The virus popped the bubble

3 April 2020 – Day 12

Sorry about the light content yesterday. I have a huge knot in my left shoulder, possibly from my body adjusting to 10+ hours a day on the computer as I help provide remote tech support to staff (and family) from my station here at home. The knot sends shooting pains down my arm and numbness in my neck but if this is the worst I suffer from this epidemic I will count myself lucky, very lucky.

I finally broke down and read some of the news (and listened to a podcast) about what’s happening in NY City and frankly it’s horrifying. Emergency workers have been exposed to COVID-19 and would normally be rested but they are forced to work because every emergency worker is now assumed to have been exposed. Lack of critical medical supplies, lack of even basic medical supplies, forcing healthcare professionals to improvise.

Medical facilities, emergency facilities are being overwhelmed with critical care calls. We are out of ventilators in these areas. This is the nightmare situation I worried about when I called for a lockdown on 11 March 2020.

And then there are the stories of the people who have caught the virus. For the vast majority of us – the poor and middle-class – the treatment for this virus right now is “go home, try not to die”. There’s no mythical chemical combination which is saving ordinary people. They aren’t admitting regular people to the hospital for 24/7 surveillance. So, if you’re one of the people who has contracted the virus, the trick to surviving is – don’t let it get into your lungs. Because from what I understand, people who seem healthy one hour can take an acute turn the next. Some doctors describe the virus entering the lungs like the patient was breathing shards of glass. People perish this way without even the chance to say goodbye to their family.

Just a few weeks ago one of my co-workers (ostensibly liberal) was in the “this is no worse than the flu” brigade. And even as short as last week the President of the USA and Prime Minister of the UK were still peddling this idea that what’s needed is for everyone to just contract the virus so that we could have herd-immunity. That solution is what I call “the purge” – because in essence it’s a psychopathic culling of millions of poor people.

I still see people in the USA suggesting that this virus isn’t that big of a deal and I think part of the blame for that is the number of stories where either celebrities are testing positive and showing no symptoms or the number of stories I’ve seen where people are saying that this is “no big deal.” For some people, I guess the virus is no big deal, but for a lot of people, this virus is a nightmare. And I frankly think we need more stories about the nightmare. Because people aren’t taking this thing seriously enough. Not to be too dark but now is a good time to make sure your will is in order.

Washington State has been a bit of a sanctuary from the madness erupting in other parts of the USA. But while our lockdown has flattened the curve, we are on lockdown for another month, and apparently we have so many tests floating around that I know 10 people who got tested (many without symptoms, none of them essential personnel), I worry about our ability to keep the virus at bay. The federal response to this has been absolutely absurd. So absurd that we should strongly consider dissolving the union. What good is a federal government if we can’t get masks to healthcare workers?

And then there’s “the economy.” I feel like this needs to be said: the economy was broken before the virus, but most folks didn’t want to hear that. We’ve been sold a lie for 40 years: that “trickle-down economics” would make the poor and middle-class wealthier. Trickle-down economics is just dressed up ‘noblesse oblige’: the same lie that humans have been told since the first guy got up there and declared himself king and his buddies all dukes, “give us all the money and power and we will make you all richer.” The nobility were the first “job creators”. Handing out jobs as footmen, knights, drivers, doormen, and various other middle-class jobs which paid well, provided security, and gave some access to better food and services than the hoi polloi.

The old nobility pretended as if they had a god-given right to be wealthy and so too do the wealthy today. It’s slightly more dressed up as them being “hard working” or even more laughably as them being smarter than everyone else. But in the end it’s just mass exploitation. They just take advantage of weaknesses, such as weaknesses in environmental laws, labor laws, differences in markets which they can exploit to extract capital and hoard it for themselves. While we are all complaining about our fellow poors hoarding toilet paper there are literally thousands of humans on this planet who are hoarding the vast majority of all human wealth. While you’re worried about Clarisse getting an extra 12 pack, Jeff Bezos could buy almost 200 billion rolls of toilet paper. And given the scale of his purchase, he could probably buy twice that many. But even at the highly inflated price, that’s about 650 rolls of TP per person in the USA.

