The long term effects of the virus are not known, but the canary in the mine has died. Boeing announces no new sales for aircraft in a month and is "reducing head count". Airlines are running at a loss and trying to lay off people and airports which are largely financed with long term bonds, are not generating the money to pay for those bonds. None of the mass transit authorities can cover expenses with reduced ridership and increased costs and due to other factors need money to just bring existing infrastructure up to the new required social distancing and cleaning standards Child care industry has collapsed as stay at home workers don't need it, and the increased costs for cleaning and distancing can not be passed on to those who do need it. A whole range of small businesses can not survive under the new conditions limiting the number of people in the facility and the present rent system is based on a customer base such as downtown workers and tourists that is no longer there and a utilization rate of the existing space that no longer is allowed. The collapse of the automobile industry new car sales. While COVID 19 has made the situation worse, many of the existing businesses were already in big trouble due to changes in shopping habits, etc. Sears, Penneys', a lot of the old shopping center based stores. Rents, higher minimum wages, changes in shopping habits and now the added cost of lost traffic and in some cases burning and looting of stores due to the social unrest is destroying some cities former upscale shopping areas. A look at the facts behind the headlines, 50 billion for child care, tens of billeions for airlines, hundreds of billions for mass transit, post office bailout, school system bailout, replacing state and local funding shortfalls and paying for increased state and local expenses, the collapse of the financing of the medical system, with hospitals and clinics leading the pack. The unknown impact on the university systems and the loss of income to the sports area, both college and professional, and all of the business that count on their games. Parking lots, sports arenas, local bars and restaurants, hotels, airlines. I have no idea how the situation, virus, systematic change, social and racial unrest, collapse of the economy, loss of jobs, etc, can be solved and am reaching the point that I pity the winner in the elections coming up as it looks like we have kicked the can down the road as far as we can and are about to hit a tall brick wall. The ship is sinking and all the unrest and politics we are seeing in the mass media seems to just be people fighting for good seats in the life boat. Mass media and many people have already chosen sides, burning down buildings and rioting is peaceful protest, but driving a group of trucks down a freeway with a Trump flag is a white suppremist attack and they should be punished for doing so. I find it difficult to use bear spray on protesters on my local freeway when driving down it at 70 mph. Now if a group of protesters stop traffic and beat on my car, it may well be possible, but I had the mistaken belief that the freeways were meant for cars not wandering mobs. Check your preps, stay away from crowds and be gray. Personal bias is that we are getting close to the point that if you aren't prepared, it is going to be very hard to do so. None of the above is anything new, 30 minutes looking on the net and going beyond faceplant will give you numbers, case studies, random examples, view from both left and right, and you can then make up your own mind. You will not see it in the mass media and if you do look into it, you may well end up feeling like I do, a mouse caught in the battle of elephants.
Doing our best! Looks like I have beat the knife of the Surgeon, rotator cuff is healing and nerves are returning to a healthy state. Yup I did more damage than the Doc first thought but I took care of what was left of my shoulder which was not easy to do since I needed to load and sell cattle, try that one handed and in pain! NTL only OTC meds and only resorted to script meds during two bad nights. Groin surgery will be needed and that is in process at a Doc who does the minimal invasive repair. Already had a double repair back in 1970, not fun but no way out of torn muscles and I sure don't want to have my guts hanging out. Friends have stepped up with offers of help, paid and unpaid and we'll mange that as we need the help. Cattle sale will pay most unexpected expense so good that we had a bonus year of calves and good weather. Strange to have work crews on the place but we can handle that with constant presence of over watch. It seems there is always one scumbag in a crew that wants to sneak back on a site after "helping", to steal what caught their eye while being paid a decent wage to fix what you may not be able to do at the present time. Stay Gray, never let them know what you are capable of until needed. Had an excellent Plumber finish what I started in the pump house and he was trying to guess at what I did for a living. He got close but that was after 2 days of working together. A good hand he is and all around has the skills of Pipe Fitter but in PVC. I figure a 6 week stint of PT and I'll be back to my old ways.
The ultimate end for what I see is a financial reset. World wide! Sorry if this seems a bit foil hat but, I had considered that, financial rest, may have been one of the goals for this plandemic. We have been witness to an increase in dept, both governmental as well as corporate and personal. Living way past ones means will eventually come to a crashing end. Further there in the increase in the erosion of our personal rights and privacy by governments world wide. None of this bodes well for any of us.
It will end up costing a lot of jobs. Our company is rumored to be looking into the necessity of so many workers, when the greatly reduced number of "essential" workers has been doing the job and never breaking a sweat. I'd bet a lot of other businesses do the same and use the whole Covid thing to reset the way they do business in the future.
I don't think the welfare and tyranny enthusiasts want "everything to go back to normal". Countries like Belgium have a stupid low KIA rate for china virus and we could just copy what they are doing. But that won't please the crown.
