Perfect Storm Part 2

First off: No, I have no answers to propose for this crisis. Anyone who is claiming to know how to fix the situation we are in is either crazy or lying. Maybe 20 or 30 years ago..? But now?

I do know that Trump's presidency has vastly exacerbated the problems. We need to acknowledge though that Trump is merely a symptom of a much, much larger sickness in our country. The systematic reversal from a Representative Democracy which had worked reasonably well to an overt Oligarchy and what has been pretty accurately described as "End-Stage Capitalism". The largest corporations have unimaginable power and are mostly out of control. When a company's only concern is profit for their shareholders, anything goes.

Boeing's latest problems are directly traceable to an overworked and underfunded FAA who had largely turned over its responsibilities to the company. Trusting that Boeing had enough of a concern for the safety of their customers to "self-inspect" their products. The underfunded Customs and Border Protection service actually inspects less than 2% of cargo coming into the country. But our biggest concern is preventing smuggling is building some ridiculous wall on the Southern border. So we see an incredible epidemic of opioids like Fentanyl from China and Heroin from Afghanistan and other places flooding our Emergency Rooms with overdoses. Which our government and it's enablers in the media dutifully proclaim is the fault of unscrupulous physicians and families with unsecured medicine cabinets at home.

And if Drug Lords in Mexico wish to pump their own varieties of drugs across the border, they are simply running it up the coast aboard submarines or in those same containers which only get checked less than 2% of the time. The business is profitable enough that several tunnels have been found running up to over a hundred feet underground, and any wall, complete with tracks, ventilation and electric lighting. If and when any boat, tunnel or shipping container gets detected, it's a barely noticeable cost of doing business.

In 2016, I predicted that if Hillary won the country would continue its slow but quickening slide into the abyss. Slow poison. But if Trump won, it would be a relatively quick hand grenade into the heart of our government. Our nation was a big, strong and resilient beast however, and would take a long time to kill. Even with pyrotechnics. A Bernie Sanders might make the fall a little less violent. Perhaps even managing to slow our descent by a little. But nature always tends toward balance. When a population of rabbits gets too large, foxes, raptors and disease will prosper until balance is restored. Even disease can only spread to the point where it no longer has healthy hosts, or the hosts develop a resistance. In the world today, Homo "Sapiens" is the disease. We had already entered the perfect storm.

Economies have been thrown radically out of balance. All over the world, but mostly in the U.S. the nation's wealth has shifted to the top percentages of the population. In the U.S. there are three individuals who own more than half the wealth while one in five are destitute. This is not sustainable!

Here at home we, or at least most of us, know how difficult it is to get by on current salaries and job availability. For most, there's no safety net. No means of getting by if there's no money for food or housing. Even if one is lucky enough to have good insurance, bankruptcy is moments away if we, or our children experience a devastating medical issue. Whether it is from disease or accidental injury, co-pays and spending limits cause enormous debt to be accumulated quickly and without warning.

Traditional markers of economic well-being are no longer reliable. The stock markets which seemed to have been at all time highs have been so artificially inflated and tinkered with as to be complete fictions. Unemployment numbers are completely unreliable. I've seen reports that the true figures would be more like double the reported figure   or U-3 if the governments own U-6 is to be trusted or even as high as 23% if we include people who have given up on looking for a job for over a year. The U-6 only counts discouraged for the "Short Term" for some reason, and does not count at all people who are forced to work part-time, low-paying jobs because nothing else is available.

We have shifted the world's very climate. That means that regions which in the past were prime agricultural areas are becoming too hot, too dry, or too wet for crops historically grown there. This means people are leaving farms for cities. Cities are being overwhelmed. Depending on the local governments, these migrants are likely to be treated very poorly as long-term residents feel threatened. People from war-torn and climate-ravaged areas are seeking refuge and survival in areas seen to be less devastated. We know how well those people are welcomed in the U.S.A. The same thing is happening all around the world.

Now enters COVID-19. Old Ma Nature will restore balance. And there's nowhere for us to escape.