If I bring this back to football for a second: I’ve seen some folks shouting that Premier League players need to give up part of their salaries to help pay for the furloughed workers at these clubs. Ok, that’s fair enough and would be a tremendous show of solidarity.

But what about the owners? And more important, what about the advertising companies and all of these gigantic corporations which sponsor these Premier League teams?

The push to restart the football season is driven by contracts with advertisers and TV companies. They want their “money’s worth”. But I think it’s going to be difficult to restart this season for at least 18 months. We may not see any organized events at least until a vaccine is available and 60% of the populations have taken them. And that’s just in your country. Imagine how difficult it will be to make sure that Champions League football can resume?

We were in a bubble. Multiple bubbles. Bubbles everywhere. The housing market was inflated (again, for the umpteenth time in my life). There was a major higher education bubble. The player transfer market was insanely inflated. Player salaries were inflated. Ticket prices, TV money, the cost for me to watch on TV, the amount of wealth owned by the owners, on and on and on was all irrational. We knew this. We’ve been talking about this for a long time. I don’t know many sports fans who thought that Mesut Ozil was worth £18m a year in salary or that Neymar is so incredible that he’s worth the price of every team in the lower two divisions of English football, combined.

The virus popped the bubble. This is what happens to all empires: they get too big, too greedy, and then along comes a natural disaster and boom, empire is gone.

So, what happens now? I don’t know but usually mass violence, war, xenophobia, racism, and your basic human tribalism. Sometimes, there’s a redistribution of wealth as well. Though that’s usually short term. It’s not long before someone else comes along and says “you should trust me! I’m the REALLY smart guy and if you make me wealthy and powerful, I’ll take care of you!”

Hopefully, we can find a new way forward. I’m sorry that I’m not smart enough to think of how that would work.

Qq

9 comments

  1. I believe PL clubs have now agreed to donate 125m for the FL and National League clubs, and 20m to the NHS. They’re also looking to get players to agree to a 30% cut. I was like you about asking the clubs to pay all their employees (shame on Spurs) instead of making footballers, who really did climb the ladder through being hard working and more talented, the focus.

    As for the changes brought about by this virus. I think we tend to overestimate short term changes. People will try to go back to normal. Out of relief as much as anything else. But it’s a fundamentally broken and unsustainable system which will have to change in the slightly longer run.

    Some of us may descend into unabashed fascism using the virus as excuse for bigotry and a failing economy. But that would only be going faster down the path we’ve been on. It’s terrifying, but I try to remain hopeful.

    Stay safe everyone. Much love to all of you.

  2. I do love me a bubble burst of reality.

    Thanks for highlighting a question that’s not being asked openly about the advertisers and owners of clubs. The sheiks & abrahimovics.

    Only a prolonged effect by covid would affect and cause a serious rethink. If only it didn’t result in death I’d be happy to miss a year or two of sports in exchange for normality if only for a decade. There is something to admire about teams like Sheffield, RB Leipzig and other well run clubs. (Arsenal was only well run during arsene’s era despite his errors).

    Stay safe.

  3. I kinda got used to the ten year boom and bust cycle.
    No matter the reason, and no matter the circumstances you just know it’s gonna happen and there won’t be a damn thing you could do about it.
    Regardless how one feels about Trump( any 12 year old could do as good a job, if not better), I feel any other administration would probably face similar difficulties and only fractionally better results.
    This is our day and age equivalent of the weakest and slowest member of the tribe getting eaten by the lions on the African plains.
    It’s still the best it’s ever been and all things considered, if this gets really, really bad, we’ve had a good run.
    Stay safe.

  4. Couple of questions for you Tim:

    The BBC report that 38 states have issued lockdown (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-52148534). Where does the responsibility lie for you guys (national level or state level)?

