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Letting People Die To ‘Save’ The Economy Is A Losing Idea

When you write for a living, there’s a balance when it comes to a headline. Provocative or lively enough to catch the eye of a reader while retaining enough sobriety to avoid hype. Something to avoid is that unpleasant practice of clickbait—making a charged statement to bring in traffic.

But what do you do when the bare facts are outrageous? When some start to seriously suggest that being ready to sacrifice some percentage of the population may be necessary?

To let people die: if not the dictionary definition of clickbait, surely one of the examples lexicographers would offer. Except, this is reality. Not sidling up to, but outright readiness to write off a million or more Americans in order to have the trains run again on time. Like a cross between Mussolini knock-offs and the Grim Reaper.

You’ve likely already heard in the news with Texas Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick saying that he and probably many other grandparents would be willing to die to get the country “back to work.”

Now, Patrick did include himself in the group—he turns 70 next week—and isn’t suggesting that people not stay at home if they feel it necessary. However, he’s saying that, as a grandparent, “I want to live smart and see through this but I don’t want the whole country to be sacrificed” and that he wants the same America he had there from his grandkids. “Those of us who are 70 plus, we’ll take care of ourselves, but don’t sacrifice the country. Don’t do that. Don’t ruin this great American dream.”

When Brit Hume said he could understand the sentiment, I take him at his word. Although I don’t have grandchildren, I do understand the attitude. That said, either of these people are more likely to get testing and treatment than the average person, if it came down to that and they have to know it.

There are two issues they raise. One is the notion of the American dream being available for someone’s grandkids. The conceit that everything will be better for the next generation and the one after that doesn’t hold true for most of the country. Going forward are multiple titanic problems: ever growing income inequality, likely radical climate change, a need to move off fossil fuels, unaffordable healthcare for many (if not, eventually, most), endless war, massive incarceration, crumbling infrastructure, and a retirement system that requires people to weave their own safety nets and hold them under themselves as they fall.

The America of say 30, 40, 50, 60 years ago is gone. Poof. Not coming back because generation after generation has ignored massing issues, treating them as though covering expenses through credit cards. Eventually, you can’t afford the debt service.

There is also another strain of thought that’s been weaving throughout the current pandemic dilemma. Who should get to live or die so others can go on?

Trump declares on Twitter that the country can’t let the cure be worse than the problem and hints about potentially reopening everything to keep the economy going. And, if you watch social media, you’ll see others who take up this theme of “Well, if you’ve got to break some of the eggs, it’s just a cost we’ll have to bear.”

Then there are the billionaires who want people back to work, even if, oh, you know, you have to lose a few here and there, as Bloomberg reported.

Except, the people suggesting that are generally not thinking that they’ll have to bear it. And the target of what to save isn’t America—which is its people—but economic and power interests that overwhelmingly belong to just a few.

It wouldn’t be the first time. Most wars the country has fought have been about power and money. The many hundreds of billions plowed into “defense” every year, which always races up and never down, may protect people here, but also underwrites huge military contractors and elaborate projects that often never get realized, or run incredibly over budget and long behind schedule. But then, if an organization like the Department of Defense can’t keep track of its own financial resources—has been unable to ever pass the same type of audit mandated for all parts of the executive branch—how can it control what others do?

Less than three years ago, the GOP members of Congress “overhauled” the tax system to cut what corporations and the wealthiest might owe while leaving everyone else where they were or worse off. We’ve spent too long with this specter of trickle-down theory continuing to grasp the nation’s throat. Save the rich and they will save … the rich.

Yes, there are tremendous dangers if the country slips into a depression. A possibility that, I hate to have to say this, no economist or financial expert I’ve recently spoken with—and I talk to many in my work—will any longer write off as inconceivable.

When seniors become conceptually disposable for the “greater good,” which sets of people are next?

A solution to the pandemic must come through keeping people alive, functioning, and ultimately spending. Work is part of that, but so is having enough money for people who are out of work to keep a roof over their heads and food on the table. So is keeping people like seniors, normally an inviolate group, safe—because they collectively spend a lot as well.

If the virus runs amok, then spending drops precipitously, healthcare systems jam up, many people call out sick and derail efforts to restart parts of the economy, and no one feels safe venturing out.

Again, what drives the economy is a mass of individual consumers who together can and will buy a lot, not a relatively handful of wealthy people who are far more limited in what they collectively purchase. Sure, big companies employ many (with a growing number of layoffs), but 47.5% of the private work force are at small companies. Everything and everyone must be on the list for rescue at the same time or this isn’t going to work.
Source: Forbes

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