Author: Sarah A. Hoyt

Negative Oil – by BGE

All sorts of impossible things happen all the damn time on Wall Street.  Negative interest rates? Pay for the privilege of lending money, crazy talk.   Well, right now you would pay Germany 0.436% per year for the privilege of lending them money for ten years.  There’s a good reason for this, but it seems mad.  On Monday, 20 April 2020 the price of oil, or to be accurate May 2020 WTI, went negative.  At one point, you would be paid $38 to take a barrel of oil off a desperate speculator.  How did this happen?  Well, there are real supply and demand reasons that prices are low — the lockdown, Saudi Arabia vs Russia – but the reason they went negative is that we are talking about paper oil not physical oil.

I’m not an oil guy, or a commodities guy, I’m a credit guy, but futures are ubiquitous in the markets.  When we speak of oil prices we are not speaking of what you pay to take possession of a barrel, we are talking about a benchmark futures contract price. Futures are financial derivatives that oblige the buyer to buy or sell some underlying asset at a predetermined price and date.  They can be contrasted with options, which are financial derivatives that give the right, but not the obligation, to buy or sell.  There is a futures market for just about anything that is delivered in the future: corn, oil, pork bellies, stocks, bonds. Futures are standardized, trade on exchanges, and are regulated by the CFTC. There’s a thing called a Forward, which is like a future, but is traded over-the-counter with custom terms and conditions.

Futures are used by sellers (e.g., oil producers or farmers) to hedge the price of an underlying asset to prevent losses from a decrease in price.  They’re  used by buyers (e.g., airlines) to prevent losses from a future increase in price.  They’re used by investors (I’m going to call them investors since the distinction between investment and speculation is in the eye of the beholder,  like scholar) to speculate on the direction of prices, either up or down, using leverage.  If you ever “locked in a rate” on a home mortgage, you’ve basically entered into a futures contract (ok an option.)  Essentially, the hedger is transferring the future price risk to the speculator  This is a zero-sum financial transaction, but not a zero-sum social transaction, since both sides gain.  The hedger benefits from the locked in price and the speculator benefits from, or is damaged by, the volatility.

There are a couple of terms that you need to know.  The spot is the price of a fixed quantity of an asset delivered at a specific place, right now.  Backwardation is when the futures price of an asset is lower than the spot and is often a sign that investors expect the price to fall over time.  Contango, a word much loved by word nerds  is when the futures price is higher than the spot and can be a sign that investors expect prices to rise but is usually associated with the cost of carry (e.g., storage, spoilage.)  Markets tend to be in contango, but prices usually converge to the spot as the contracts approach expiration.

Contango can be weird.  It can cause a bet on rising oil prices into a loss, even though prices increase, if it is steep enough.  Not long ago, contango in oil was so severe that investing in the front month created a 15% monthly headwind.  Oil had to go up more than 15% for you to profit.  Some financial advisors will tell you to include a small commodities position to “hedge your life.”  Good advice, but the ETF’s available to the average person won’t work because of contango. Caveat emptor.  I’ll come back to this since it’s a contributor to the negative prices.

Last bits of background.  Most investors are not interested in delivering or receiving the underlying asset.  What they’re interested in is profiting on the changes in price. Thus, most contracts are closed before expiration, which is usually the third Friday of the month, but May 2020 WTI closed on Monday.   These contracts usually contain a provision to roll the contract forward.  Most investors buy on margin. That is, they use borrowed money.  The initial margin  can be only a few thousand dollars to control 1000 barrels of oil.  If the position starts to lose money, the broker will ask the investor for more money to cover the loss. If the investor doesn’t do so fast enough, the broker sells out the position and the investor has to make up any loss.  This is called the maintenance margin.  These, and the notions of limit up and limit down, which I won’t cover, are key things that make futures very volatile.  The position doesn’t have to move very much to cause large losses.

To oil. Most people think the price they see in the papers is the price of oil.  Nope, there is no “price of oil.”  Oil has different grades, different storage requirements, different everything.  A barrel of oil delivered in NY Harbor is different from a barrel of oil delivered in Bahrain.  A barrel of oil from the North Sea is very different from the sludge you get from Mexico and Venezuela.   What you see in the papers is the price of the “front-month” oil futures contract trading on the NY Mercantile Exchange for a barrel of West Texas Intermediate grade oil delivered on a specific date at Cushing, Oklahoma.  Phew. This is the US oil price you see in the papers. You might also see something called Brent Crude, which is the same sort of thing for North Sea oil.  There’s something called spot, but it isn’t very important to the markets. The US Energy Information Administration (EIA) collects weekly spot and future prices from all over the world, so you can see what this means if you’re interested.

Demand for oil has collapsed because of the lockdown.  At the same time, OPEC has been breaking up and Saudi Arabia and Russia entered into a mutual destruction pact to increase production.  The conspiracy theory is they did it to wreck US production since the US becoming a net oil exporter is the most important strategic event since the fall of the Berlin Wall.  We don’t have to keep the Strait of Hormuz open, we just have to be able to close it.  In any case, there’s oil sloshing about all over the place.  Tankers are sitting fully loaded  and Cushing, OK is about 2/3 full.  It’s very difficult to turn off an oil well and, if they have no place to put it, they’ll have to burn it off.

Let’s go back to two things from above.  First, most of the trading in oil is done by professionals who buy or sell the futures contracts themselves all day every day.  However, there are also Oil ETF’s, that allow an investor to buy into this market without being a professional.  They are derivatives of a derivative in fact.  Nothing wrong with this per se, but there had been a large flow of funds into these ETF’s by individuals and hedge funds.  A pro will hedge his position, but the ETF’s have tended to be one-way bets.  Second, these ETF’s tend to invest in the nearest date contract, in this case May 2020, which expired on Monday.

There are all sorts of monkeyshines around expiration dates as the traders try to shove the prices around.  In a leveraged trade small changes can lead to big pay-offs.  Some of that was in play here, but what we had  was what is called a “crowded trade” where there are too many people who have made the same bet.  If that bet goes wrong, you get a rush toward the exits and, occasionally you get the Triangle Shirtwaist Company fire.

There were a lot of outstanding long-contracts and those holding them had to either take delivery or sell the equivalent amount of oil, (i.e., pay someone else to take it.)  There are few buyers of oil, that’s what dropping prices mean, so selling was difficult to impossible and the investors typically have no ability to take delivery – space in Cushing does no good to a trader in NY.   The pro’s knew this, so they shorted the contract, driving down the price and forcing the longs to sell at still lower price, which caused a spiral down in price.  You might have heard of a short squeeze, this is a long squeeze and contango gone wild.

At the end of the day none of this really matters. This was a problem in paper oil, not oil. Some hedge-funds lost money and some got wiped out, we’ll see over the next couple of days. But, Brent didn’t do this, shares in Exxon barely budged on the day and are up today and the June 2020 WTI contract is selling for about $15.   Once the lockdown ends and demand returns the storage issue will ease and this will become a Wall Street legend like the day the Hunt’s tried to corner the market or the Crash of ’87.  It does illustrate the only eternal Wall Street wisdom, no-one knows nothin, and is  an object lesson that you should always understand what you’re buying.

Caveat Emptor

Healthcare Charlie Foxtrot  by Scarlett Doc

Since social distancing interventions have been implemented to limit the spread of COVID-19, many industries have faced significant changes in the way they function.  Some businesses have been temporarily shuttered.  Others continue to function with work-from-home initiatives.  Still others remain open with significant operational changes.  While these changes have been implemented with the goal of ‘flattening the curve’ to limit impacts of the virus on our healthcare system, blanket expansion of these interventions into the healthcare system may be causing more harm than good.

