Monday
A close look at the real numbers of flu pandemic deaths is revealing. What on earth made Western governments destroy their own economies with so little reason?
There are a few theories doing the rounds.
One that has reached my inbox a few times, concerns the intended permanence of the new limitations on the right of people to free movement and assembly In other words, simply a push for more power/control by governments.
Another is that the impending international debt collapse caused governments to use WuFlu as a subterfuge in order to recapitalize the banks with massive amounts of public money. Yes, there would still be a public panic, but it would be diverted from the horrendous debt situation to a flu pandemic. The art of blame deflection.
These are both a bit out of touch with reality in that they grant our politicians more ability to act intelligently and decisively than they possess. Bear in mind that such machinations require a high degree of organizational skills. This is the same mob that cannot run a post office properly.
It is more likely that the real reason for the shutdown was exactly what it looked like – sheer panic. The 21st century delusion that blights the West, is that the government is responsible for the life of each of ‘its’ citizens. They really have come to believe their own guff, that it is their responsibility to care for and look after everyone. Dismally, a great many of the electorate have dropped down, obligingly, into this level of non-existent personal responsibility.
As each individual is considered a property of the State, so too are their businesses, and their aggregate, known as the economy. The government failed by not understanding that an economy does not have an On/Off button.
Our politicians, composed in the main of lawyers, trade unionists and careerists, simply did not understand the parlous state of business in a heavily regulated environment. The more regulations, the more fragile the economy and the more businesses were pushed to the margins.
The Australian economy was so brittle that it has disintegrated.
Now they will try to formulate policies to put the broken egg back together again. That, of course, will require more regulations. You just know that they will vote themselves a pay raise for all the extra work creating new regulations in order to save us all. Sigh.
They just don’t get it.
The problem that politicians now face is that yes, they have the power to stop the economy, but only business people making business decisions have the power to re-start it. The impediments to re-opening are:
1 Profit margins were wafer-thin because of the regulatory burden,
2 the economy was already nose-diving, and
3 a certainty that the future economy is going to be far worse.
No recovery will be possible until the regulatory impediments to production are removed. That won’t happen until people come to the realization that they are responsible for their own survival.
How societies became so collectivist and degraded is the real story. A little hint: only honest money encourages honest behaviour. Only honest behaviour can put one in touch with reality.