    A debate which is emerging in the UK is what rules we’ll follow when it comes to prioritising care. There’s already instructions gone out to care homes saying don’t come to hospital. Where are you guys with that debate?

    Take care

    1. States, except flying and probably interstate commerce. There are probably a few other things (military). I believe that the States could even have the power to lock their own borders. We are a strange “nation” which isn’t really a nation but a republic.

      We haven’t had that debate, yet. Let’s hope it doesn’t get to that.

  5. “So, what happens now? I don’t know but usually mass violence, war, xenophobia, racism, and your basic human tribalism. ”

    If you really believe this and I don’t think it’s completely unreasonable, just pretty unlikely*, then I suggest you get to know your neighbors really well. Because if the SHTF you’re not going to be able to go it alone no matter how much ammo you have stockpiled. The flip side of that is that the truism, ‘when every second counts the police are just minutes away’, might turn out to be optimistic if your community experiences NYC level pressure on emergency services, so you will likely be your own first responder.

    *30% unemployment is no joke. People who can’t feed their families will do what it takes. Luckily, it seems like the feds are mobilizing, albeit slowly.

  6. Tim,

    Thank you for keeping up your blog during these difficult times. I hope you and your family are staying safe. We are entering a crucial phase in NYC. I have been in WFH mode since March 10th, during which I have gone out a total of 4 times – usually at 7 am to buy essential groceries from a market adjacent to the building I live in. I did go out once in the afternoon less than two weeks ago. l wanted to check if our neighborhood natural health store had any black seed oil which is supposed to be great for boosting immunity. I was shocked by what I saw. The streets were full of people in close proximity of one another and looking like there were out to have a good time. Someone tweeted pictures of people playing footy in the park. Having already been in self-isolation for over a week, I couldn’t wrap me head around the idiocy of my neighbors. Only recently after the mayor finally closed down the parks do people seem more conscientious in maintaining social distance. However, I get the feeling it’s too little too late and worse, we are still not doing enough.

    Today our mayor said NYC will run out of ventilators next week. Apparently troops are being deployed to confiscate unused medial equipment and supplies from private hospitals. What’s the marginal benefit of doing that? Given the scale at which this is affecting us, I would imagine not much.

    We also got an emergency alert on our phones today. It said “Attention all healthcare workers: New York City is seeking licensed healthcare workers to support healthcare facilities in need.” It’s heartbreaking. We don’t have enough hospital beds, we don’t have enough equipment and we don’t have enough healthcare workers. What we don’t have a shortage of is people. The city is crawling with them. The only way to beat this virus right now is to stay indoors and cleaning anything brought from outside like you have OCD, but some people still don’t seem to get it.

    I am trying not to think about what can happen in the next couple of weeks because it makes me nervous. It can be be any range of outcomes. If we can maintain strict social distancing, then we will be able to flatten the curve but just like we were late to take action, I fear we will push ourselves to return to the good old days too soon.

  7. Most of us have never experienced anything like this in our lifetimes. But history tells me we are not going to be significantly changed in any positive way by all this. I hope I’m wrong.

    Major crime statistics are down in my town in almost every category but homicides. Heartening to know that we won’t rely only a pandemic to continue killing each other.

    After the horror of the great European conflict ended in 1918, “the war to end to end all wars”, the influenza of 1919 swept across the globe killing millions more. Twenty odd years later came The Holocaust, the Bataan Death March, the fire bombing of Dresden and Tokyo topped off with Little Man and Fat Boy exploding over Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

    Ebola didn’t stop the many conflicts raging in sub Saharan Africa.

    No, I think we’ll eventually get back to “normal”.

  8. Globally, we might be entering into a new era of isolationism and mistrust between nations. Expect global trade and exchanges to lessen, supply chains to be contained intra-nationally, while the smaller nations scramble for favours. Judging from the current blame game going on between their leaders and respective medias, this just might be the start of the New Cold War between the US and China.

    Which is a shame, because just a few years ago, it did seem like we were that close to bringing most of the world’s population into globalization and inter-connectivity.

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