Much like the rest of society, the healthcare system has been modified to shift emphasis to essential services, while limiting services deemed nonessential.  Many outpatient offices have closed or switched to tele-health visits exclusively, lab and imaging centers have stopped taking non-urgent appointments, and non-emergent surgeries have been cancelled or postponed.  As a healthcare worker whose social circle is dominated by other healthcare workers I have been privy to the impacts of these changes on a variety of patients, and the potential downstream effects are concerning.

For example, multiple cancer patients have had their post-chemotherapy tumor resections postponed until after the various ‘shut-down’ directives are lifted.  Prompt tumor resection following chemotherapy reduces chance of tumor recurrence and improves long term outcomes.  Delaying resection could prolong chemotherapy treatments – which result in immunosuppression in addition to multiple other side effects – and ultimately lead to increased risk of infection, worse outcomes, increased healthcare burden, and increased morbidity and mortality.  Patients presenting with lumps and bumps that may be cancer have had diagnostic biopsies postponed – early identification and treatment of cancer is vital to prevent spread of tumors to other organs.  For patients being discharged from the hospital after surgery, treatment for life-threatening illness, or psychiatric stabilization, locating appropriate follow up is more complicated now.  Many offices are not taking new patients, and those who are often offer only tele-health visits.  Close follow-up with monitoring of vital signs and at least a targeted physical exam is important to prevent complications and readmissions.

The patients falling in the uncertain land between routine follow up and emergent care are also encountering difficulty accessing appropriate care.  Uncomplicated injuries such as a broken arm or torn ligament can often be managed in person at an outpatient orthopedic or primary care office, and imaging can be done at an outpatient imaging center.  In states and counties with stay-at-home orders in place, these outpatient services can only be accessed in person with an order from an emergency physician.  As a result, other-wise healthy patients are being diverted to the emergency room, where they are more likely to be exposed to infections such as COVID-19.

If the emergency physician doesn’t place a referral for an orthopedist and imaging, patients are often left in the lurch of delayed care.  Non-life-threatening acute injuries, without appropriate and timely follow up can become chronic injuries that require more significant intervention when finally addressed, take longer to heal or heal incompletely, or can become complicated by infection.  This translates to increased morbidity, increased mortality, preventable complications and increased healthcare utilization.

For patients who can get in to see a provider for an orthopedic injury, many will require occupational or physical therapy to help restore function and prevent muscle atrophy.  Occupational and physical therapists are important not only for patients recovering from broken bones – their interventions can reduce pain and improve function for patients with chronic and soft tissue injuries, stroke and other neurological injuries, and patients recovering from surgery.  These types of therapy often require hands-on assessments and use of various tools (weights, resistance bands, balance balls, etc.) that are shared between patients.  Due to the high risk of infection and the non-emergent nature of the care, these therapy offices have almost entirely closed across the country.  While not immediately apparent, patients who don’t receive timely access to this follow up intervention can suffer from delayed restoration of function, increased morbidity, decline in quality of life, and an overall increased burden on the healthcare system.

While many patients receiving routine follow-up care may find themselves mildly inconvenienced by closed outpatient offices, there is a minority who are disproportionately affected.  Many effective medications require regular monitoring of labs to prevent adverse outcomes and help attain and maintain therapeutic levels of medications.  Clozaril, for example, requires lab draws as often as once a week.  It is an antipsychotic that, while very effective, can cause significant damage to the immune system.  Regular lab monitoring and strict reporting requirements have produced a system that closely monitors patients for this severe outcome and forces intervention if it develops.  Restrictions have been temporarily lifted to allow patients to fill their scripts without labs, but the system is there for a reason, just like monitoring guidelines for other drugs and illnesses exist for a reason – to prevent negative outcomes and catch problems before they land a patient in the emergency room.

In closing down healthcare indiscriminately, we have created delays in care that is known to reduce negative outcomes down the road.  Delays in non-emergent care place patients at risk for increased complications that can result in more office visits, more emergency room visits, decline in quality of life, and increased morbidity and mortality.  The appointments and surgeries that are being postponed will still be there when stay-at-home restrictions are lifted, in addition to the routine burden on the system.  These delays will catch up to us. The healthcare system moves at a constant, rapid pace, and we just stopped the factory for over a month.  A month of follow up appointments. A month of surgeries. A month of therapy appointments. A month of new but non-emergent injuries. A month of labs and imaging. A month of acute complications of chronic illnesses. A month trying to avoid overwhelming our system with one illness. I think we will find when things open again that instead of being overwhelmed with one illness, we will be overwhelmed with all of them.

In addition to delaying care, we are putting healthcare staff out of work.  Hospitals and offices can’t afford staff they aren’t using and therefore have been implementing furloughs, mandatory PTO, and letting staff go.  Hopefully those nurses, techs, CNAs, doctors, ARNPs, PAs, CRNAs, etc., will still be around when we need them, otherwise facilities will be even less equipped to accommodate the increased demand that will develop when we open again.

In sum, the effects of halting care for over a month will reverberate for years – first in the surge of appointments that will likely exceed non-emergent capacity, then more chronically, with the illnesses that worsened or the increased complications from surgeries, supportive treatments, and diagnostics withheld. I don’t know that the chronic effects will be as marked as the acute, but the longer this shut-down goes on, the worse it will be.

These outcomes could be mitigated if we opened up healthcare prudently.  Sure, keep the at-the-door screenings.  Continue to limit the number of visitors in the hospital and companions at appointments.  But also, take a page from grocery stores and reserve early morning appointments for elderly and immunocompromised patients who are most at risk for infection.  Transform our waiting rooms to resemble pediatric waiting rooms with separate areas for patients with possible communicable infections as opposed to patients coming in for routine follow-up care or orthopedic injuries.  Where this can’t be done effectively, modify outpatient schedules with specific times for ‘sick’ and ‘well’ visits.  Educate patients about appropriate use of masks, gloves, hand-washing, and hand-sanitizer, and make these available in the waiting area and throughout offices.  Continue to utilize tele-health visits for appointments that don’t require a physical exam, and employ medical device companies to outfit our patients who require regular monitoring of blood pressure for example with the appropriate equipment to monitor from home and communicate these values with their providers.  Put our physical therapists, occupational therapists, lab technicians and imaging technicians back to work, with extra time between appointments to clean equipment properly.

Shutting everything down comes at a future cost, but we also can’t resume business as usual.  Many of these operational changes will benefit patients not only in limiting transmission of COVID-19, but also influenza and other communicable diseases that are omnipresent.  We should have been doing these things before COVID-19, but we can’t go back, only forward.

I consider this a very unlikely scenario, but not impossible. What is the way back from, say, Venezuela?  Do they even remember how to be free?
A subtitle of this would be “Teach your children well.” If we we go down for the long count, we can only hope that our grand kids or great grand kids will fight where we didn’t and bring back America.

Something like this was the deep background of the DST world, before the scientific glam. Now, take heart, since I first wrote that under Clinton.  And we’re not — knocks on head — there yet.

Keep going.  This is a very scary possibility but about as unlikely as the Pie in the Sky one. Take no counsel of your fears.

Someone said the future is a boot stepping on a human face forever.  They omitted saying that the past is that too. Heinlein pointed out that misery and poverty is the natural state of the human race and the “good luck” respites come when the individual is given freedom. But they usually don’t last.

It started with Winnie the Flu, and looking around and wondering why everyone else had gone mad.  Shockingly even a lot of people who were smart and whom you’d have considered rational and freedom lovers went all in on the side of the lockdown, and swore it was all justified, even though the rules made no sense and most of them had nothing to do with disease.

