A friend of mine in local business says the "hit" for business people is going to be incredible. And it's this time of year when the county sends out property tax statements, right? Plus there's other taxes to be concerned with. I can expect my homeowners insurance bill soon. That's a bill I normally pay with kind of a grimace anyway. Insurance: you can't live with it and you can't. . .
In our normal world we get over these bumps in the road. Minor annoyances or inconveniences stay minor. They still may be relatively minor as of this very day. My, what lies ahead? Again, our consternation is probably limited.
So far, why not more of a sense of shock? Well, what happened is done: we can't do anything about it. Like experiencing a death in a family. I wasn't quite prepared for my mother to die when she did, even though many of you probably thought she was on borrowed time. But when the end came, there was an overwhelming sense that I simply had to accept it. I had to deal with the many details that demanded attention in sober and deliberate fashion. Mom was gone - there was finality.
By the same token, my generation had to accept the death of John Lennon. It was so unnecessary: the musical genius losing his life at the hands of a total kook, a lunatic. Why? It defies understanding but when it happens, it's done and there is no turning back.
The current pandemic has begun its onslaught here in the U.S. and there's no room for denial or turning back, for wishing for a reversal, for wishing that we could just stay back in our comfortable routine. Our president has pined for that. In a sense it's an irresistible human impulse. But the president is not being pro-active in talking like this, of hoping for some sort of "celebration" by Easter, a magical date. No, it seems impossible now.
How many of us are getting totally disgusted with how the president continues some of his bad habits, sniping at people, knee-jerk potshots at "the Democrats." Maybe in a few weeks we'll all insist on a retreat from that kind of behavior.
It will take more than the dismissal of Trish Regan from the Fox Business channel. Whither the main Fox News channel? No longer does it have anything to do with conservative political ideology. The Weekly Standard tried standing up for the true conservative ideology and it was put out of business: not reverential enough to Trump. No, Fox News just builds up the cult of Trump. Amazing there's a large audience for this in a time when we all ought to be more enlightened. Hasn't our educational system been doing its job?
Rumblings on horizon?
What if there's a mass movement to just not pay taxes? What if a whole lot of families decide that if their kids are going to be forced to stay home, to heck with the teachers and their online assignments. Seems like we all have bigger fish to fry now.
I'm implying some pretty disturbing consequences of what's happening, and I don't even wish to list the specific things I'm thinking about. Some people might take it to mean I'm suggesting it. Frankly I wish we could go back to normal life and have the pandemic evaporate away. Pray if you want for that, it surely is not likely.
Based on what the government and Federal Reserve are doing, to try (I guess) to prop up the stock market as long as possible, since this is where we worship at the altar of now, isn't it a certainty we'll get a wave of inflation? I mean, if we don't, all the books on economics will have to be re-written. Have you stopped to think about how our collective psychology will break down once inflation becomes really noticeable? Remember the 1970s? It got so bad, we got The Gong Show on TV. OK I'm inserting a little levity. For the time being we can countenance a little levity.
When will this "lull" end? A calm before the storm? Maybe it is. I'm not losing sleep over the stock market. I'm a humanist, not an economist. (A guest on CNN made that pronouncement this morning.)
- Brian Williams - morris mn minnesota - bwilly73@yahoo.com
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