Days 365 of the âLockdownâ - A year later
Itâs been one year since the âlockdownâ was initiated. My thoughts about it are still that this could have been avoided.
I keep saying âlockdownâ, even though it really wasnât at all.
People in our country are too afraid to take drastic measures to ensure the safety of everyone else and themselves by staying home, as well as our leaders failing to take steps to encourage staying at home by giving the people money so they can pay their bills. By my recollection, the American people were given $3,200 for the whole year. If broken down, that is equivalent to $266.66/month or $61.53/week or $8.76/day- which my job pays a little under double that per hour. Mind you, this is for single individuals or parents of children. People which children were given much more, which I agree should have happened. Unemployment benefits were increase, but again, if it were just a straight payment, like $2,000/month per person, unemployment benefits should not have needed to be increased. A universal basic income for the duration of the pandemic should of been implemented from day one.
Itâs not just the money aspect, but also the call for âessentialâ workers to keep going to work. Iâve been over this many times with others, but when you have a society like ours, the term âessentialâ applies to almost every industry. The logic is that hospitals have to stay open because people need to depend on those services or die. Pretty logical. Then, these doctors, physicians, and staff need to be able to get to and from work, meaning gas stations and car repair places need to be open. These places have entire delivery systems in place to get products, like gas and parts, to their locations. Someone has to process and create these products for use. Next, everyone has to eat, not just the hospital staff, but those working gas stations and parts stores, meaning that fast food and stores need to stay open. Since these are all still open, places like federal offices need to stay open to a degree, maybe with limited hours. I had a discussion with a boss, in the minds of our company, every item we sell is âessentialâ in some regard, as it keeps people home and not out shopping. However, they fail to understand that we are then put into harms way instead- acceptable losses as I put it. The example given was that a video game is essential. That means every form of entertainment is essential in some degree. Which leaves what as being non-âessentialâ exactly?
Likewise, if people are âessentialâ during a crisis, shouldnât they be paid more in the form of hazard pay? I guess my company realized that there is no need to pay employees hazard pay because every business is âessentialâ like them. Paying employees hazard pay is just a waste of money at that point. Itâs a bit aggravating to say the least. When congress tried to pass a $15/hour minimum wage increase, it was shut down. Yet, if you look at the number in a yearly aspect, $15/hour calculates to just $31,200/year. If we only focused on the hourly rate employees get, it looks scary. If I said I made $81,000/year, it would look okay- nothing special. However, if I said I made $38/hour, it suddenly looks like Iâm making way more than I should be. It is part of the problem. Inflation doesnât stop. Prices have continually went up and are still doing so. This is also why hamburgers donât cost a quarter anymore, like they did in the 1950s.
Our country is afraid of 6 things:
1. That if we take a break, weâll fall behind other countries that we are currently ahead of.
2. That if we take a break, our current systems will fall apart
3. That if we take a break, people will be upset
4. That if we give people money, they will become entitled and not want to return to a time where money was not given
5. That if we give people money, they will not want to work
6. That if we give people money, super inflation will happen
Our country is willing to let people die because of the above things they are afraid of. Over 570,000 people have died in the just the U.S. from the coronavirus (2.8 million worldwide). The numbers are still over 500 people a day (over 900 yesterday and over 500 the day before). Yet, our leaders do nothing. They instead are focusing on opening everything back up because they see our country as suffering financially. This would not have happened if we had went into an actual lockdown during the first month, nearly a year ago. They have no excuses. This is a disaster by their own making. I just hope they have learned something from this. Our country could and should do better.
I think Iâm giving up on this log...itâs been a long year.