Not only were the numbers visible to anyone and you didn’t need a mathematical genius to see the virus was nowhere as deadly as advertised — not in a first world country — there was the obvious insanity that the New York City subway continued running through this, New Yorker’s ability to travel was unimpaired, despite being a hot spot, but New Yorkers screamed at everyone wanting to re-open the economy and save us from famine. Or the fact that most large cities had policemen enforcing draconian locked-at-home measures, while the homeless roamed more freely than ever, congregating in empty sidewalks and parking lots and — how strange — still alive and unharmed.

BUT the few people who screamed about this were dismissed as “denialists.”  Apparently denialists of the end of the world.

And the government band played on.

And the two weeks turned into a month and a half to three months lockdown, destroying businesses, livelihoods, lives, and disrupting many supply chains including those for food. The fact people were confined in the house, watching TV 24/7 and that TV was non stop doom porn didn’t help.  It never occurred to anyone that if TV could dramatize everyone under 80 who died, it was because there were so few of them.  Instead people panicked.

Bizarre abilities were attributed to the virus, including of flying 17 feet and hanging suspended in the air for hours.  Like the original research that prompted the order on six feet distance, this should have the additional “in laboratory circumstances. And if humans breathed aerosol.”  While there’s water vapor in your breath, you don’t BREATH water particles large enough to have the virus in them. And short of a sneeze or something similar you don’t breath 17 feet out. But people believed this. And didn’t realize “virus” is a viral load so small it couldn’t infect anyone.

There were protests, but a lot of states clamped down on them, and as things reopened the protests died down.

And the virus returned in the fall, and the hype and panic started again. In a transparent bid to recrash the fragile rebuilding to win the elections and get power, the media servants of the left party started the “We’re all going to die” drum.  And people obeyed.

There was a “temporary” lockdown in November and in the all vote by mail the left party won a stunning victory that might or might not have more votes than logical or plausible.

But people were too scared, some of the virus, some of the already precarious conditions. Too busy trying to find food.

The unlocking in December was trusted-people first.  And in the aftermath — because the virus was so bad, you see — strict tracking of every citizen was instituted. Strict social credit too.

Want to keep a blog, or talk on your phone more than peer-to-peer one person at a time? Your social credit has to be perfect.

No one knows how many people died the winter of 20/21 or how many by famine and how many by bullet.  Many a hunter in the woods, accidentally uncovers a mass grave, but if he knows what’s good for him, he doesn’t talk, and when the police who track the phone he must carry later ask what he saw, if he knows what’s good for him, he saw nothing.  With a few years of staying silent, he might be trusted again.

And he has to be trusted. Everyone does. Otherwise buying necessities is impossible. They’re so scarce anyway.  And having a job is a privilege. Receiving your dole if you don’t work is a privilege too.

There are occasional rebellions, attacks on important people. Or at least that’s the rumor. But it’s never reported.

If you manage to kill someone important on camera, you just sealed a death warrant for everyone you know. And the viewers, if they’re smart, will forget.

Periodically, if the rulers sense something particularly unsettled, they might lock down an entire region. It’s always a “virus.”

After 2028 they stopped bothering with the elections.  We don’t know why power changes sometimes, only that the new face shows up on TV and nothing changes.

But we’re living. More or less.  Most people live.  We’re told people abroad aren’t that lucky.  of course, no one not cleared has gone abroad in a long time.

Maybe some day someone will rebel in the name of freedom again, but food is so scarce, and even talking of how things used to be will get your ration card pulled.

So, all we can do is dream.

Before I begin, I want to make clear you guys understand I consider this one and the next one the most unlikely scenarios.  Even more so than pie in the sky.  And that this one is almost impossible to write, because the possibilities for “where do we go next” are endless.  This one is not impossible, though.

I also want to point out, as always, that what we see is a combination of all of them, and varying WIDELY among states.

This one took me a long time to think through, so another thing I want to make clear is that once the rocket goes up for the boogaloo, EVERYTHING is on the table.  Everything?  Everything. From a complete break up of the US (though that will take time, because right now the population is too mixed) to a Napoleon figure who buys us a temporary respite and might actually form an “American Empire” depending on internal pressures at the time, and how bad the rest of the world is, to well… the other side of winning. Which is the last scenario, only in that one there’s no boog.

And whatever the result is, even if order is ever restored, you’re probably going to lose everyone who is now 55 and older in the next five years.  Both because we’re not really good to go running around the mountains with various weapons, and because we’re more susceptible to viruses and illnesses that always accompany war. (Always? Always. They’re a symptom of disruption and bad nutrition.)  BUT mostly because our life expectancy as humans hasn’t changed that much without more or less constant intervention. Remember Shakespeare was “very old” at a year older than I?  Yeah.  Without the thyroid meds, I’d — if still alive — now be unable to keep a coherent thought for more than two minutes. Frankly, I was already there, I just could force it, but it took a lot of effort.  A LOT.  And at any rate, I’d probably have died of a heart attack by now.

A lot of us have this sort of thing. It’s honestly not a big deal. It’s not a life-or-death thing if you can get one tiny, little, cheap pill a couple of times a day.  However, failing that, your life expectancy is markedly shorter. That will leave what comes after in the hands of people under that age.  Most of whom have no clue what the US or the Constitution mean, by design of the lefties.  Remember that.

So, with that — the third best option….

It was around June the rocket went up.  No one was quite sure what caused it, because it didn’t happen in JUST one place, but seemed to happen everywhere in the space of a week.

About half of the nation was open for business then, but there were lags, one of them being getting hospitals open again.  (Operating on a tight margin, a lot of them were unable to come back from the lock down anyway) another one being getting food to the stores regularly.  The glut of beef caused by the slaughtering of dairy herds that farmers had trouble feeding, led to a lack of milk, which in turn, started turning into a lack of meat, as the glut ran out.

Worse was the fact that the lock downs were increasingly crazy and inconsistent.  And that some states opened up, then closed down tight after ten new cases hit the hospital.

Someday when there is enough leisure and money somewhere to study the matter, someone will discover the true, first trigger to armed insurrection.

Was it when New Jersey, for the upteenth time blocked a protest and started arresting protestors?  Was it people protesting the closure of their local hospital being shot on by state guard in another state?  Was it the food riots in Chicago? Or the subway riots in New York City?

Figuring it out is more complicated because the media never reported these until it was everywhere at once.  People woke up one morning to find out the nearest large-ish city was burning, there were shots nearby, and large, angry mobs in the street, and your nearest highway was bound to be blocked.

They did the sane thing and hunkered down, this time for cause, turned on the TV — mostly showing governors assuring people everything was all right — and waited for things to calm down.

They didn’t.

As chaos deepened, everything descended to rumor and confusion.  As those who had seen these situations before warned, you’re never aware of how messy things will get, until you find yourself in the middle of it.  You can’t tell what a mob is, even if you happen to be on their side, and they’re likely to go for you or not…. on a minute’s decision.  All the crunchy cons, who dress like hippies, are as likely to get hit by a conservative armed group as are hard lefties who dress like hippies. It’s all on the look.

We are in the tenth year of the rebellion.  You’d think it would have burned out by now, but there is just enough coherence and order to keep food on the table — sort of — most places.

Yes, the US army has engaged, but no one is even sure on what side.  The answer is probably “on all”.  We believe they are trying, most of all, to restore peace, except there is very little left.  And a conventional army always has trouble with guerilla warfare.

Ordinary Americans still live, through this.  Those who can work from home, if home is in a safe place and they can find a market for their work.  And you remember how you hit the net during a snow storm, to find out what streets were safe to drive on? Same thing. Only it’s with gunfire and explosions as the risk.  Informal networks, both of neighborhood and on line also communicate when food is available and where.  You might even be able to find your local doctor, who is often operating way outside his specialty and with no materials but is better than nothing.

The possibility of driving to the grocery store and finding yourself in the middle of a pitched battle is always there.

