Pandemic Profits
I came across this video on the weekend. I don’t know who Bernadette Wilson is or what government board she was addressing. I do know the world needs way more people like her and far fewer politicians. Watch and enjoy.
Bernadette rightfully points out that these lockdowns have disproportionately affected the poorest people in society. Most working class people do not have jobs where you can work from home. When you close a restaurant or a dance studio the people that worked there cannot telecommute. They are just unemployed. Politicians especially left wing politicians always believe they are virtuous and on the side of angels but when this woman challenges them to debate no one picks up the gauntlet and tries to defend what they have done. The sad reality is that we are not all in this together. As always when the government gets involved there are winners and losers. The winners are their friends and the losers are always the common, tax paying, worker.
White collar workers have not really had much trouble since they can work from home. I am a white collar worker. My income took a hit but not a big one. The company I work for has been very good to their employees. This is the case for most white collar workers. The lockdowns and restrictions were inconvenient but largely revenue neutral. Government workers fared even better. Most of them were sent home on extended holidays. They weren’t even expected to work but they still got paid and their pensions still accumulated. Some government employees still had to show up for work but things still went very well for them. Take Deena Hinshaw, Alberta’s chief medical officer, she had to show up for work every day to collect her $331,000/ year salary, poor dear. Before Covid I would have struggled to explain what the chief medical officer does. Now I know her primary responsibility is to show up on TV every few days and wring her hands in worry. It seems like this is the first time in her medical career that she has been faced with the reality that people can get sick from viruses. Because this is, apparently, so new to her she has dispensed some really awful and destructive advice. I guess it looks good on her though because Albertans seem to love her ineptitude. She has been nothing short of useless and she will no doubt be in line for a big bonus at the end of the year. 2020 will no doubt be a banner year for Dr. Hinshaw financially. It is hard to see how we are all in this together when her income goes up while others suffer financial losses. It is even harder to see why she would ever want this to end.
Deena Hinshaw is not the biggest winner in this farce though. We have already pointed out the big boost in popularity that some politicians have capitalized on but the real winners are the Crony Capitalists. Jeff Bezos and Amazon have made out like bandits. The richest man in the world saw his fortunes multiply as his competition was shut down. Same for Bill Gates. Old Bill is quite happy to sell vaccines and expensive treatments. What about the people making and processing tests? Alberta alone is spending $4,000,000 every day on testing. Do you think the people involved in testing want healthy people to calm down, stop panicking, and stop lining up to be tested. 98% of people testing in Alberta are negative and 90% of the 2% that are positive don’t have symptoms. If Albertans were to suddenly start behaving rationally and we only tested people with symptoms the people involved in testing will see their income drop by 99.8%.
The reason that this farce has gone on as long as it has is that wealthy people are profiting from it. Wealth brings power and influence. When a hairdresser petitions the government to lift restrictions and Bill gates pleads for the government to keep restrictions until he is ready to sell a vaccine who do you think the government listens to? We are not all in this together. I heard a Barber in the US put it perfectly he said “we might all be in the same storm but we are not all in the same boat”. Despite everything they say governments don’t give a damn about the average working person.