03-22-2020, 07:55 PM
(03-22-2020, 11:19 AM)Blazkovitz Wrote: This is the ugliest side of the Civic archetype, now they shame people who went for a run! All because of a disease that kills way less people than obesity-related conditions.
The next Civics could go even more extreme and lock down in VR, refusing to participate in physical reality because of some pathogen.
Marathons are mass meetings for runners.
People have been told that they can shop for necessities such as food and medicine, that they can do yard work and gardening, and that they can walk the pooch. They can take their pets to the vet, they can get their cars repaired and serviced, they can buy gasoline, and they can get such things as art supplies and potted plants. It is telling that liquor is still available (which would not be so in a civic disorder).
Bars, restaurants, and public libraries are closed in some places. Sporting events are cancelled. Stores are often operating on shortened hours.
So far people seem to be taking things in stride. They are not as publicly chummy as they had been (and will be again as CORVID-19 abates). To be sure, the securities markets are taking big hits... but for that, the pandemic is simply the pretext for the meltdown of overpriced valuations in the presence of inadequate savings, excessive personal and public debt, and the infamous inverted-yield curve.
They are strongly discouraged from attending mass meetings of any kind -- even religious services (those in Iran spread the virus with breathtaking and death-yielding speed). Government can do this to stop a disease that can kill perhaps hundreds of thousands of people . The idea is to flatten the curve so that the peak comes later and is less severe when it arrives so that the medical-care system not be overwhelmed.
Much will be put on hiatus. It is worth noting that a President whose response on this disease has been incompetent and dishonest (as on much else) is not giving the commands.
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In retrospect people seem to have been fools to expect the DJIA hit 30K. It is more likely to hit 14K (which would be about as real a drop as the immediate fall from the peak of the summer of 1929, just under 50%) by May. The falling knife that we now see is a portent of a major recession that features a loss of 50% or more in the valuation of securities.
It probably won't do as badly as the three-year meltdown of 1929-1932. Institutions are different, and if things go bad we will not have Donald Trump around to keep mucking up things.
30K on the DJIA? The DJIA did not reach its 1929 peak again for 25 years. The government put getting people back to work, making the financial system sound, and getting real wages up instead of fueling any speculative booms. Tax increases on passive income debased dividends, and just when things were getting a little better, American involvement in World War II had the government issuing war bonds and discouraging speculation as well as other wasteful activities. By the 1940's shares in common stocks still had a reputation for undue riskiness.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.