Some small towns are fine, operating normally — as normally as it’s possible under this — but they are very careful whom they let in.  You have to be known or known to someone.  Big cities, not one is quite sure.  People still seem to be living among the burned out hulls of high rises, and there is even some sort of work going on.

There are reports of insane dictatorships in some states, and some parts of big cities, but no one knows for sure. It might be fiction.

“Journalists” and big media were the first casualties, either killed or simply ignored until they disappeared.  We won’t say they didn’t deserve it.

There are rumors of a force marching on Washington DC to capture it and make some sort of order. Some people say it is the US military itself. Other people… well, reports vary.

Orders are given periodically purporting to come from the government, but since everything comes through informal networks, it’s impossible to be sure.  We thought they had a network just for this?

This can’t go on forever.  Right now, what’s happening is people leaving places they feel are hostile to join either family or their ideological brethren.  That too is an order of sorts. The population is choosing territory.

But ideologies are confusing.  Apparently younger people never learned much of what the republic was founded on.  The one thing we fear is that this is lost forever.

Those of us who were science fiction fans when this started keep saying that at this point Starship Troopers is a best case scenario.

And it could be worse.

I’m continuing the four paths leading forward from where we are now.

Four is a gross oversimplification, of course, as there are probably hundreds, and each of these will partake a bit of the others.

And because the usual suspects will think I am sketching my idea of Utopia, let me point out my idea of Utopia is Pie in the Sky where Marxism is defeated without blood and the future gives freedom to every weirdo (I are one) and oddling without fear. And where the boundaries of humanity’s hope are enhanced by technology.

HOWEVER if we’re going to boog, this is the best case scenario. And frankly it’s as much “pie in the sky” as the previous one because the possibilities of it going very, very ugly are much higher.  Once you toss the dice of civil war, it could be worse. And probably will be.  (BTW all of these are scenarios in which the US survives as a nation, though perhaps in the last two only in name. The ones in which we break apart and become neighboring hostile nations are all worse. For us, and for the world.)

So, here we go.  2020, later referred to as “the year we saw clearly.”

As the lockdown extended into July in some places, and the other places were far from normal, as the obviousness mounted of shortages, and that those who had presumed to tell us what to do were not only wrong but criminally so, unrest started to happen.

The fourth of July was bad across the country, as the nation woke to what had happened in Sacramento, and there was a brief attempt to demonize “militias” which had worked so well under Clinton.  But while horrified by the events shown on TV, America as a whole had listened to the media for the last time. So the attempt had the opposite effect.  One on one, neighborhood by neighborhood, neighbors started talking, organizing. At least in the functional parts of the country, this resembled more a mutual aid society.  “Oh, your computer needs a part my dead computer might have.” and “I see little Timmy has outgrown his shoes. Well, since they still won’t let thrift stores happen and clothing stores are having supply issues, let me see if I have a pair Billy wore only for a month before his growth spurt.”

The internet is up, and the part of America that does things and learns things (the majority of it given a chance) is hitting you tube for gardening videos, shoe repair videos, canning and food preserving suggestions, and generally busy as a bee.

In the functioning part of America — everywhere but some cities, really — things are tight and bad, but not horrible.  The other parts of America receive aid from the federal government in the form of supply trucks.  Cereal and rice normally sent to the rest of the world, are distributed to American citizens.  Special diet? Well, no room, really.

Some people still doing very well even in urban enclaves. And some have formed their own mutual aid societies.  Some not so well.

As cold hits and  the personnel to man power plants isn’t always available — the authorities are still being paranoid about colds and there are union rules — even those who are self-sufficient pass some very cold nights.  Media’s dramatization of homeless freezing in the streets is shrugged off by a population that is scrambling for the next meal (having money doesn’t mean there’s food you can afford.) Strangely a lot of the homeless clean up. More than freeze or starve? Who knows. It’s not like the media covers those.  There are also some brutal crimes, some food riots, neighborhoods perceived as “rich” under siege by those who wish to redistribute.  No one knows how many. The media makes it sound like “they’re coming for you next, and you must elect socialists to save you.”  The socialist rethoric is now strident.  You’re fairly sure 2020 has lasted a lifetime. Your doctor is still only sporadically in, as your local government takes sudden panics over “infection.” And you know damn well that grandma wouldn’t have died of her cancer if she’d had some chemo. She was only in her early seventies, too, and you were counting on her for babysitting.

When the famine hit in the rest of the world, including parts of Europe, most people didn’t even notice.  They noticed the push at the border. They noticed politicians talking about the brotherhood of man and how we should open our borders and ship all our food abroad.  In a leaner — literally — and more food-anxious population this goes over like a lead balloon.

Which is probably why all hell breaks loose when the election results come in and the international socialists won.

Isn’t it weird it should start in Boston, so long a bastion of that exact ideology.  Maybe there are places that are fated.

No one really knows what happened. Yes, there are people who save to take their kids to see the monument and the liberty bell that was broken out of bounds to ring that day.  But no one really knows the rights of it. Was it really a riot over representation and vote dilution? Or was it over food? Or was it, as the media tried to say for a while, “white supremacist” guerillas?  There are learned people writing learned books about it.  It’s fascinating to the part of the population fascinated by that. Not very large, since few have the leisure, time and excess wealth to devote to such things.

This time, though, it wasn’t like Sacramento.  It was more like the powder keg we’d long been tapping dancing on went up, all of a sudden, without warning.

They don’t recommend you teach your kids about the winter of 20-21 until they’re mature enough. They leave it to you to decide what mature enough is, but for most people it’s just before franchise. Which is now 21 in most states and restricted in the way each state decided.

The left as it was before the boog — and it is a mark we are still Americans that that fossilized joke made it into teaching materials — would say the franchise was racist, sexist….  Whatever.  In most states both men and women can vote, and all colors.  Note “in most states.”  The franchise is universal, but you have to qualify, but the qualifications vary by state.  Because those decisions went back to the states. Because the insanity of treating the entire country as NYC taught people that it’s better to be local. Really local. That’s the other thing: you want to run in a state, you’d best have been born there.  And for voting…. well, we think the minimum qualifying residence is 5 years. Those jokers in Ohio were always lax. Also they wanted to attract population, despite their winters.

Most states agree that you’re an adult after you served in the army or have been married for 3 years with at least one child.  SSM?  Well, some states allow it. Cut your cloth to fit your pattern. You might have to immigrate to another state. Yes, it’s a pain now a days. But that’s the result of sending power back to the states and disempowering the out of touch feds.

Whether the fiddly bits of the person you marry are unlike yours or not, devolving to local rule means Mrs. Grundy has a say.  The Karens didn’t go away. But instead of policing you for compliance with mask policy or compliance with the latest SJW command, after the boog the Karens want you to know you should be married, faithful and living a life just like everyone else.

We never go social credit or intrusion by the state. But we find out the tyranny of our neighbors is just as strong.

Oh, the boog was brief but horrible.  Between it and increasing economic disorganization, we lost more people and wealth than we could afford.  The US is a young country. Neighborhoods are full of children. Most of the children are either homeschooled, or schooled in neighborhood-arranged schools so the parents can go to work.  Admission to college (rare) or trade school is by merit exam. No one collects data on the race of the applicants. They seem representative of the area it’s drawn from.

But college or trade school come after the army.  Mandatory for men. Voluntary for women.  Strangely no one complains women aren’t given combat posts, by and large (there are exceptions.  The beast is always hungry), probably because serving in the army has a real chance of dying.  People joke about it, nervously, as “have two and one for the war.”  Most people have more, simply because they remember the twenties and how the elderly with no support network …  well, most of them didn’t starve. But it wasn’t pretty.

People from the late 1900s would say we’ve become a militaristic society. It’s true to a point.  There are very few men who didn’t serve, and a bit of the mannerisms and attitudes translate to civilian life.

