Well I don't know about you, but all this drinking, dining and dancing
night after night has worn me to a frazzle. It has been awhile since I
have sat down and seriously put pen to paper, or at least fingers to
keyboard. I do have my actual work that I must do, I am secretary on
four boards of director and the mail must continue to flow. But when I
contemplate putting my thoughts about the world situation down, I find
it so difficult. I have been keeping up with my daily journal, but even that
has been hard. I find going back and reading about the past five weeks
surreal. Like it happened to someone else. Wednesday, I begin week
number seven of this odyssey. So for better or worse...
I do not understand the people who are gathering in protest against the
'safer at home' directive. I have tried, but when someone says they
would rather die a horrid death of drowning in their own sputum, rather
than sheltering in their home it defies logic. Is this the worse thing that
Americans have been asked to sacrifice?
What would have happened if your great-grandparents had said that during
the depression, or your grandparents has said that during the World Wars?
I remember ration books and coupons; I remember hating Spam but it
was the only meat you could get without that precious coupon. Well calling
Spam meat, is a stretch, but still my parents said this is what it is. They didn't
go out and demand their rights, because an American somewhere was dying
in a foreign land so that we had rights.
Don't you realize you are being used; you are merely pawns in a chess game
of political one-up-man ship. The pawn is the first man to be sacrificed, the
little guy out front shielding the King. Yes, little man with your big gun, you go
stand up against the United States government, and if you aren't mowed down,
you may stand trial for treason. I hope I'm on the jury.
And this so called 'flu' named Covid-19 is not your mama's chest cold. Covid-19
does kill by inflaming and clogging the tiny air sacs in the lungs, the alveoli,
and choking off the oxygen supply. But that is not all this little virus does, it
also causes; acute kidney damage, neurological malfunctions, heart inflammation,
blood clots, intestinal damage, and liver problems. There is increasing suspicion
that the virus is entering other cells besides the besides the lungs. Some people
encounter what is called a 'cytokine storm', that is when your immune system goes
into hyper-drive and begins attacking healthy cells in your body. If the virus enters
thru the nose, it can attack the olfactory nerve and cause a loss of smell and taste,
but it may also travel along the nerve endings to the central nervous system. Then
some people experience confusion, low blood oxygen, and loss of consciousness.
Yup, it's a nasty litter critter, so little that a million can fit on the head of a pin.
Now do you want to put your mask and gloves on?
And while I am pondering these things, I am being bombarded by a bombastic
buffoon every evening, self-aggrandizing and denigrating anyone with the
temerity who dare challenge his mastery of the war against this invisible enemy.
For ninety minutes or more, he holds forth castigating the latest number one on
his enemy list. Who shall it be today; the press, China, the epidemiologists, the
WHO? Everybody's wrong but him. The ultimate showman, how many balls
can he keep in the air before they begin to hit the ground? Thankfully my TV
has an off button!!
But of all the things that keep me awake, there is one thing that stands head and
shoulders above the rest, though I don't know why. I will probably be dead
before the reckoning comes due.
Congress and the President are getting close to an agreement on another
stimulus package. Yup, another quarter of a trillion dollars in stimulus money.
What the heck, who was it said "a billion dollars here and a billion dollars there,
and pretty soon you're talking about big money"? Everett Dirksen is spinning
in his grave.
In 2007, the Federal Reserve's holdings were less than $1 trillion, after the
recession of 2008, the Fed's holdings topped the $2 trillion due to QE. Today
because of the new policy of the Federal Reserve to buy up government and
other bonds, even junk, and to guarantee the stimulus funds the Fed's holdings
are at $6 trillion and growing daily. There are those who say this is needed to
keep the economy from going into a depression. But this kind of free money
has often preceded hyperinflation.
MMT, the Modern Money Theory, that used to be thought of as crack-pot
speculation is now the accepted norm across the industrial countries in the
world. Major economies everywhere are cranking up the printing presses and
floating currency as fast as possible. The MMT says we have to create as
much money as necessary to support the economy. Why don't we ask
Venezuela, South Sudan and Zimbabwe how that worked out for them?
It appears that once QE is the norm, it is very hard to back away. But I
believe we have gone well past ordinary quantitative easing, we are in
very dangerous waters, and the storm hasn't even arrived yet
I'm just sayin'
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