Quote:
Originally Posted by Did you just call me Coltrane?
Illinois needs to open up the goddamn golf courses. It's the perfect SD outdoor activity (without carts).
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I suspect there's a bit more to some of the across-the-board closures of recreational facilities than mere avoidance of virus spread.
This virus is impacting people very differently. I have continued to work through this. I will see increased business as defaults accrue. The dermatologist down the street cannot work yet. The waitresses, bartenders, concert workers, nonessential retailers, and hotel workers cannot. My friends who are in finance are having a grand old time of it. My friends who are doctors facing this shit down every day are taking pay cuts.
Some people have secured PPP and are sitting fat and happy. Some are not. And some won't get it quickly enough to stay afloat. I have it because I kept a good relationship with a smaller bank where you know everybody. My friends who've applied to big banks have been stiffed. Cruelly. The big banks are punting on everyone with revenue under $10mil. They don't give a fuck. Not a single fuck.
This is destroying some peoples' lives while sparing others. And those being spared are doing what one would expect - trying to continue life in a manner as close to what it was like pre-virus as possible. We could all go play a round of golf if we like, I guess, and we probably should be able to do so. But I'd feel guilty about it. We all should.
I think the broad shutdowns were in part designed to send the message that we're all in this together. Shared sacrifice. Those who are still drawing income like nothing happened can be viewed as having pulled a very lucky card in a game that seems brutally unfair.
And it only makes things worse that many of these people are engaged in an industry that created much of the inequality before this crisis - finance.
Eventually, inevitably, this will savage everybody save a few uniquely resilient outliers. The Fed cannot fight Mother Nature. And when this process is finished, people in FIRE industries are going to wish they had more essential skills.
So yeah, people should be able to golf. But while people are dying in the inner cities because they can't escape, maybe it's more gracious to observe solidarity? Particularly when there's a likelihood we're all going to suffer a lot before this is done.
