Where are we now? Really?

Safeway still limiting ‘essential paper products’ to
one per customer as I wait patiently in line
this last Thursday 

This was the week Bernie Sanders dropped his bid for the Democratic nomination for President. While he apparently had a ton of support among the young, history has shown that being young and actually voting don’t always correlate. Among the older population there was widespread fear of what was purported to be Sanders’ socialist agenda. How much of a socialist Sanders really is is debatable, and I for one supported his ideas for widely available and affordable universal healthcare as one option, but perhaps America needs to take pause in light of the current pandecomomic crisis as to how much socialism we’re really ready to accept. Rightly or wrongly Americans facing dire economic uncertainty seem more than willing to accept all the government bailouts they can get. The Federal Reserve and Congress are spending trillions (what’s a trillion? A one followed by 12 zeroes- $1,000,000,000,000) to subsidize individuals, families and business enterprises.

I’m not disputing the need for this stimulus, but if that’s not socialism at its grandest I don’t know what is. My wife and I will apparently be receiving $2,400 as a couple. What that does in reality for us is cut our tax bill, now postponed until July, by about half. I’m one of those crazy fools who have always been happy to pay taxes. I like having armed forces to keep me free, police and fire and ambulance personnel to save my bacon if necessary, roads that are more asphalt than pothole, and good teachers to educate our children. In short, I’m willing to pay my share.

I’m not a Republican (or a Democrat for that matter) but I share their belief that I don’t want government overly involved in my life (the difference between the two parties seems to boil down in how you define ‘overly’). Like many of you who are old enough (o.k. Boomer!) I’ve lived through lots of economic upheavals - Y2K, 911, and the last “Great Recession” just as more recent examples. I look at the grief former President Obama has gotten for his bailout of the financial services (banks...) and auto industry during the last recession and can only chuckle as America puts its collective hand out for a historic hand out from the Federal government today. Again, I’m ok with that. I think the Federal government, along with State and local government, has a role to play beyond just telling us to wash our hands, stay home, and wear a mask. But perhaps we need to finally be honest with ourselves and acknowledge that we’re happy to be the model of Capitalism in good times but have definite socialist tendencies when the stuffing hits the fan.

On the good news front, now might be the time to invest some of that financial stimulus you receive in manufacturers of that uniquely human staple, toilet tissue. The demand for this spiked in mid-March as much as 845% according to NCSolutions, a data and analytics firm that tracks these important matters. And while we’re not hoarding in April at the same rate as in March, demand is expected to stay strong:

“Will the workforce go back to work like they did before? If people work from home, this (increased demand for toilet tissue) could be much more prolonged,” said NC-Solutions CEO Linda Dupree.

“The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of blessings; the inherent virtue of socialism is the equal sharing of miseries.” Winston Churchill in a speech to the British House of Commons, October 22, 1945