Posted on 04/11/2020 4:04:35 AM PDT by OwenKellogg
The Panic of 2020
In my lifetime I have been witness to some fairly catastrophic events. While in Eastern Europe, I witnessed the aftereffects of the fall of the Soviet Union. I served in Iraq and briefly in Afghanistan.
In our own nation, I have seen the dot.com bubble bursting in 2001, the collapse of the housing market in 2008, and now the pandemic of 2020.
There have been panics throughout the history of the world. In the United States there have been the panics of 1819, 1837, 1857, 1873, 1893, 1929 as well as the most recent financial calamities.
The panic of 2020 is different however and we must understand those differences and realize that panic is NOT the answer nor the solution to COVID-19 at all.
Today, more than ever we must have faith. To have faith is to trust, to trust is to believe and to believe is to have faith. It is the triangle of solid leadership. We must have faith in God and in one another and our responsibility to one another.
In the Panic of 2020, the economy had been so strong in its underlying fundamentals that the triggering event, a pandemic, should be easy to overcome because of that underlying strength. The economic difficulty though is that we, and we alone, hold the key to whether the cure is worse than the disease.
It is clear that the pandemic is real. It is serious. People’s lives must be saved. It is not, however, an issue over which the financial ruin of the world should be a potential consequence unless we will it.
It is difficult to attempt to put the coronavirus in perspective while people are dying but the panic of 2020 and the cure that some governors are putting in place may actually trigger an economic disaster and concurrent loss of life far more devastating than the disease itself.
To be clear if we, as citizens, overreact to the panic of 2020, we jeopardize placing the entire world in a deflationary spiral that most of us will be dealing with for the rest of our lives.
In the Marine Corps, we rate our noncommissioned officers and officers on a trait, a leadership trait called presence of mind or effectiveness under stress which reinforces the ability of the person to operate effectively, mission focused, and with the ability to lead under periods of extreme stress.
Great leaders can frequently have their message distracted and damaged by other leaders and citizens who lack that singularity and clarity of focus under stressful circumstances.
In the case of the coronavirus, it would be clear immediately, that saving everyone is an impossibility and as painful as that is to deal with, it must be dealt with for the greater good and survival of all. It is painful but it is real. Perfect solutions are not possible.
The great leader deals with the difficulties at hand, provides guidance and leadership, and strives to stabilize the current situation while preparing to rebuild.
It is an irresponsible person that would not lay down partisanship and politicization for the greater good of society and the people who will become the pawns and victims of their sensationalizing of an already difficult situation.
The responsibility to deal with the reality of the crisis is a civic responsibility. This does not mean that we are not to question but it does mean we have a responsibility not to sensationalize. Screaming fire in a movie theater is not a right of freedom of speech by any stretch of the imagination.
The Bill of Rights gives every American rights, freedoms, and liberty. The Bill of Rights and Constitution enumerate where my rights start and your rights stop and vice versa. It serves as a basis for public discourse.
Rights without responsibilities end in tyranny!
Our nation is at a crossroads. Whenever the lines between rights and responsibilities become blurred, government almost always oversteps its bounds as we are seeing in so many states limiting movement, non-essential definitions and other liberty restricting rights under the guise of a declaration of an emergency during the Panic of 2020.
A government that feels you are not capable of making sound, rational choices and decisions is supplanting your wisdom and self-determination with those of the collective good in their minds. The concept of taking personal responsibility will have been lost.
If we are to avoid an economic disaster, we must all have the presence of mind to deal with the medical crisis, help reduce the spread of the disease and take personal responsibility.
Only through our emphasis on our own presence of mind and accepting personal accountability will our Nation be rebuilt. Our Founding Fathers left us a wonderful legacy. What we do with that legacy is our decision and ours alone. Pay now or pay later.
Frank Ryan, CPA, USMCR (Ret) represents the 101st District in the PA House of Representatives. He is a retired Marine Reserve Colonel, a CPA and specializes in corporate restructuring. He has served on numerous boards of publicly traded and non-profit organizations.
Our nation is at a crossroads. Whenever the lines between rights and responsibilities become blurred, government almost always oversteps its bounds as we are seeing in so many states limiting movement, non-essential definitions and other liberty restricting rights under the guise of a declaration of an emergency during the Panic of 2020.
A government that feels you are not capable of making sound, rational choices and decisions is supplanting your wisdom and self-determination with those of the collective good in their minds. The concept of taking personal responsibility will have been lost.
If we are to avoid an economic disaster, we must all have the presence of mind to deal with the medical crisis, help reduce the spread of the disease and take personal responsibility.
Only through our emphasis on our own presence of mind and accepting personal accountability will our Nation be rebuilt. Our Founding Fathers left us a wonderful legacy. What we do with that legacy is our decision and ours alone. Pay now or pay later.
Worthy of your ping lists?
We must get back to work. Governors must not be allowed to create an irreversible economic disaster!
Agree completely.
About time we, as a nation, started acting as adults.
Did he miss 9/11? Never forget.
Ping
1) Select less infected parts of the country.