But you see, it wasn’t a choice.  We caught that nuke right after the boog, because no one was paying attention to what was going on abroad, as our media tried to shape, instead, what they wanted to happen in the US.  And then there was that EMP attack. Not as much damage as there might have been, but let’s say the winter of 21-22 also shouldn’t be talked about to young children.  So our young men go to war. Because the world is a mess. And we don’t want the — real, this time, not orchestrated — border-rush of — real, this time, not orchestrated — refugees and starving families of 22.  No one should ever have to shoot desperate people. But the US was too close to the edge, itself.  And the rest of the world…. well, if the Europeans wouldn’t involve us in their to-the-death knife fights, it would be nice. But you know that’s not how it works.  And we do need to protect trade, such as it is. And even with news being all weird and non-centralized, what happened in Frankfurt should never happen again anywhere.  We’re not the world’s police, but cannibalism, really? in the twenty first century?

China went very quiet after the nuclear exchange, but we still patrol the seas. Japan is rebuilding and has A birthrate. As we said rebuilding. Russia is a permanent threat, as they’ve been most of their history, and airplanes and guided missiles allow them to threaten the world, not just their neighbors.

Anyway, your kids will come back from service, and tell you they can’t tell you everything but you catch a look sometimes, a shadow in their eyes.

And if you lose a child…. you might never know how or where.

Those who remember civil liberties don’t like this and talk of the real danger of military dictatorship.  If we elect the wrong man — or woman — and particularly if a bio agent really hits us and it’s worse than the panic of 2020.  This is why the obsession with devolving power to the smallest unit. And giving states more say than the Feds. But people who lived through the boog as adults remember how fast things can change, and get nervous.

How free are people?  Well….  Most of the country they’re okay, at least in terms of the government.  There are pockets where we hear of odd things. But it’s so difficult to get unbiased news. (Shame what happened to those TV stations, but we sort of understand. People blamed them for the madness and destruction of 2020. They weren’t wrong.) You hear it from your neighbor who has an internet gaming friend on the other coast, and who heard it from a cousin’s friend.  It’s possible none of that is true.

Still, we know from our own neighborhoods that we’re not free-free.  You might be free in law, but Karen would like you to know they saw you smiling at the guy from the garage at the fourth of July barbecue. And don’t tell her he’s your cousin. She’d have heard.  And your kids will be laughed at in the neighborhood school, and damn it, you’d better behave. Because, well, at some point you might need the neighbors’ help.

There are no internal passports.  But few people travel. “Foreigners” has come to mean “people from another state.”  Part of it honestly was the loss of airline fleets during the whole mess. And we never really had the money to recoup.  Sure, you can travel by car. But those stories you hear, from over in the next state make you a little hesitant.  Those who do are considered wild and crazy.  And wild and crazy isn’t good.  They might tolerate you if they know you really well, in your local area. BUT, well…. traveling might not be too bright. Every place has bad elements, and if you run afoul of those, well…

The “new normal” is probably hardest of all on people who stick out. No, not skin color (though of course in some areas that makes you stick out, but if they know you, you’re fine. OTOH be pale in a predominantly dark neighborhood, and just arrived and you’ll at least be shunned till they get to know you.  Though probably not a lot worse than any stranger is shunned. And the reverse is true, also, color wise, of course.) and sexual orientation — well, we hear stories of some parts of the US, but we don’t know if they’re true — but just strangeness.  Are you one of those people who reads weird stuff? Or likes to wear clothes not befitting your age? Or just styles her hair weird? Do you let your garden get full of weeds because you were busy building a dragon sculpture? Well…. You won’t get attacked. Not most places. BUT let’s say if something happens the neighborhood will assume you did it. And if we get in straits again…. well.  So outwardly we’re a very conformist society. Probably not as bad as Japan pre 2020.  PROBABLY. Well, not most places.

Oh, the economy?  It’s doing fine. Rebuilding. See, you don’t need to live where you work, if you have a job that’s not serving the locals.  Most of those are intensely local, and most kids are trained for trades.  But if your trade is computer-based or can be done remotely, you can work anywhere, and often do.

The internet is up, and some people call it “relief valve for eccentrics.” (Or Odds as odd people call it.)  The most common reason to move across states and endure the time of suspicion and disenfranchisement is this guy/gal you met online.

World trade is a more difficult matter. And produce and such tend to be more regional, as does manufacturing of essential stuff like medicine, or clothing.  Our diet is more seasonal and not as varied, but we’ve learned. Almost everyone has stores “in case.”

The big cities recovered too. Some people will always want to live where the excitement is.  Honestly, if you’re an odd, it’s the best place to be, and lots of artists flock there, which creates its own gravity and people are less likely to ask you why those two young ladies stayed at your place last night.  Less likely but not unlikely, mind you.  Cities have neighborhoods. Neighborhoods have their own Karens.  Everyone hates the Karen, but no one does much about it.

To someone from the 20th century, our cities would look cleaner and safer (most places. If you don’t stick out.)  Homeless?  Well, you might see some vagrants, but the drug trade hasn’t really recovered (pot, sure, some places, but honestly vegetables pay off better and there’s only so much land and time to tend crops. No one much cares if you have a few plants in your garden, as long as the neighbors aren’t allergic, and you’re not visibly stone in public. Like being drunk in public, Karen will enforce her displeasure on those.) And most people in genuine need get looked after by charitable organizations. A lot of them are those who were late middle age and managed to live through the boog. (A minority.)

Your doctor, by the way, might live across the country. But the local nurse will take your vitals and confer with him or her over the net.  Most people are okay with their care. Most care is pays-in-cash. Charitable organizations help with the rest. In a few states the state will help if no one else will.  People are starting to live really long again, so we must be doing something right. Some states allow for more experimental drugs than others. There are complaints both ways.

All in all?  Well….  Libertarians complain. Marxists…. Not many of those around, or at least not vocal. For one, we’re seeing how his “planned economies” are playing out in most of the world.

Land of the Free?  Well, sure. I mean, as compared to what? It’s not like we’re locking you in for months and preventing from working at your trade. That idiocy told its own tale.  Your rights are respected in most states (the ones that don’t, well, the feds take years and years to decide to intervene, so some people pack up and leave.  It’s not as common as you’d think). Unless they’re violated by your neighbors, but you take it up with them.

We lost untold people and wealth in the boog. Our world is smaller, more restricted, both in self-expression and in expectations. It would seem miserable to people from the 20th century. But we’re doing all right. We’re rebuilding. And tech allows us to be a little richer, and have a source of escape.

Of course there ain’t much for space exploration, though there are rumors the army is doing stuff up there, at least to prevent us from being suckerpunched.  But we’re not sure, because, well, news is local and sometimes it’s just rumors. And military secrets are kept, which is justifiable in a nation at war on many fronts.

Sure, we don’t like it, but then again no one asked us.  (And honestly, most of us died in 20-21 — SAH)

But you know what? People aren’t hungry. And most people have all the freedom they need in their day to day life.  People who’ve been in the army or the few that have traveled abroad, will tell you it could be worse. A lot worse.

(And probably will be – SAH)

UPDATE AND IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT FOR COLORADO PEEPS: GRIDLOCK PROTEST AT THE CAPITOL TODAY AT ONE. MAKE JARED POLIS CRY AGAIN!

