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Trying to Save the Economy Is Killing Us
The worship of money above all has made it impossible for us to get a handle on the pandemic
A close friend of mine in Washington, D.C. recently told me he won’t be following any health experts’ continued warnings still to steer clear of retail stores or indoor restaurants, even as Covid-19 fatalities in the United States creep up again. It’s the economy, stupid, he said: America just isn’t America without maximally vibrant consumer activity. The longer we shy away from going to our crowded offices or shopping malls, he remarked portentously, “the more imperiled our descendants will become.”
Yet when I mentioned that $15,000 worth of my fees for freelance work have been delayed indefinitely — not due to lockdowns or public-health advisories but because several New York-based colleagues got sick — he offered that, difficult as it was, he thought declaring personal bankruptcy might “build my character.”
A significant number of Americans insist that any act that curtails economic activity is essentially un-American, and these people are influential.
There are so many reasons why the United States has become the firm epicenter of the Covid-19…
