We're going back into lockdown for a month, so things are going to be rough for the hospitality industry.
I think its going to be rough for more or less every industry that isn't something that doesn't provide a necessity service such as supermarkets. We had a guy who works for one of these security companies that collect money and take it to the bank, he was saying that because a lot of shops are closing for a month, they are feeling the pinch and there are going to be job losses.
It's going to be a busy winter for you guys. I've heard construction is picking up, though I'm not sure why it would be, unless it's house sales clearing because of the stamp duty change (but I'd have thought that would be offset by the fact that no one wants anything to do with city-centre real estate right now). It's going to be balls for a lot of people. My wife is losing her job, which might have gone anyway without corona, but it's going to make it much harder to get back into the workplace because so many are doing it. Employer's market.
I'm geting the occasional major brand, but mostly I'm trying to support the local independents. One has already gone under - although if I were honest I'm not sure they're business model was the most robust in the first place.
My wife works in a hospital. The wards are packed full, people are dying left, right and centre and the staff are exhausted, unhappy, stressed, at risk of burnout. There's no spare pool of healthcare workers if they drop, either. Non-critical surgeries have been postponed leaving people in pain, distress and disability for months longer. I work in a medical school, and it's also threatening our ability to train new healthcare professionals because the healthcare system is starting to struggle to maintain the capacity to teach them.
Ah yes, let’s not worry about the dead because money
What elites? Seems most corporations are perfectly fine with the government response. Espescially those in the industrial exports, energy, import/export, transshipment sector or aggregate industry(finance, law etc) which is where the bulk of a modern economy's income comes from. They are all relatively unharmed by the lockdowns. It seems to me it's more the common folk who are losing their small business or job in the service or entertainment industry. Sectors that may all not be that profitable but where a huge amount of people work in. Not to mention the effect lockdowns have on people's psychological or emotional welbeing, espescially those that live alone or in abusive households. That regular care is cancelled is also a choice because every covid death is one too many which is a metric that isn't employed with any other disease. Or mental health issues for that matter. How many people kill themselves every day for example? Most still in their prime of their life? Yet I hear no one shutting the country down because it's in a psychological crisis. That is why I said you could have more strict triages, or more organized at-home care or more specific quarantine measures for those at-risk. Why ruin a country when 99% isn't even at risk for the disease? It's a totally disproportionate response. Repeating the same measures over and over that clearly does not work is just dumb strategy. Spain had like the worst lockdowns in all of Europe, the ghost of Franco lived on in that country, yet it's worse there now than ever.
Like I said, post 9/11 turned society in a surveillance state and now covid turns it into a police state. That's a difference. The commonality is that with governments things are never 'temporary'. For obvious reasons. The other commonality ofcourse is that the surveillance state didn't do jack shit to address the actual problem, which is terrorism. Just as lockdowns won't do anything to dispel covid. It just makes it easier for governments to control people's behavior.
Tell that to Spain. So far in debt now their entire youth no longer has a future there. Same for Italy. The best you could hope for is ''operation succesful, patient dead'' but you can't even say that. Covid is still everywhere.
The lockdown didn’t create the problem. The virus did. The economy was going down no matter what. We’ve had so many countries try so many things. Nothing saved anyones economy. Open economies did as well as closed ones. Pretending the economy was going to keep going if you just said the right words is plain false.
The only thing more gross than that metaphor is the fact that its relatively accurate >.>