Book Promo

*Note these are books sent to us by readers/frequenters of this blog.  Our bringing them to your attention does not imply that we’ve read them and/or endorse them, unless we specifically say so.  As with all such purchases, we recommend you download a sample and make sure it’s to your taste.  If you wish to send us books for next week’s promo, please email to bookpimping at outlook dot com. If you feel a need to re-promo the same book do so no more than once every six months (unless you’re me or my relative. Deal.) One book per author per week. Amazon links only. Oh, yeah, by clicking through and buying (anything, actually) through one of the links below, you will at no cost to you be giving a portion of your purchase to support ATH through our associates number. I ALSO WISH TO REMIND OUR READERS THAT IF THEY WANT TO TIP THE BLOGGER WITHOUT SPENDING EXTRA MONEY, CLICKING TO AMAZON THROUGH ONE OF THE BOOK LINKS ON THE RIGHT, WILL GIVE US SOME AMOUNT OF MONEY FOR PURCHASES MADE IN THE NEXT 24HOURS, OR UNTIL YOU CLICK ANOTHER ASSOCIATE’S LINK. PLEASE CONSIDER CLICKING THROUGH ONE OF THOSE LINKS BEFORE SEARCHING FOR THAT SHED, BIG SCREEN TV, GAMING COMPUTER OR CONSERVATORY YOU WISH TO BUY. That helps defray my time cost of about 2 hours a day on the blog, time probably better spent on fiction. ;)*

FROM NITAY ARBEL:  Operation Flash, Episode 3: Spring Awakening.

The third installment of the alternate history series where Hitler and Himmler were assassinated in March 1943.
A desperate military situation forces Carl Goerdeler’s Emergency Reich Government (ERG) to make a bargain with the devil.
Across the Channel, Winston Churchill plays for time as he pursues a separate peace with Goerdeler.
Two old acquaintances make the first steps on a long march toward national atonement.
And meanwhile, the ERG’s deadliest enemy lurks within its gates.

FROM NATHAN BISSONETTE:  Kobold and Centaur.

Worst Prom date ever. Steph only went with Sam because nobody else asked her. Besides, it’s just for Prom, right? It’s not forever. But that was before the little man with pointed ears handed them enchanted scrolls that sent them out of this world. Now she’s stuck far from home in a different body. Can Steph and Sam make it home in time to save the Earth without getting killed? Or killing each other? And what about the Prince?

FROM THOMAS SEWELL: Techno Ranger: A Sam Harper Military Thriller.

North and South Korea are on a collision course with the prospect of reigniting war in this action-packed military thriller!

1LT Sam Harper, surfing engineer, tries to fit in on his new job. He’ll risk everything to prevent mass destruction.

Sam’s intelligence analysts identify security vulnerabilities in a government lab in Seoul.

Meanwhile, his CIA ex-girlfriend complicates his life with her spy priorities.

A desperate North Korean general sends a naive Special Forces lieutenant and his team across the DMZ to steal nuclear materials technology.

Sends them disguised to infiltrate the top-secret lab Sam protects.

Sam will need all his combat and technical skills to safeguard those he cares about, but his involvement with a traitor and a CIA temptress may teach him the wrong lessons about who to trust.

FROM MARY CATELLI:  Enchantments And Dragons.

A wizard must produce justice enough to satisfy a dragon.

A young man tries to rob a tiger’s lair.

An enchantress tries to keep a court safe while they ignore the perils of misusing her magic.

A lady finds that court intrigues can spread even to the countryside.

And more tales.

Includes “Over the Sea To Me,” “Dragonfire and Time”, “The Maze, the Manor, and the Unicorn”, “The White Menagerie”, “The Dragon’s Cottage,” “Jewel of the Tiger,” and “The Sword Breaks.”

FROM PAM UPHOFF: War Party.

Ice is a powerful magician and trained warrior. His day job, however, is political analyst, and it is once again election year.

Hopefully with fewer explosions and snipers than the last one, but in the Empire of the One, what sounds like a boring desk job is anything but.

Especially when al old flame gets pissed enough to jump into the presidential race.

Between assassins on the loose, duels to the death, and a sense of something nasty coming his way, Ice is going to be busy.

ALMA T. C. BOYKIN:  Gloriously Familiar: Familiar Tales Book Eleven.

Dragons, fires, a haunted piano, and a haunted young man.

Six stories of mystery, history, memories, and adventure. From a quiet mage with silver knitting needles to an accidental dragon and an ancient story teller, to a Mare of Unusual Size and a Familiar of Unusual Activity, there’s something for everyone in this collection. Meet new friends, catch up with old ones, and wonder with Lilia if André ever will learn.

Vignettes by Luke, Mary Catelli and ‘Nother Mike.

So what’s a vignette? You might know them as flash fiction, or even just sketches. We will provide a prompt each Sunday that you can use directly (including it in your work) or just as an inspiration. You, in turn, will write about 50 words (yes, we are going for short shorts! Not even a Drabble 100 words, just half that!). Then post it! For an additional challenge, you can aim to make it exactly 50 words, if you like.

We recommend that if you have an original vignette, you post that as a new reply. If you are commenting on someone’s vignette, then post that as a reply to the vignette. Comments — this is writing practice, so comments should be aimed at helping someone be a better writer, not at crushing them. And since these are likely to be drafts, don’t jump up and down too hard on typos and grammar.

If you have questions, feel free to ask.

Your writing prompt this week is: EXTEND.*

*The management wishes to emphasize it is not responsible for the Vignette TeamTM handing you guys these straight lines.  Also it wants to declare in advance that “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I can’t do anything with these three.”

Addendum: I would also like to thank you for prayers.  I’m feeling better. (I think I’ll go for a walk.)  Though still somewhere between baffled at this mass psychotic episode and enraged at the destruction wrought, I now have hope sanity is reasserting itself, at least that brand of very American sanity that consists of saying “No, you can’t tell me what to do.”  I also have found a renewed hope that just as a small dose of a pathogen can vaccinate the potential host against the real disease this bit of craziness will inoculate America against the idea of a government that can violate your rights and destroy your life at will.  No, it’s not guaranteed. Nothing ever is. I also suspect it’s one of those vaccines that needs regular boosts.  But in the sense that the burned hand teaches best, this insanity of “rule by experts” and the (I am sure) pain we’ll all experience for a couple of years might teach us to avoid the worst. Keep praying. – SAH

*For the previous chapters, please go here. These are posted first draft, as the brain dictates to the fingers which are remarkably stupid. Eventually it will be cleaned up and fixed just before page is made secret/taken down and the book is published. At that time I will take lists of typos or volunteers to proof read. For now, it’s written in a hurry, usually an hour before it goes up. And, let me remind you, it’s free – SAH*

Witch’s Daughter by Sarah A. Hoyt

Installment 4

Shadow

Before Albinia had realized what was happening, Michael had jumped on her, and was holding her down, while there was a curious sound like hail all around, combined with a sound of howling wind.  And she tried to protest, but he wasn’t letting her up.

Things that Mrs. Hodges had told her flitted through her mind in sudden panic.  When she’d told Mrs. Hodges that she’d rather not let Michael know she was a girl, because, she thought, men could steal a woman’s virtue, Mrs. Hodges had told her not to let him touch her, or force her into any position, and that she’d be all right.  Though it was also a good idea not to be alone with him behind closed doors.

The later accorded so much with things Mama had said, that Al could only imagine it meant that when alone with a girl or in a position of command over her, a man could then steal her magic and do with it as he wished.

Panicked, unable to see, because part of Michael’s — or should that be Lord Michael’s? — cravat had come undone and flopped in front of her face, Albinia made futile attempts to get up.

The worst part is she knew they were futile. First because the big lump must outweigh her by double, and second because as the youngest sister of six boys she knew that it was almost impossible to overpower them, even the ones who were about her size.  Which was why she’d learned early on to use her magic–

The though was useful. She didn’t need to maim him, or even seriously hurt him.  She’d learned early on that sharp and concentrated force applied to a vulnerable area would get the young man distracted enough for her to then fight free.

Of course, if  he’s already stolen my virtue–

But she’d try. The other thing she learned, growing up, is that you always tried.

