03-14-2020, 01:33 PM
(03-13-2020, 07:29 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: Recession? It is supposed to be a big scary word, but I wonder if we will wind up in a full scale depression.
Many were scared of a full-scale depression late in 2008. We got a new President who did what he could get away with to solve the underlying problems. Only thing -- it was back to the same conditions that made another similar situation. Obama rescued the rich-and-powerful, and they used much of their revived profits to buy the political system. So it was back to the old imbalances, the callous treatment of working people, and finally a President who truly believes that no human suffering can ever be in excess so long as it leads to elite gain, indulgence, and power. Guess what? Those elites are not so competent that we can find their cruelty and greed necessary.
COVID-19 scares us as if it were a personal, or at least family, crisis. The death rate for an infection is very high for the elderly. When people start acting as if it is an honest-to-God Crisis and keeps doing so until the danger is not only over but also resolved permanently, it is a Crisis Era.
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.