Boy, do we feel non-essential!
Washing my hands, boss!
It is a matter of time before Gov. Tony Evers announces that Wisconsin state government will go on hiatus — most of it, anyway — due to COVID-19. And Madison schools? City bus service?
CAUTION: Old War Story ahead: As Jim Doyle sought ways to hand me my walking papers, Blaska was working his way down the ladder in his misspent state government career to run disaster preparedness for the WI Department of Revenue. We set up alternate offices in case jihadists ran a passenger jet into our six-story building on Madison’s Rimrock Road. Compiled manuals, flowcharts, and spreadsheets; populated thumb drives.
⇒ You know it’s real when Tom Hanks says he’s got the Coronavirus! (Is anyone more credible these days?)
⇒ It’s like listening on the radio back in the old days for school closings during a snow storm. What’s next ?
So Blaska proposed shutting down the Department of Revenue. Completely. Go home and stay there. God love the dedicated state worker! But how will retail merchants sell products without a State of Wisconsin Seller’s Permit? one asked.
They’re already doing it! the disaster response manager answered. Every year the Department catches a dozen or so and fines them. So issue a blanket amnesty; we can catch up later. Besides, most taxation is automated. A computer calculates the government’s portion of your sale and your paycheck and sends it to the cloud. The real essential functions of government are the first responders — police, fire, EMTs — snow plowers and the like. Medical service providers? Sure, but most are private sector.
Every one needs to feel essential. How many of us really are? It is sobering.
The stock market is down another 1,600 points this morning (03-12-20201). Airlines are sitting on the tarmac. Sunday’s mano-a-mano between Biden and Bernie will be a TV-only event. (Do they both wear surgical masks?) Movie theaters are empty. UW-Madison classrooms closed. Dane County circuit court trials and conferences scaled back. (More here.) Trade with China and the European Union suspended. Catholics for Trump rally in Milwaukee next week, cancelled. (A good source of info here.)
Blaska’s Bottom Line: Commerce is coming to a halt. We’re in for a recession.
10 responses to “When will government close up shop? And schools?”
The Libbies finally get what they wanted all along, a crisis so they can take over all the levers of the economy once and for all after November’s election. Yeah, we will finally have equal misery for all.
Pretty GOOD statistic: 68,594 people have recovered (94%), out of 127,000 cases of covid-19. 72,559 cases are active, of which 5,700 are critical. The deaths are at 4,700, (6%), which results in 71,000 closed cases. Live stats below, VERY CONCISE, worth bookmarking; updated every few hours. After 2-1/2 months, the percentages have stayed pretty close: ninety four percent recover.
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/?fbclid=IwAR31obRA880-19PjVe5qzB-jFixSM8248kecJ6ghJ4Zy5t38QOR3YIJvUBs#countries
H1N1 in 1918 caused 45 million deaths, and 646,000 deaths last year. I do believe this Covid-19 is a very expensive PANIC, and not a pandemic…
overblown
I watched and listened to 15 minutes of pandering, drivel 🤮 from Bernie Sanders about the Corona pandemic. Politicians and the media are feeding off of each other, generating a level of hysteria that is completely devoid of common sense and a grip on reality. Sanders, who likely has no practical knowledge or understanding of the state of the virus, the actions being taken to deal with it or what’s really needed to contain it, spewed a laundry list of demands, that in fact were nothing more than a socialist’s wet dream. Most of his demands/solutions are either illegal, unconstitutional or practicably impossible to implement. Sanders, and every other politician without direct knowledge or expertise in virology, need to back off and resist contributing to a national mindset that is creating both short and long term damage to our economy and exaggerated disruption in our daily lives. The media, who are complicit in fanning the flames of fear, have reached a new low by encouraging and promoting these bad actors. Take a deep breath, wash your damn hands and make a note of those who are insulting your intelligence…..
The 1918-19 “Spanish Flu” killed more than all the military deaths in World War I and World War II combined. It lasted just 15 months but was the deadliest disease outbreak in human history, killing between 50 million and 100 million people worldwide — 670,000 in America when the nation’s population was 106 million — less than one-third of today. (My aunt Evelyn told of being sent to the neighbor farm to live to decrease the odds.) If you want to downplay the risk today, go ahead.
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/journal-plague-year-180965222/?fbclid=IwAR3JQzGH-MWRQO0b6x7J6WSjY_GqO6C9Yu-D0hJEId8tvV61BKvdasbK5XE#.XmuFp0UYyI8.facebook
So the Spanish flu had a mortality rate in the US of about .62%. This one has a mortality rate, estimated at the low end, of at least 1%, 10x that of regular flu. Dave gets it. All you Hannity/Ingraham/Limbaugh-believers go right ahead.
The significant silver lining of COVID-19 is how it has exposed America’s utterly dangerous dependence on China for pharmaceuticals (among other vitals) while spotlighting the wisdom of Trump’s China policy that is based upon a sober and accurate understanding of their long term global objectives.
There is a reason he is known as the Orange Master.
Your Orange Master sure duffed the ball from the Oval Office the other night, as he has with almost every aspect of this public health crisis. Why do you think the Dow dropped 2000 points the next day? Coincidence?
Or it could have been that day’s declaration of a worldwide pandemic. Just sayin’
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