With everything in her, she closed her eyes, and concentrated on the back of his neck.  she’d had a view of it as they came into the house, and remembered it clearly: the pink skin beneath his hair.  And then under her breath she muttered the easiest incantations for effect.  If she still could do it, and had it right, it would feel like a giant mosquito sting on the back of his neck.

She aimed for effect and let it fly.

“Ouch!” came from above, and for just a moment, she felt his reaction, a slight movement, as probably his hand went to the back of his neck.

She took the opportunity to lever herself on one elbow, dig the other into what she hoped was his mid-riff, as she shoved with her whole body to get him off her, and then, before he could get hold again, before she even blinked, to leap away from him and–

That was when she slowed down enough, even as Lord Michael shouted, “Hey, I was trying–” to realize that the window that had been behind them: a vast affair composed of many little squares of glass encased in a framework of lead had broken inward, with force.

There were little pieces of glass all over the floor.  She assumed that was the sound of hail that she had heard.  She realized he’d been trying to protect her, probably guessing — accurately — that the impact of the glass would be less on the sturdier fabric of his suit.  Even so, she realized that the back of his neck wasn’t exactly as her mental image had been.  There were now myriad tiny cuts, as though he’d been excoriated by the glass, which now she thought about it, he had been.  As he turned around, anger in his eyes, she said, “I’m sorry.  I know you were trying to protect me, but I couldn’t see–  I had to see–”

He looked confused, but only for a moment.

The gale force winds, which must have blown the window in hadn’t abated at all, and now, through the window, came something dark and formless, something immense and man shaped but which looked like it was made wholly out of smoke.

Al didn’t even mind that Lord Michael stepped in front of her.  She could feel him, vaguely, because she sensed that he was working with forces bigger than she could command, assembling something magical.  But it was complicated, and difficult, and the figure coming through the window swatted it aside with a giant hand made of shadow and smoke.

And then…..
She would never be clear precisely what happened next, but she saw the thing grab Lord Michael, like a kitten by the scruff of the neck.

Albinia didn’t think. If she’d thought this would be the last thing she’d do.  But her body reacted before her mind could. She grabbed for him, around his midriff.

And suddenly she was suspended middair, holding on to the young man, while — inexplicably — they both flew suspended over London, much higher than even the boat had flown.
*Guys, I know, I know this is very short. But I really have a million things to do. I’ll try to finish the chapter later today. – SAH*

In this series of posts, I’m going to sketch what I view as four probable futures coming from this.  Mind you, I’m a fiction writer, not a prophet. These futures would probably all have bits of each other in it. Because people are mixed up and messy.

Only one of them — this one — is unalloyed “good” (as much as anything is in the real world) and I start with it, partly because I don’t want to send you into the weekend depressed. Also because I’m doing my best to avoid bottoming out on depression, because last night’s presidential weaseling of guidelines solidified for me that we now live in a socialist economy. Our only choice is between national-socialists (no, not like Hitler. Hitler was an aberration. The others, by and large, didn’t kill their own people in batch lots, just in lost of opportunity, despair, poverty.) and international socialists. The economy will never be free, and your ability to pursue happiness will never be your own again.  Not unless….

In this scenario people set themselves free.  At some point, they get tired of the disaster porn the media is feeding them and get out of their basements, and look around to realize that no, we’re not all dying like flies, there are no bodies on the streets, the hospitals are so far from overwhelmed that doctors and nurses are choreographing dance numbers in the hallways, all while grandma’s cancer gets worse, and mom goes without heart surgery because the government closed the hospitals, to make way for a surge of COVID-19 deaths that never happened.

Then people get angry and jam the streets and start screaming and yelling and refusing to be arrested. They, in fact, become the America Hong Kong thinks we are.

The governors, in terror, realize they’ve gone too far, and lost all plausible cover.

If this happens soon enough, it will be tight this winter, but not outright famine.  If this happens soon enough, and Trump realizes it (if he has a talent, it is reading people) he puts the blame squarely where it belongs.  He denounces “governing by “experts”” and does a 90 degree turn and tells us how we were fooled.  And what the media and the DNC (BIRM) did to the country, all to put their spokeszombie in charge.

He wins in a landslide, but with the other side completely discredited.  At which point he cleans house, the Dems fall apart (I told you it was a dream) and the election in 2024 is between Republicans and Libertarians. And I don’t know for whom I’d vote, at least if Pence is the nominee, because as head of the Covid-19 task force he seems to believe experts and reach for the authoritarian lever, given a choice.  I don’t like his personality as seen in this response, and his personality is all we have to go on.  So it would depend on how wild-eyed open-borders the Libertarian was. (Because open borders are a bad, bad idea when the rest of the world is largely unfree.)

If it happens soon enough, say no later than mid May, the winter will suck like living hell, but America recovers. America recovers fast.  Regulations that impair the opening of factories and America doing for itself are struck down. Everyone goes to work, and Welfare becomes a distant, bad memory.  The economy takes off like a rocket, because bad as we’ll be we’ll still be way better than 90% of the world.

And because people have seen what schools and colleges are doing to their kids, homeschooling grows exponentially. Perhaps not everyone, but a vast majority of parents in jobs that work from home opt to teach their kids from home.  Because the job market is so tight, kids are encouraged to join the gig economy as soon as they’re able (and laws are relaxed. Look, our laws are insane, okay. 15 year olds have never been “children.”)  College becomes less relevant, and what remains is real scholarship and real training.

Eventually — I’d like tomorrow, but I know it’s more likely to be ten years — the stupid tax collection laws online are done away with, and people can trade and work across state lines, start up their own sales sites and not be dependent on vast, increasingly unresponsive corporations.

In ten years, from a happy, prosperous America starting to colonize space, we look back at this moment of utter insanity and say “yeah, but without it, the breakage of the old institutions would have been slower, more painful, and we’d have ended up in a more centralized and less free society.”

And 2020 initiates the beginning of the Liberty century, one in which individuals become more and more free each year, until the crazy theories of that angry inkblot, Marx, are no more than a bad memory and referred to in wondering confusion, as we talk about phrenology.

Sure, people still need to fight to KEEP their freedom, but the corner will have been turned, and we’ll be undoing the closing of minds and opportunity of the 20th century.

No, I do not believe it is likely. But I WANT to believe.

[Because C.C. is right, and depression is a passive mode, also a vulnerable mode that makes you susceptible to getting ill and to just not doing anything, even what you know you should do, I’m going to combat mine starting tomorrow (but taking the weekend off for the other stuff, including promo I didn’t do last wee) to sketch where we are, and where I think we’re headed.

The where I think we’re headed will be four scenarios, only two of which avoid the boog, and only ONE of which is in any way good. (And the one that requires the most action NOW.)

You should have received your “Please don’t boog” money and if you don’t need it for immediate expenses, it’s time to consider how to put it into durable goods, because where we’re going, you’ll need a barrel of money to buy coffee.

So tomorrow I’ll explain my sense of where we’re going (why, let’s tie a ribbon on the handbasket handle. That will make it ALL better.)  More tomorrow.  – SAH]

I’m not often baffled by the insanity of crowds, but I’m genuinely baffled by the insanity over the entire Winnie the Flu episode.

I mean, I’m used to the idea that people will smell the fear of others and be infected. I’ve seen it happen. As I’ve told you before (I think) if mom hadn’t reached into a crowd and slammed me against a wall so the panicked crowd went by, I’d have been one of the people trampled when the rushing human stampede got to the steps of the underground passage. You see, I was at a demonstration with mom.  I was 16.  We were all packed into this plaza surrounded by tall buildings (a situation that still makes the back of my neck itch, to this day) and suddenly …. I can’t explain it. Suddenly I was running with a bunch of other people running.

And though I’d heard the shots, I had no clue they’d come from above us (even though I was young, my directional hearing always sucked.)  I had no idea why I or anyone else was running.

