To help us understand what is happening in the spring of 2020 this diary asks you to pretend that you are an alien visitor from a planet far, far away.
Now we in this diary and that includes the comments section are trying to explain what's happened here, which is that the commercial airline industry in order to be allowed to pursue their profit model is allowed to ferry passengers from every corner of the globe, basically to wherever they'd like to go provided they can pay for the ticket.
That we do this at the speed of almost the blink of an eye, allowing anyone to ticket going anywhere, and they can essentially be there in 24 hours, and if they bring in infectious diseases causing a global pandemic, death, destruction, economic mayhem, billions of people being locked down, billions of dollars in lost revenues, no one in the commercial airline industry will be held accountable and no passenger will be held liable either. In fact not only will they not be held liable, they are expected in terms of the commercial airline industry to be bailed out by the very people and governments that they have damaged, because we were shipped free market capitalism, as the altar we are all required as an article of faith to prostrate ourselves in front of. What is it that we would reasonably expect our new found friend that is the visitor from far, far away to think, besides beam me up Scottie there is no intelligent life on this planet.
Then again maybe we would be asked as you're required to have a license to drive even a motorbike, where you're required to be healthy, have your eyesight checked, pay a licensing fee to the government and have liability insurance. Whereas an air traveler isn't usually required to have any kind of medical exam, not required to have any kind of license and doesn't require any insurance if their travel brings in an infectious disease kicking off a pandemic, there is no liability for them or the commercial airline that transported them.
In Japan for some time they have been experimenting with floating runways or airports that people could be quarantined at, or better yet perhaps people should be quarantined at the airport in the country they are leaving before ever being allowed to fly into the United States.
Here is the best idea of all which is to let people simply fly into the United States and then we trust them they would voluntarily quarantine themselves. Err wait a minute that is what we are already doing, and that hasn't worked so well. Still here is the best idea of all let's go into denial and do nothing, that is the most productive idea yet isn't it?
Perhaps our visitor would conclude that we have acted irresponsibly, and asks what will we do to change this? Well sports fans, what will we do to change this?
Will we hold people responsible for their conduct. If we can find out who brought the pandemic perhaps even knowingly into the country.
Do we charge them criminally? Do we sue them civilly? What about the airline that transported them do they have any legal or moral liability. In other words should the commercial airline industry be getting fines instead of bailouts from us. Now some will say we cannot get rid of air travel. We cannot allow ourselves to be shifted back to the stone age. At which point the question becomes should airlines be nationalized? Can private corporations be trusted to run them.
If you say of course perhaps our friend from far, far away would say to you tell it to the 2 billion people on your planet all of whom are locked down, and those among them who are ill, or even dying. Tell it to those people who have lost their jobs, or who are losing their businesses.
Better yet tell it to all the banksters who will now use this opportunity to be bailed out again, and this time on a scale that will dwarf the 2008 bank bailout, because they can't possibly be permitted to allow capitalism to work to hold them accountable, because they will demand socialism for themselves and their ilk and capitalism for everyone else. So if you thought you paid a lot in 2008, this time around sports fans you can expect to pay 20 times more, and that's just for starters because let's be clear that even to the most ardently comatose and all from those planets far, far away it must be clear that the commercial airlines business model is now in danger of crashing the US dollar, as well as the stock and bond market.
So it is that the bankers of the world will turn on the printing press and flood us all with more fiat currency produced by private banking systems lent to the government at interest. Yes it is true we are back off thanks to the Covid 19 speedway to the races of the 2008 banking crash, and if you are not on board with it well then you are just not a good American are you? You just don't care and worse you don't believe in capitalism.
So what happens when you visit your ATM and there is a restriction that says you can only have $50 a day enough to get something to eat etc.. Because the ATM's can also go into lock down, all because the commercial airline industry doesn't want to be nationalized, because they want to be free in their profit model to profit at the expense of the 2 billion people now locked down.
None of whom can be asked because well they're locked down and if you are reading this probably you are locked down as well. To which even our friend from that place far, far away would say nationalize the commercial airline industry, nationalize today and nationalize forever, because they cannot be trusted to operate responsibly ever again!
Now spring is coming and hopefully that will be an end to Covid 19, but there are no guarantees sports fans, except that the commercial airlines have done this before and they will do it again. They have to be nationalized and international air travelers have to be licensed responsibly.
If we are going to survive and thrive, even an alien will tell you unless you stop doing what you are doing, the unacceptably high risk of this happening again can't be eliminated. If you want a better outcome change what you are doing. The post Covid 19 world will be a new world, because the old world is gone, Covid 19 killed it. It did it by causing less fatalities worldwide than what we get in a typical flu year. Now that has to be one for the history books!
While every life that is lost is a human tragedy, we should accept Covid 19 for what it is, which is a wake up call to change now before something even worse can happen.