We’re on the verge of financial panic:
Nihar Kabinittal / ABC News:
Dow sinks more than 2,000 points amid coronavirus uncertainty and plunging oil prices — Markets are teetering close to bear market territory. — Coronavirus fears and the steep sell-off in crude oil caused U.S. markets to continue their precipitous fall, with the Dow Jones Industrial …
‘The sleep of reason breeds monsters’ – Goya
And here at home, there seems to be a run on “survival supplies,” as an accidental view on Amazon points out.
Last year, on May 4, I purchased a 30-day emergency supply of food, apropos of nothing, save that it seemed prudent.
It cost, on Amazon Prime, $89.06.
My May 4, 2019 order
By accident, I decided to take look at the page last night. The cheapest offering was $290.88. That was gone Sunday morning, and the cheapest you could get was $249.97. Five minutes later, the cheapest was $299.97 — one assumes that the $249 site had sold out.
Half an hour later, as I went to write this, that was gone, and the lowest price you could find on Amazon was $350.
And the high price was $400.
Sunday @ 4:44 PM PDT
Anecdotal, perhaps , but an authentic snapshot of “supply and demand” in a panic situation.
Clearly people ARE panicking, as the precipitous price increases on a 30-day emergency food supply indicates.
Certainly better than Jim Bakker’s quack silver “cure” — that the NY Attorney General has, thankfully issued a cease and desist order on — but evidence of the same phenomenon.
The survivalists are stocking up on emergency food rations. Along with Australia’s runs on toilet paper, I’d say that the population is freaked out over the pandemic.
All the while our news media dither on getting the proper information out there, as does our “stable genius.”
This ain’t how you handle a public health crisis, kiddies.
My mother was a public health nurse (at times) and I learned from a young age that Enemy #1 is panic and disinformation.
The news media have clearly not learned that all-important lesson; the “government” hasn’t really implemented that lesson* and these parasites are EXACTLY the kind of “secondary infection” that springs up when rumors and disinformation are allowed to spread. In some cases, they can actually cause more harm than the disease involved. (Though in this case, I doubt it.)
[* Led by a “president” who just came out in the White House briefing room to tell Americans and the world that his NUMBER ONE response to the coronavirus pandemic is … wait for it … a payroll tax cut. Well, he IS finally a TRUE Republican, at least.]
The “emergency food supplies are clearly only the tip of the iceberg, and, while overpriced will harm nothing other than your wallet, there are an infinite number of more toxic scammers out there, preying on the fears of a bewildered public.
Regular citizens should be ready, willing and able to squash these urban myths and con-artists when they arise. A good source of information is the new CDC website, coronavirus.gov. (which is just a pointer address to https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/index.html )
While the truth may set you free, lies will surely kill you.
This must be Ayn Rand’s Version of Disneyland.
Remind me to tell you my Herpes/Maureen Down story.
Courage.
A somewhat different version of this post was cross-posted at his vorpal sword
A writer, published author, novelist, literary critic and political observer for a quarter of a quarter-century more than a quarter-century, Hart Williams has lived in the American West for his entire life. Having grown up in Wyoming, Kansas and New Mexico, a survivor of Texas and a veteran of Hollywood, Mr. Williams currently lives in Oregon, along with an astonishing amount of pollen. He has a lively blog, His Vorpal Sword (no spaces) dot com.