So– I get panicking crowds. It’s not a big mystery.

And yet, this one has me baffled, because people I trust, people whose judgement I trust are evenly divided between “this was utterly necessary” and “uh, no. This makes no sense.”

Also I know a lot of people in health care (no, I’m not sure why) and most are as baffled as I am.  Because the …. event just isn’t there.  It just isn’t living up to the panic.

And while to an extent I’m not puzzled at all by the behavior of the governors, mayors, neighbors and all the petty assholes in the world, some of which are nasty because they were born that way, and some of which are nasty because they think if they crash the economy enough we’ll get instant paradise, or at least get rid of Orangemanbad, which to them means the same, there are things that still baffle me.

I swear this week is worse than last, for instance, and I’m not SURE WHY.  I mean last week people seemed to be joking about the restrictions, and my neighbors were socializing normally.  Now? The three people I met on my walk practically jumped away from me, and no doggy will be allowed to be petted, because…. because…. I don’t know?

More people are driving ALONE IN THEIR CARS wearing masks too, which makes me wonder what kind of crazy world we’re living in.

And I wonder what the F*ck is going on in people’s heads. Are they all insane? WHY?

For instance, this week I saw a report that the virus can “fly thirteen feet” and “Stay suspended in the air for hours” and my reaction was “Sure, but what’s the load and infectivity?  And “suspended” only if the wind is blowing really hard, in which case it will be blown apart and the infectivity will be really low, right?”  Though what I said aloud was “Oh, dear lord, Winnie the flu got wings.”

Then I read the thing and they say if a breeze blows when you sneeze, the virus could go 13ft.  I SWEAR I’m not making this up.

But people lap this up. Some woman yelled at me on facebook that it can fly 13 feet and stay suspended in the air.  At which point I had to point out, sure. And it probably waits mid air to infect her when she walks by.  AND worse of all, if she catches it, AND is sick enough to need hospitalization, she only has a 98% chance of surviving it.  Which considering how many people are asymptomatic OR have minor symptoms, and that deaths so far are what? 3 per million? means that her chance of dying is far far lower than her chance of dying of a traffic accident on any given month, on any given highway in the nation.

So, why are people panicking more this week? WHAT IS GOING on?

I figured part of the reason I can’t “see” it is that I don’t expose myself to the propaganda network blared out by our Main Stream Media 24/7.  Oh, that and because I have a vague understanding of science. But still too good to imagine the virus is sentient.

I mean, what the hell is going on in people’s heads when they do stuff like this?

And what the holy fandango was going on in the head of the Raleigh police department when they posted a video of them arresting protestors of the #reopen North Carolina movement, and telling them that protesting wasn’t an essential right.

At some point the dime MUST have dropped, but the video won’t play.  I.e. they got a clue that posting a video of themselves violating people’s first amendment rights wasn’t a good look. …. but it took posting it first?
Look, I get not wanting to step out of line, because baby needs shoes, or whatever. BUT dear Lord, they were PROUD? They thought people would approve?
What the actual hell is wrong with them? I’m fairly sure they promised to obey the constitution.  And then on my repost of the video, some *ss clown tried to argue that obeying the constitution of the United States and the constitution of North Carolina meant obeying the governor.  Head>desk.  Don’t people know history? Aren’t they aware that “orders are orders” was not an excuse in Nazi Germany and isn’t an excuse now?  Are they incapable of the most basic reasoning?
I’m scared.  I’m scared because after years and years of people talking about this or that being Nazis, I’m starting to see how we could get there from here. I’m starting to SEE it.

And I don’t understand it.  I particularly don’t understand how people who are skeptical about everything else — EVERYTHING else — suddenly are saying that this destruction of wealth, of civic order, of basic rights, was “needed” and “rational.”

And the reasoning seems to be “if it weren’t all the countries in the world wouldn’t have done it.”

Which is the problem, see?  China did whatever they were doing, and by their very secretive nature and the stuff that leaked, scared the world in general. So when Italy went tits up, IN ONE VERY SPECIFIC LOCATION, and a) didn’t want to admit that they’d messed up by doing the whole Belt and Road Chinese insanity and b) thought they’d get money and help from Germany by exaggerating the threat c) national authorities panicked and locked up, other countries in Europe started getting scared.  And our media saw an ideal opportunity to get Orangemanbad. Because everything is.  And then the US massively over reacted, and the rest of the world went “Oh, if they’re doing it they know something.” and overreacted even more. (I know from talking to relatives in Portugal that they think both our press and our secret services are “competent.” which is laughable, I know.)

I still don’t understand WHY people are panicking more now than last week or two weeks ago, even as more and more revelations of cooked books, and more and more people, including Cuomo, admitting that cases and deaths are now going down?  WHY are they more scared now?  Even if the cases were absolutely right, this is not a d*mned patch on the flu a few years ago, and NO ONE panicked for that.

Are they now going to wear stupid face masks forever?  WHY?

And I start wondering how much of this is because people have been primed for years with story after story about post-apocalypse.  It took me some time to realize part of the things the left was doing in the oughts were because they’d grown up with stupid apocalyptic fiction in the eighties, a fad started because the left thought that Reagan would of course destroy everything.

Turns out what you grow up thinking of as the future, gets sort of planted in the back of your mind and you will either do things to bring it about or coast through similar scenarios without examining the rationality.

Which probably explains why we feel like we’re living in a re-enactment of WWII crossed with the measures taken against the flu of 1918.  All of which makes no sense for the precipitating incident.

And then my head hurts….

Normally I have a sense of what comes next, an upper and lower bound to “what is possible.”

Right now? I don’t know.  People are stuck at home, and turning on the TV for a feeling of contact with the world. And the media is feeding the panic and trying to keep them stuck at home.  It’s like what happened after 9/11, only with no good reason whatsoever.

People don’t seem to notice the bait and switch, where we were  going to be locked in until the curve flattened so we didn’t run out of respirators (which btw, don’t seem to help much) but now we’re going to be locked in until there’s a vaccine/cure? WHY?  Is it killing everyone it touches? Well, no. But we’re going to be kept locked in, because the media and the various authorities LOVE them the power.

Only the chances of there being a cure are close to zero, because that’s not how corona viruses work, and besides, WHY do they think they can keep lock down going for 18 months? WHERE IN HELL DO THEY THINK THE FOOD COMES FROM? And before you tell me that the farmers are planting, sure. But the economy is not THAT SIMPLE. It’s a bunch of interconnected things, some of them quite unfathomable to anyone outside the field. When governors, or HOAs or Police chiefs, or whoever the heck decides one of those isn’t “essential” because, why not? then suddenly there is no food making it from the fields to the table of those who need it.

I’m seeing various fields panic, including pork processing plants closing and it’s happening earlier than I expected.  I’m also seeing that small businesses are going to crash hard, leaving us at the mercy of the massive corporations which the lefties pretend to hate while in fact encouraging them for their perfect crony capitalist/fascist society. Because you can extort them.  And this makes me very, very nervous.

I’m seeing food lines this winter.  And I don’t know what that will do to us as a nation.

And meanwhile the deranged fools keep telling us no, we have to continue being locked up for our own good, and election will by by mail because it’s easier to fraud because voting is of course much more dangerous than going to the post office, or the grocery store.  Because the same virus that apparently is more dangerous at night, and grows wings and ambushes people in parks ALSO attacks in polling places, I GUESS?

And people go along with it.  Does it look better when repeated endlessly on TV?  When will they wake up? When they’ve elected the dem spokeszombie, who promises the most “progressive” administration since FDR? Or when that comes in, the third term of Obama, and the boot crushes what is left of us?

I don’t know. This evening, I look at the last rays of sun disappearing, and I fear it’s all too apt a metaphor and that next, falls the night.