feet is maintained?
And news indicate Georgia still hasn’t reached a sufficient level of testing to re-open the economy.
The plan doesn’t appear to be well thought out.
Texas
Texas is also planning on re-opening its economy in stages. Here, the plan sounds a little more strategic because while retail will open, the opening will be on a takeout or delivery basis, like restaurants. Customers will still not be able to enter stores. This plan sounds like a better strategy because it will allow small businesses to still do some business while trying to comply with safety orders. The same 6 feet distancing will apply as well as wearing masks and gloves.
The trick is for small businesses to get up to speed on online ordering (either get an ecommerce website going if they don’t have one or scaling up its current website to handle the load) or rearrange the store layout for takeouts.
The steps for re-opening the economy sounds more measured than Georgia.
The interesting thing is that Texas has been undergoing stay-at-home protests, even though the governor is a Republican and he is making moves to re-open the economy.
Why are they protesting when he is making moves in the direction they want or need? It doesn’t make sense. Of course, they have Alex Jones down there in the mix and he is not the most reputable person around, so the protestors may be loony tunes.
What’s with the protesters?
Lately, a couple of articles have popped up that provided clarification on what is truly going on with the protests. Other set of articles have indicated that most Americans, possibly upwards to 72% of Americans, including Republicans, fear the “stay at home” orders will be overturned too soon. Most are willing to stay at home if it means protecting the health of the community until there is sufficient testing or there is a vaccine.
So, what is going on with all of those protesters? Some articles suggest that the crowds have been small and does not represent the majority of Americans. The writers say that the impetus for those protests are being driven by right wing groups who had led the Tea Party protests, (ah, that’s why these latest protests have a Tea Party feel) and these right-wing groups are funded by billionaires. If that is the case, then the ulterior motive is probably two-fold: 1) billionaires want to prop up the stock market by getting the economy going, never mind the lives at stake, and 2) they also fear that people will get comfortable with government assistance or a stronger safety net. A stronger safety net or a stronger government presence would mean money would have to come out of somewhere and most likely that would mean a wealth tax.
Not all billionaires are dastardly but there’s a bunch of them who just care more about their money. I think after we get to the other side, the possibility of civil unrest or revolution gets stronger. I’m pretty certain the youth’s progressive will start winning races because people will be a lot more open to the idea of healthcare for all and other safety net features and possibly because there will be fewer elderly voters (those protesters will be indirectly responsible for some deaths). What we’re seeing today, the cracks in our social infrastructure, will make progressives’ ideas immensely attractive. Will we have socialism? I don’t know. We definitely don’t want to have the socialism of Venezuela and the progressives are going to have to explain how their ideas do not lead to Venezuela. What might be a better middle road is a blending of capitalism and socialism, or at least, the rejection of shareholder capitalism for something like stakeholder capitalism.
The pressure will be great for some kind of change; I just don’t know in which direction the mood will go.
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