2) Quarantine the infected.
3) USe prophylactic application of Hydroxychloriquine with Zinc vitamin to put the country back to work.
Whats the problem?
( The Deep state does not want HCQ to work and are ignoring the fact that the wide ranging use of the drug in millions of doses is responsible for flattening the curve.USE IT TO PUT THE COUNTRY BACK TO WORK)
The jig’s up folks.
If, in the next few weeks, we can begin to slowly get back to work, there will be no economic disaster.
There is nothing wrong with our economic system other than it has taken a few weeks vacation (keep in mind that what we saw in 2008 was a systemic breakdown...our systems are just fine in 2020.
What we will see are some rather phenomenal changes brought about by this economic Virus Interruptus.
Kids and parents are astonished at the technology that allowed education to reach into their homes over their laptops and iPads...and do so without infecting those homes with the social diseases picked up at school (diseases like drugs and bad behavior).
And companies and employees likewise are (or will be in retrospect) amazed at how technology worked to allow them to be more effective outside the office. And don't think companies, now cash strapped from this hiatus, will notice how much cheaper it is to have employees work from home.
While this virus has been deadly to some, perhaps many, we will now reap the benefits that change can bring to our thinking.
Economies don't think outside the box unless they are shocked (WWII did that...and now COVID-19 will do it).
Get ready for "here come da boom!"
“the wide ranging use of the drug in millions of doses is responsible for flattening the curve.”
Yes, and President Trump’s gutsy support of it is responsible for seeing improvement. Which the data does not show yet.
It will be the most important part of solving the problem.
While the bureaucrats pat themselves in the back that their “social distancing” commands are saving lives, I would love to see them prove their orders have done more than informed people making good decisions. Something this current condition does not believe possible. And of course, in the same way doomsayers can always take credit, they will take credit for the responsibility people have shown.
It is an irresponsible person that would not lay down partisanship and politicization for the greater good of society and the people who will become the pawns and victims of their sensationalizing of an already difficult situation
The (D)ommunist party is not at all interested in the people who will become the pawns and victims.
They are a determined, ruthless enemy within our own borders.
We are at war not with a virus, but with a far more deadly contagion - those who would destroy our Constitution and Nation and forcibly institute their totalitarian pathology.
Leads off with “Our nation is at a crossroads.”
Sounds like the author is auditioning for a job at CNN or some other totalitarian propaganda outlet.
People don’t like having someone else’s viewpoint dictated to them with a bunch of reasons thrown in behind it. Whatever happened to using logic and reason to elucidate a reader’s critical thinking and letting them come to a conclusion?
Thanks to Covid-19 all I see is a bunch of A-holes running around telling people what’s what.
Nothing is going to happen until the Medical Fascists are removed from office.
They won’t go quietly.
Recall movements have to start NOW.
They have seized power using fabricated numbers and scare tactics.
A month is all that was needed to beat this down. People recover, die or are treated in that window and the virus dies in its parasitic lifecycle. There are no people walking around who have had it for months. They either have immunity or they died in a shorter time span of probably no more then 2 weeks.
The Totalitarians will try to declare they are off limits from recalls. This should be met with mass resistance: NO politician should ever think they can declare an emergency to cover themselves from removal, AND THAT’S WHAT THEY ARE DOING NOW.
They will try to scare us and say if they are removed the world will end. BS!
File recall movements now and force elections wherever possible, stage mass actions against them, and tell them that any politician trying to restrict ANY therapy that might work is guilty of attempted murder.
This pandemic has been raised to a level far above anything else, for a longer period of time. The media pumped it up with their hysterical 24/7 orgasmic coverage. They saw a perfect opportunity to create a mega crisis for Trump, and then criticize him no matter what he did.
“It is clear that the pandemic is real.”
NO IT’S NOT! It is all falsely presented data!
NO ONE knows how many have had CV19 with no effect, and new testing implies that 2 to 3 times as many have had it as have been tested! This means the death rate is possibly 1/4 of what is being presented.
Then add Germany’s new test results that show the actual death rate is .37%.
1/4th of that puts CV19 at the same death rate as the flu.
Now add that many in the death numbers are actually dying from other diseases, but being recorded as CV19 deaths........
And add to that new evidence that the sequestering may actually have prevented the development of herd immunity, and made things worse!
This is the biggest hoax and farce ever pulled anywhere, anytime, ever!
IMHO, of course........
“A government that feels you are not capable of making sound, rational choices and decisions is supplanting your wisdom and self-determination with those of the collective good in their minds.”
Are we, as a whole, “capable of making sound, rational choices”?
Have we been seeing that during this thing? Say, in grocery stores?
Have we seen that in our smartphone habits, tv watching, election outcomes, public behavior, work ethics?
This will not be done and if is done would be deemed to be racist
But I agree 100%. PDJT should lift all restrictions except for closed borders, limited in bound travel and start process to pull back the wasted money through the rescission act.
Let the Governors decide then we will see for sure who is trying to destroy America
Excellent post! I could not agree more!
bmp
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