Virus: Gut check on free stuff

Let’s look at the new economy, being shaped by World War III, against the coronavirus.

If 78% of Americans were living paycheck-to-paycheck before World War III started, where are they now, when so many are receiving no paycheck? 

If only 39% of Americans could withstand a $1,000 emergency then, how about now?

As someone who has saved his entire life, who was taught thrift by low-income, working-class parents who weathered the Depression, I find these empty-pocket stats hard to believe, yet I do believe them because, like Andrew Yang, I believe in data, even when it contradicts personal beliefs.

And I mention him because he had a promise of $1,000 a month for all, which seemed like bigger pie in the sky than Bernie Sanders, but Yang had numbers backing him and his ideas are parallel to the guaranteed minimum income, an idea circling on the left end of the political spectrum.

Maybe crazy once, but maybe crazy no more. The idea in brief: handing out cash helps the poor, who spend it, and that drives the economy. 

Not a new idea either, said Yang, whose campaign posted a video of Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. asking for one.

This is kind of a gut check. 

The World War III we are fighting has changed everything, maybe forever, maybe just for the lifetime of older adults, such as myself. We are living under semi-martial law, yet we are strangely docile and calm, almost like we are in a dream.

What kind of a country will my children and grandchildren live in?

Even though most Americans live from paycheck-to-paycheck, most families own homes and even more own cars and cell phones and big ass TVs and they go on vacations. Disney World does not thrive on the business of just the top 1%. 

I don’t know — maybe Americans are tapped out because they spend too damn much and too many buy too much on credit, with interest rates matching the Mafia’s. It is consumers that move our economy forward, so maybe they think they are being patriotic. Do they think they can live in retirement on a Social Security check?

The stock market will return to where it was, eventually, but it will be a long slog. Most of the 55% of Americans who are in the stock market are in through their 401k investments, which are crippled. 

Businesses that closed for a while, and people who lost paychecks, will be behind the financial 8 ball for a long time. 

As noted yesterday, we are a poorer country now.

The federal government has several programs to send money out, but will it be enough and how long will checks be sent? I suspect it will be trillions.

I believe people who ridiculed Bernie Sanders’ free stuff and Yang’s handouts might feel differently now that they are on the receiving end.

Will being on the government dole become the new American Way?