Ran across this article yesterday.
…….
https://www.cnbc.com/2020/11/11/biden-covid-advisor-says-us-lockdown-of-4-to-6-weeks-could-control-pandemic-and-revive-economy.html
Ok, first of all, where the hell do you plan to GET that much money?? Oh I know, you’ll borrow it. Nice, that’ll TOTALLY solve the economy problem…..And what about those of us who work for big sized companies? I mean, sure, my job is actually pretty secure, but not ALL big sized companies are. And if THEY start failing……that’s a hell of a trigger point there.
Then there’s the little fact that the economy is about more than just money. Money is only good for buying things. If you shut everything down again there won’t be anything to buy you moron! All the stimulus paychecks in the world won’t solve THAT.
You DO recall what happened in March when things shut down right? Despite frantic attempts to keep SOMETHING on the store shelves just about every store that was able to remain open ended up with empty shelves. Canned foods? Nope. Milk? Nope. Paper goods? Nope. Peanut butter? Nope. Disinfecting cleaning supplies? Nope. And while some of that was the result of people panicking and buying whatever they could get their hands on, not all of it was. Manufacturers are currently HOPING they’ll be able to be back to normal schedules at some point in 2021. HOPING! They are NOT caught up. Not even Kinda. Another 6 week shutdown, before they’re caught up? No, no, no, no…..
Oh, but the grocery shelves are back to normal! Right? No, no they aren’t. And neither are the cleaning supplies. Or, or, or…..the stores have just become really creative at how they stock the shelves. But if you know what you’re looking for? Yah, its really really obvious. Look, I’ve mentioned before that I have a wholesale foods account. The pricelist from the wholesaler back in March was 30 pages long, single column. Their current price list? 2 pages, double column. There’s SO MUCH stuff they can’t get right now. And what they can get, quantities still aren’t back to normal. And cleaning supplies? Look, I personally sell those at my work. There are entire brand lines of products that I haven’t seen even a single case of since this started.
And don’t get me started on Christmas. I hate to advocate buying your Christmas decor early. But this year? Buy it now. Or it won’t be there when you do go to the store. The ONLY thing we have plenty of stock of is pre-lit trees. We have NO backstock of ornaments. Barely any backstock of yard decor and blowups. No where NEAR enough backstock of lights. And the stock we do have? The selection isn’t near as wide as usual.
And then there’s the fact that the shutdown literally killed people. An awful lot of those “non-essential” medical treatments are only non-essential because the thing they treat was caught early enough to keep it from being an emergency. Or because they’re preventative, to keep things from becoming an emergency. Take away the availability of those treatments and suddenly there’s a lot more things that end up being emergencies, or that aren’t caught at all until it’s to late. And the lack of contact for seniors and the disabled stuck in assisted living and nursing homes? Yah, that killed some of them too, and set others back drastically.
Not to mention that all that assumes that we’ll HAVE a functional, GOOD, vaccine by the end of that 6 weeks. And yes, I know, it looks like we might. But might is not 100%. And no, I won’t be taking a vaccine that was rushed through trials that way. I WILL claim religious exemption if I need to. I’m not anti vaccine, they’re good things. But one that was rushed through like this? That we have NO CLUE what the long term outlook of it is? Fuck no. And I’m not the only one feeling twitchy at the way they’re rushing this vaccine through.
Look I get it. Nasty scary virus we don’t understand completely. But if the “cure” is doing more damage than the bug there’s a hell of a problem in how you’re doing it.
Agree completely with what you have expressed. I am lucky as I work in the defense industry which will not shut down regardless what happens. I am blessed that I can do my job from home. I am thankful for those that go into the plant to do their jobs because that is the only way stuff gets made. Although we can lift a whole lot of other businesses to the level of “essential” because they supply us parts (as we did earlier this year), last spring and early summer was a total cluster because parts became scarce and we are still dealing with shortages and delays. We are still competing with other large defense industry companies that have gone thru the same supply issues.
And on the vaccine side, even if they have the vaccine out in 6 weeks, and it is effective, they have already said that it is all going to front line health/emergency workers (which I’m not arguing with) – but that doesn’t do anything for the general populace. It will be at least 6 months, and probably more, before there is enough vaccine for everyone else.
that too. It takes TIME to produce a whole country’s worth of vaccine, especially since its going to be a two shot set. And they’re talking about it requiring special freezers to store it. Yah no, its going to take A LOT of time before they can actually vaccinate the whole country.
It terrifies me that people that will be leading the country have so little understanding of how it works. And even more terrifying is the idea that maybe they DO understand and hope that their nefarious scheming kills a lot more people. We are quietly buying a little more coffee, an extra bottle of laundry detergent, canned goods etc. And I am trying to get the boss to get some cans of winter diesel stored in case we need the generator.
Yup, keep those freezers and shelves full. Its looking like its going to be an unpleasant ride, that’s for sure.
Oh yeah, those vacines are going to need a whole bunch of dry ice for shipping purposes (it has to be kept at something like -40*. That has already bitten us as apparently the vaccine makers are stocking it up so shipments of our temperature sensitive adhesives (which we use a lot of) are being shipped with minimal dry ice. This has cause several spoiled batches of adhesives in the last 3 weeks. Not that I’m saying that the vaccine makers should not be stocking it up – just that this in itself is already causing issues for other industries.
ouch.
*sarcasm* And wow, its like it doesn’t take much to disrupt the supply chain, amazing! */sarcasm*