3/19/20
Given the non-stop coverage the covid-19 outbreak
has received, it’s difficult to come up with something original to say on this
topic. However, I feel it would be a
disservice to my readers to opine on other things right now without offering a
few comments on the biggest story in a long, long time.
First, yours truly is normally the ultimate nay-sayer,
always quick to decry the latest warning about some natural disaster, weather
disturbance, impending economic dyspepsia, or even looming epidemic as yet
another manifestation of the typical media alarmism. As the old saying goes, if it bleeds, it
leads, and one can always count on the media to cry wolf. So when we are told that we are sure to face
disaster because a tornado, or worse, is on its way, I like to sit out on the
front porch and watch things blow by.
This deep-seated insatiable desire to downplay such warnings to the
point of ridicule lies deep in my psyche and is highly unlikely to change.
Even I, however, who would just love to eviscerate the
handwringing media as a pack of alarmists seeking to inflate their own importance,
terrify the populace, and/or merely improve their ratings, have to admit that
the malady we currently face is really serious. In fact, it is hard to imagine how it could
be more serious. So we are doing everything
we have been advised/instructed to do…hunkering down, rarely leaving the house,
keeping our distance, socially isolating, etc.
As much as I hate to face it, I am in the group, the (ouch!) elderly, that
is most susceptible to the virus and also among the most likely to face serious
consequences if I do contract covid-19.
So we are being more than careful and urge everybody to do the
same. This is not the usual media and
politician hand-wringing for power and profit; this is real and it’s serious.
Second, we will all be amazed at how quickly a cure
and/or vaccine will become available if we allow the inventor and developer of
said cure/vaccine to become filthy rich or, more likely, even richer than
s/he/they currently is or are.
When I hear
politicians, and you know who the most salient of these jackals is, ranting and
raving about “profiteering” and “the greed of the pharmaceutical
industry” during this time of crisis, I cringe. If we are counting on the noble of heart
to come up with the cure, whatever form it might take, we are severely
restricting the pool of brain power devoting itself to this urgent task. When we rely on the profit motive, and thus
count on people’s self-interest, to come up with the cure, we do not
restrict the talent pool in the least because every one of us is, to a greater
or lesser degree, self-interested. As
much as the economically illiterate and politically prominent love to dismiss
it, the invisible hand is as strong today as it was in 1776 and we ought to put
it to work at all times, but especially when the stakes are so high. If a government subsidy is required to get the
cure and/or vaccine into the systems of those who need it, which will probably
be all of us, so be it; that is often the way health care works and, while
regrettable, is not nearly as harmful as price controls and the like.
Even those of us of a more libertarian bent have
no problem with a prominent role for government in times of crisis. After all, the word is “libertarian,” not “anarchist.”
But even those who have never had a
libertarian impulse in their lives should be aware of the potential for
politicians to make a bad situation worse and to impede progress. (Ironically, that potential lies most
strongly in those politicians who insist on calling themselves “progressives,”
but I digress.) This is one of those
times. If the pols don’t let the companies
or people who help solve this problem make a lot of money doing so, the problem
is less likely to be solved.
Fortunately, judging from the performances, at least relative to the
overall market, of the stocks of, say, Roche and Regeneron, this
danger may be distant. But never underestimate the propensity for politicians
to trumpet their “compassion” and their concern for the “working person,”
regardless of the cost to the working person…and everybody else, except, of
course, for the poltroonish politicians themselves.
Third, one of my former (and “former” only because it is
no longer produced) guilty pleasures was Beavis and Butthead,
which was, despite being in incredibly poor taste at times, not only hysterical
but also uncannily prescient. We are
currently being treated to an example of that prescience when we see the Spring
breakers, St. Patrick’s Day celebrants, and other errant members of the
millennial generation exposing themselves, and everyone with whom they come
into contact, to the coronavirus because, after all, this is their Spring break,
or “St. Paddy’s Day” only comes once a year, and they are entitled to a good
time regardless of the consequences for
their clearly invulnerable selves or anybody else. Are these people incredibly selfish or indescribably
stupid? Probably quite a bit of both,
but to the extent that the latter is a factor, they are merely confirming the
prescience of the creators of Mike Judge, the creator of Beavis and
Butthead.
A qualifier for that third and final point…
I am not castigating an entire generation; I have kids,
nieces, nephews, students, and friends of my kids who are responsible, intelligent,
caring people. At the expense of sounding
like a composer of questions for the ACT, not all millennials are behaving
irresponsibly in this crisis, but most of the people behaving irresponsibly are
millennials. Thank you.
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