Planet lockdown

[Mortblanc]

OK SS, the neat and dairy industries have been hit hardest by the restaurant and school closings.

Americans eat 1/3 of their meals as take out or in house dining. It is especially hard on the beef industry since much of that restaurant fare is burgers and steaks.

Smithfield primarily produces Hams and smoked and cured pork shoulders for the holiday feast industry. Yesterday was Easter with no crowd at granny's house eating the ham. Of course they are going to close down the plant.

The milk industry supplies millions of gallons of milk to schools and restaurants daily. Both those sources of demand are gone. Kids are basically forced to drink milk at school, no other options with their meal. We are talking about 50,000,000 little cartons daily.

While at home they are drinking fruit juices and sodas.

Milk is being dumped, yes, but that is not the production of an artificial shortage, just reduced demand while the cows have not yet received the memo to back off. In the old diversified farm world the farmer would have fed the milk to the pigs and saved both until the market healed.

China's pig shortage I understand was due to a disease, the American experience is due to temporary lack of market.

You have what seems to be a different situation entirely over here. Perhaps you folks have shut down more than we have. Over here the list of essential businesses is long and large and includes all of our major retail suppliers, warehouse clubs and discount houses because they all sell groceries, DIY items and medications.

We still have 2/3 or more of our work force in operation and people moving around normally with only a slight reduction in traffic volume. Our streets are not empty, parking lots are not deserted.

When we go to stores we are going to big box stores in automobiles, and the parking lots are still filled at the normal volumes. Since people have to go out for work anyway they are not at all concerned about going out for groceries, recreation or visiting family. If your job requires you to be out and about for 8-10 hours a day why should you obsess over a trip to the Walmart?


%90 of our population is not considering themselves under lockdown and consider it an invasion of their privacy to limit their access to stores and eating establishments. 2/3 of the work force has to go on as if nothing is happening and then they can not go get a meal when their work shift is over.

Aren't they afraid? No they are not. It is the flu, they will get it and get over it. That is why it is justified that they still go to work. A few might die, but not them, someone else. Old people, sick people, people that were almost dead anyway. And %99 of them are correct.

We still have product on the shelves, people are still being paid. Unemployment is up, yes, it was expected to go up! If you close down all the restaurants and nonessentials you are going to have unemployment.

17,000,000 unemployed you say? That is actually fewer than was predicted if 1/3 of the work force is hit by the shutdown order. We have 360,000,000 people over here, if only half of them are in the work force then that 17,000,000 figure is only %9 of the work force.

We also have another consideration to deal with, that is the fact that the average American does not deal with government intrusion very well even in dire circumstances. The leaders that worry about what drastic actions to take to prevent the spread of this disease are soon going to be moaning to the voters that they were only doing what had to be done and please forgive them. The ones that did the drastic measures hesitantly and begrudgingly will be the ones that have a leg to stand on at voting time, and Americans do vote.

The ones that went at the public tooth and nail and considered it a personal insult to defy their orders, but had police and enforcement officers out patrolling and enforcing their demands among the germs, will be remembered.

This ain't Italy.

The only way this will become a permanent way of life or get more intrusive is if we elect a nanny-state candidate in the upcoming election to tell us what we need to do for our own good and he/she decides we need to be treated like unruly teens with a curview and penalties for breaking it.