Tag Archives: dependency

Culture, Economics, Foreign Policy, Health Care, Politics 2020, Representation

COPING WITH THREATS

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The freedom of the United States and the stability of worldwide political intercourse, depends on the role of the Dollar.
The greatest threat to dollar stability.

Prudence will be served best by a rational analysis of how and why the COVID-19 strain of “coronavirus” so dramatically upset governance, liberty and economics, compared to other flu-like illnesses that infect huge numbers of Americans every year.  This essay is beginning at the height – or the depth – of the national economic shutdowns and of the extraordinary fears that have everyone suspicious of every other warm, breathing human.  It wasn’t going to be published until we were at the other end of this national economic threat, which will, it seems Prudent to say, going to arrive.  But it cannot wait.  What can this new virus be compared to?

Annually, more than 30 MILLION U. S. residents make hospital visits due to the 4 common flu viruses.  And hospitals are busier because of them: there are some 200,000 hospitalizations.  This happens with no enforced shutdowns of business and trade, or restrictions on movement of legal residents.  If someone tells you they may have the “flu,” you back away, say “don’t give it to me,” smile and recommend your favorite home remedy: “Hot water with lemon.  Make sure it’s fresh lemon, squeeze it so you get all the juice.”  Then you carry on your daily activity, sure that you have cured someone.

Television advertising reminds everyone of the wonderful “flu” medications for sale that, in fact, suppress symptoms, enabling customers to feel good enough to go to work!  But, did you know that in the 2017 – 2018 “flu season” that there were 900,000 hospitalizations?  You didn’t hear about that then?  Weren’t the media keeping us up to the second with every new case, and in which county and city it appeared?  You weren’t afraid to leave the house?  Why not?  EIGHTY THOUSAND people died from flu that year, and in just a few months!  Ye Gods!  We should have been cowering, waiting for the federal government to rescue the entire country and we failed – we failed – to pay attention.  Thank God we survived that crisis.

The 2017 – 2018 season was 4 TIMES worse than the year before and our virtuous political leaders were asleep at the switch.  How was it that they didn’t whip us into a frenzy of prevention, segregation and economic dependency?

Is it Prudent to offer a couple of predictions?  One is that a relative handful of economic powers, some or all at least partially financial powers, will emerge with MORE economic power than they had prior to COVID-19.  Why does this seem likely?  Because those are they who know how to profit from crises, whether military or medical.

Want another?  The crisis we believe coronavirus has created, will be extended in many aspects, into the Fall, possibly through the beginning of November.  It’s possible that enough economic damage will have been done by mid-April for this to happen regardless of politics, but if not, political considerations will make it last for two valid reasons: 1) Democrats believe they can damage Trump into non-re-electability if things get “bad enough;”  2) Republicans believe that managing a terrible crisis with signs of steady improvement, will keep the nation from “changing horses in mid-stream.”  It would be more Prudent to put the whole thing to bed, so to speak, before the middle of April.  Let’s hope this prediction doesn’t pan out.

Based on the tawdry quibbling over how many non-virus-related hands will get greased by the, perhaps, $2 Trillion dollar rescue, bailout, support, small-business/ big-business load the Congress is “debating,” many socialist dreams could get realized thanks to the Chinese coronavirus.  Rational residents of our once-great nation should be shaking their heads at the crude nature of most of those august men and women, but we’re afraid to spread the virus ourselves.  Evidently, the House under Speaker Pelosi, has tried to include a dozen or more components of the leftist agenda in the “emergency” legislation.  One has to wonder.

Another prediction involves the health-care industry/system.  They are moving public policy at every level of government while struggling to meet the sudden pressures of a contagious disease.  It’s a disease that needs lots of products for just protection of care-givers – more than anyone had in stock.  It also requires lots of specialized equipment for treating those infected – more than anyone had in stock.  COVID-19 also requires lots of decisions about how to both remove the shortages of stuff, and to “prevent” the continued spread of infection – there is an oversupply of those: politician-provided.  And, unlike gloves, masks and ventilators, the proper operation of decisions is very difficult to measure or evaluate.

By definition decisions are made in advance.  Decisions made about the past are notoriously ineffective.  Real decisions lay courses of action, often without knowing which of the potential consequences will actually manifest.  There is always a hope that the one consequence a decision-maker prefers will be the one that happens, but once a decision is made, it’s a bit of a crap-shoot.  There are too many moving parts to control which consequence will be true tomorrow, or the next day, or a week or so from decision time.  In this current matter, the decision was to keep people from congregating, even down to groups as small as, well… two!  This has a corollary that says most businesses must close, especially those that operate with congregations of people – like restaurants, churches, schools, public transportation, planes and on… and on… and on.  It means no weddings or funerals, no court sessions, no legislative gatherings, no business meetings, book clubs or sales leads groups.  Very few business activities will be “allowed” to happen.  Meanwhile, millions of people are not paid, millions of transactions are unconsummated, billions of dollars of commerce are unrealized, and trillions of dollars of wealth are vaporized in a few days.

Was this damage a decision or an unfortunate consequence?  Who could possibly benefit from this consequence?  Some will, unfortunately.  As this shakes out – hopefully with the United States still an independent nation (this is relative) – the new economic patterns will emerge and we’ll see the beneficiaries.  China will have something to do with them.

