Pandemic Life

As our President turns into a Mafia boss, we need to at least begin to turn our attention to other matters, for fear that he really will suck all the air out of our collective rooms.  I just finished reading a piece about how he is actively trying to block states from obtaining PPE to combat COVID. It’s almost as though he has declared war on specific states.  And Mafia is all I can think about. He will allow them to obtain supplies without hindrance, so long as they praise him and do his bidding.  Shades of the Mafia.

And meanwhile, we are all (well, some of us) trying to practice social isolation.  It isn’t easy, as none of us are all that experienced at isolating from our fellow humans.  Now, to be fair, Carol and I are both fully retired—well I am fully retired; my wife has retreated for the moment from some of her volunteer work that she joined after she stopped working for a living.  She still quilts of course. The sick kids at the Jeff Gordon Children’s Hospital still want those lovely quilts, homemade with love.  But her work at the CVAN consignment store is on hold, as is both our work as volunteer literacy tutors.  She also used her sewing skills to create several dozen PPE masks for CVAN to use at their shelter.

But, even being pretty much retired, we still miss getting out, especially to our weekly shopping. While some of our shopping is standard, wandering through a store and grabbing stuff from a shelf before checking out, at least some of our shopping is more, and that is what we miss.  We engage with Trader Joe’s on a weekly basis. Our shopping expedition there is filled with the usual, picking stuff off of shelves, but at TJ’s it is more.  We get hugs from several staff there, after we enter, and we chat with the staff. We know them and they know us by name, so it’s a personal relationship, whereby we catch up on family affairs.

Then we also weekly attend our Farmers’ Market in Davidson, where we buy most of our fresh produce, meat, eggs, fish and veggies.  Here again, we know the farmers and they know us. Again, hugs and some chatting, catching up on the week gone by. We know them, and we know their kids and families.  It’s a social thing as much as a shopping spree.

So, now it’s different. We still attend to our farmers, but it’s cursory, complete with masks, gloves and little chatter.  Ordering is done in advance, and we are really just picking up. At TJ’s, we can’t do the online ordering and then drive-by pickup, as they have not yet succumbed to that level of shopping. So, there, we have our grandson shopping for us whenever he has the time.  It’s nice, at some level, that we have children and grandchildren willing and able to do shopping for us.  I realize that, however annoying this social isolation has become, it is two things: first, it is necessary, vital even, in the battle to quell this pandemic. If we socially isolate, we are less likely to acquire and transmit the virus. And, so we are playing our little part in reducing the awful effects of the virus. Those who refuse are basically playing into the hands of the virus. The virus’ ability to spread depends on people refusing to isolate, making themselves available to the virus.  And no, those folks will not all get the virus. But enough will that the virus can continue its campaign of terror.  But second, we are fortunate to be able to both socially isolate and survive. We are still well fed. We have a home in which we can isolate, and we have computers, TVs and telephones.  I am well aware that many people do not have those luxuries.  Millions have basically lost their jobs and so, for the moment, have no income. Perhaps they have applied or attempted to apply for unemployment, no mean feat. Apparently, people have been calling the unemployment offices and cannot get through. Even when they do get through, they still face a long wait.

And many more, even should they begin drawing their payments, suddenly have no health insurance. Basically, America is a nation that only allows those with adequate money to buy health insurance. Unlike most civilized nations, we refuse to guarantee health care to all.

And many thousands, perhaps millions also, simply do not have adequate food for their families.  Kids go to bed routinely hungry.  Even during the Great Depression, yeah, the 1930s, I do not remember as a little kid, going to bed hungry.  Someone in my family, mostly my mom, always put food on the table. But now, we live in a land of grotesquely unequal opportunity, and even worse income disparities.  Under Trump, the top 1% of the people own over 20 times the net worth of the bottom 50% of our people. Now that is grotesque.  It should be enough to make any thinking human question the utility of our system of capitalism.  How rich do people have to be before thinking humans conclude that “enough is enough”.  We used to have higher systems of taxation, to at least moderate such disparities. Now, we have both lower tax rates for the grotesquely wealthy, and many ways for that group to hide their income so as to avoid any taxes. Some of our banks have turned into the equivalent of organized crime gangs in their zeal to help their richest customers avoid taxes, by hiding income for them.  

A Fact Sheet prepared by American for Tax Fairness lists the following:

·         The richest 1% of Americans own 35% of the nation’s wealth. The bottom 80% own just 11% of the nation’s wealth.

·         In the 1950s and 1960s, when the economy was booming, the wealthiest Americans paid a top income tax rate of 91%. Today, the top rate is 43.4%.

·         The richest 1% pay an effective federal income tax rate of 24.7% in 2014; someone making an average of $75,000 is paying a 19.7% rate.

·         The average federal income tax rate of the richest 400 Americans was just 20 percent in 2009.

·         Taxing investment income at a much lower rate than salaries and wages are taxed loses $1.3 trillion over 10 years.

·         1,470 households reported income of more than $1 million in 2009 but paid zero federal income taxes on it.

·         CEOs of major corporations earn nearly 300 times more than an average worker.

·         30 percent of income inequality is due to unfair taxes and budget cuts to services and benefits.

·         The largest contributor to increasing income inequality has been changes in income from capital gains and dividends.

Those data should be but seem not to be disturbing. I am confident that Fox News would either laugh at them, or would decry the implication that the wealthy should be paying more taxes.  And their faithful listeners would be smiling and applaud.  And therein lies the tale of America in the year 2020.  As a Nation, we seem not to care about these grotesqueries. And we should be clear. These disparities did not occur because of Donald Trump.  But Donald Trump seems to favor such income disparities, believing as he does that he is part of our “royal” family structure.  He does not believe in democracy, but seems to favor a monarchical system, in which he is King Donald I.  So, a more equal system is unlikely in the extreme to appear on his watch.

We shall know later this year whether America intends to adopt such a monarchical system, when we see the results of the 2020 national election. If the people re-elect Trump, then we will know surely that our system of democracy is now over and we will need to adapt to the new system, in which voting by the people disappears as a fundamental part of our system of government.

So, we will see. The American people will eventually get the kind of government it deserves.