Sad to see people here writing themselves into some of the impossible positions that they have engineeered for themselves.
This virus event has shown that even economic sense is befuddled with delusions that it's better to be dead than not working. In that link to Peter Turnley posted today, he mentions that 60% of Americans don't have 600 bucks in the bank. If accurate, that's a truly awful indictment of the American way of life, of capitalism at work and of the lack of charity towards other people of your own country.
In its way, it underscores something I have mentioned here before: the blind faith in Big Capitalism is apparently supported by some of the very people who haven't a penny of their own to shake a stick at, but can't bring themselves to see (or admit it if indeed they do see) that capitalism has left them in the rubbish bin; that the only beneficiaries of it are the rich. In other words, turkeys very frequently do vote for X'mas. I think the emotion that drives this paradox is pride: folks can't admit to themselves that they are not actually amongst the winners in life, and voting in any way other than the way that some think the wealthy might vote would be an admission of their real status quo.
Reality appears to confirm that moving out of the social group/class into which you are born is well-night impossible in almost all cases: you don't get the education, you don't meet the right people en route and you mostly don't even start life with expectations. That there have been exceptions more than proves this rule to be how life works out.
So how to lift people's lives a little bit? We may yet see it stem from this pandemic. It wouldn't surprise me to see more places adopt a totally free-at-delivery health service such as that in many European countries - America might prove be one such early post-Corinna adopter of national health services that are absolute; these do not, by the way, deny anyone the privilege of paying big additional bucks for a private health service insurance. Here in Spain many do just that, as did I for a lot of years whilst having the option of the national one too. And for those countries where a national health service is long established, I think the difference is going to come in the way that it gets financed: after this event, few will accept that it return to being the underfunded thing that it has been for so long. Real money will be given to it and it will really be seen as the numero uno thing of importance in one's public/social existence, not just a token totem that fulfils a visible and expected rôle but remains perennially underfunded. For years, all its junior doctors, nurses etc. have been treated badly, overworked and relatively underpaid. I know of junior docs who have left a long shift and driven straight out of hospital car parks to their death in a road smash because already almost asleep, they were too exhausted to be capable of driving safely. That treatment of staff is insane: not only are they made dangers to themselves and others on the road, but what about the poor folks that they have to treat?
I also think that many of the things that we nearly all tended to take as vitally important will stop being seen in that light by many, many people. This madness for the latest this, that and the other can painlessly be discontinued. My ancient cellphone still works, and throwing a grand at an iPhone is not one of my needs or desires; for a start, all those gadgets are now too big and inconvenient: they would not fit the pockets where I prefer to carry my little Samsung. This could be extrapolated into all sorts of fields, and when such self-inflicted "needs" are abandoned through realisation of what traps they have been for all these years, values change - often for the better. As an example: when I was working in Britain I spent a fortune buying brand new cars every couple of years; since extricating myself from that society, I have managed to keep cars for much longer periods; my previous car must have been about twelve when I sold it, and this current one is around ten years old now. It functions perfectly. I still don't buy used; why buy somebody else's troubles?
If we grasp the potential benefits that lie behind this virus tragedy we may turn out to lead more simple and deeply more happy, stress free lives.
