The biggest liability for the Biden/Harris administration with voters is the economy (bigger than Gaza, whether you think that is morally right or wrong…) So how did we get here to a skittish economy with high inflation so quickly?
I would argue that the culprit was what I call “The Great Closing”: having an extended lockdown which necessitated stimulus spending, followed on by inevitable inflation (once companies know you have more money, wolves will be wolves: they will charge more…)
Price controls? Revisit the history of Nixon’s experimental attempt at that (link…) -it did not do much of anything, and it was rather hard to enforce.
20/20 hindsight: the idea of a lockdown is to give facilities a chance to reconfigure to handle a crushing load of in-patients. At most, you should need two weeks to do that (provided you act in a manner that’s consistent with a dire emergency…)
It was a BFM to have that lockdown go past two weeks!
So that’s how we got here; mistakes were made. I would say taking the lockdown past two weeks was an act of political cowardice. “What if a lot of people die?” They might die; they can opt to shelter in place -especially if they are senior or immuno-compromised. Keeping people out of work for more than two weeks was a prescription for economic disaster. “Don’t worry; we’ll give you a moratorium on rent…” And what happened when that ran out? Many people got behind and ended up being added to the rolls of the homeless.
The lockdown was sanctioned by BOTH parties. Can we admit a grievous mistake was made, and won’t be made again?
PS Covid is very real, and can lead to death; but so can homelessness. Perhaps not as quickly as covid, but get injured or attacked, and spiral down with malnutrition, its ability to lead you to death is just as real, albeit slower…