Odd, it seems, that the paralysis of the West has coincided with the miraculous cessation of reported cases in China.  Clearly China has manipulated its stories about coronavirus, its reports about coronavirus, its claims about who started the virus’ infections (the U. S.), its denials of anything wrong having ever been done by China regarding coronavirus or regarding the punishment of doctors attempting to warn the government of China about its uncontrollable spread, and now, about the incredible end of new infections.  Is there any reason to believe that this disease was not released to have precisely the effect it has had on America and Europe?  Or, to believe that the West has reacted in the only ways most favorable to China?

Keep an open mind.  Question EVERYthing.

Culture, Education

GRADUATED CHANGE

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Prudence attended graduation at a well-known college in Boston’s Fenway section recently.  This particular school graduates no chemists, engineers, lawyers or business majors; no biologists, entomologists or astronomers; no materials scientists or agronomists or hydrologists, and no oceanographers.

Their purview is social work, and a healthy dose of “education.”  That is, education B.S. degree-recipients who, I think, they hope will teach the next generation along the lines of ultra-liberals who have been taking over education aggressively for the past 75 years. Fortunately, they sometimes fail and a graduate escapes with her (mostly hers and wannabes, there) internal philosophy intact, her understanding of reality clear, and her intense desire to educate young kids, rather than indoctrinate them, ready to run.  One such is Prudence’s only reason for attending.

Prudence’s eyes were opened, however, to the existence of this and other nests of socialist vipers, who churn out radical “change agents,” as were frequently referenced in the interminable speeches and last-second directives that made not a single reference to God, although the very last instructress managed to say, “… let the Divine …” which was amorphous enough to get through.  That tiny reference was among the last dozen words of last-second directions to the posse of Bachelors and Masters ready to change America.

The otherwise clear, May, day began with breakfast – free food, so to speak, catered in to the College’s Brookline facility.  Being observant was revelationary.  The professors are constantly professing, we noticed.  Tattoos, for example, profess attachment to the odd fascinations running rampant through society where women, sometimes grossly obese versions, have acres of “body art.”  It’s a statement of inclusion… or a test.  After all, if our campus is one of welcoming and inclusion and non-discrimination for students, then it must be for their instructors, too.  See how it works?

There seemed to be a single statement being uttered by a large fraction of both staff and graduates: There is no weirdness on OUR campus – all are welcome.  Prudence has no argument with the “welcom(ing)” part.  In other words, if you are as different and as unusual as you can make yourself, come, attend our college – we’re just as unusual as you!

Every speech underscored the same concepts of challenging the status quo; the difficulty is, today, that the status quo, having grown fairly weird itself, requires ever more strangeness from those who wish to challenge it.  This might explain, in part, the number of strange appearances of students, but it is unnerving to apply the same measure to staff and professors… at least it was to Prudence.

Sexuality is key to both protest and education, it seems.  Prudence needn’t describe sexual appearances and apparent expressions as most are indescribable and likely wide of the target.  But, unusual male-female iterations are more commonplace on college campuses than elsewhere in the world.  Perhaps it’s simply because these are the age groups where “youthful” experimentation is most likely.  Shouldn’t some adults guide these wandering – and wondering – children toward the most appropriate paths of action and belief?

Aren’t we intending to create new adults of our culture and social fabric?  Or is it our purpose to indulge every strange, interruptive feeling and treat it as if it were as valid as reality?  Reality is so restrictive: two genders… huh.  Are we kidding?  I mean, honestly!

Are there any lines a culture shouldn’t cross?  It’s not a trick question.  We used to decry drug use and numerous other forms of debasement.  Why?  Because it makes for a stronger, more nurturing society.

We used to require people to make their own way, no welfare and all the rest.  It inadvertently made for stronger people and children.  Problem free?  Of course not.  Too many fell through the “cracks,” as it were.  Some level of social support was required for simple fairness TO CHILDREN, and civil kindness to the helpless.

We used to require universal education that reinforced moral lessons, some Biblical, without damaging ANYONE, reinforcing shame for bad actions and strengthening the consciences of individuals… and their basic honesty.  These were good, strengthening-of-society kinds of structures.  Phenomenally, we have succumbed not to foreign powers but to our own cleverness, talking ourselves out of our heritage, our very culture, and of shame, itself.

We are so smart.

Murder, for example, now has shades of evil, some not so bad as to require equivalent sanction.  Indeed, abortion-at-will, deemed “murder” by half of the nation, has amorphous codified status and taxation support!  Suicide by drug overdose is a form of murder by drug-pusher, but we, the wealthiest, most sophisticated culture on earth, with more police forces per hectare than any other, has failed steadily for 60 years to clamp down firmly on drug commerce.

Now we are in a race to legalize ever purer and stronger pot despite its risks (there aren’t any, according to pot users) and to arm first responders with Narcan.  We’re smarter than we even realized.

The largest “industry” in the United States is welfare of a thousand titles.  Statists have found that the philosophies of the most rock-ribbed, self-made American stalwarts can be purchased with enough dependency, as recent “conservative” outcries against threats to Medicare makes clear.

The higher education “industry” is nothing if not opportunistic.  With TRILLIONS of dollars flowing from the Federal and state levels, colleges have justified turning out an army of social workers to soak them up.  Here and there people in need are truly helped, but the lion’s share of those dollars goes to the army of concerned, compassionate care-workers and, especially, to the army of administrators who make sure they are not wasting any money.

Somewhere, and here and there, are schools, churches and other institutions that respect and promote the concepts of self-reliance, absolute personal responsibility, honor and sublime integrity.  They must struggle against an onslaught of socialist control of budgets and information.  Is the ultimate success of the ultimate anti-God philosophy certain to overwhelm what made the U. S. great?

That future depends upon the ignorance of a majority of Americans.  How smart did you say we are?