Ten Things About COVID-19: Number Two

2.) It's The Stupid Economy 

Back in February, when COVID-19 was already decimating cities in China and was just starting to affect the performance of global markets, Donald Trump chose the horse he was going to ride to the finish line: the stock market. As the Dow Jones plummeted, Trump believed that his reelection campaign tanked right along with it.  His go-to self-promotion for his entire term has been the “record stock market.”  He (erroneously) used the performance of the Dow as proof positive that he and he alone had saved the economy and was going to keep America rich and prosperous.

Never mind that the Dow Jones Average has N.O.T.H.I.N.G. to do with the health of the economy. Never mind that the 98% haven’t yet recovered from the crash of 2008. 

Never mind that the “recovery” of the job market only looks at how many jobs, not what kinds of jobs have been added to the economy.  Never mind that decent, living wage blue-collar jobs are almost non-existent in the USA…all those jobs have been outsourced overseas, so corporate executives could put more money in their pockets and off-shore accounts.  Never mind that the typical white collar job no longer offers full benefits, regular pay raises, pension plans, or incentives of any kind.  Those of us not in the 2% top-of-the-food-chain economic stratum are STILL, after 12 years, toiling in the “lucky-to-have-a-job” chain gang.

I will concede that COVID-19 is having a devastating effect on the American economy. But I’ll insistently point out that our economy was completely fucked up to begin with.  What the hell is a “consumer economy” anyway? Is that a polite term for, “We’ve sent all the real work overseas where we can get it done poorly and cheaply, so all that’s left for regular people to do is work as servants in retail, restaurants and hospitality, or as underpaid, under-trained “health care” workers because we can’t outsource those industries (and believe me, we’ve tried…)?”

A “consumer economy” is never going to be disaster proof. It’s always going to be subject to the burps and groans and whims of the global market; it will never provide stability for a country that has to isolate from the world for a time during a disaster—like a pandemic.  As long as rents and mortgages and cars and utilities and food and gasoline cost more than one person can earn, and people have to work two or three service jobs to put a roof over their heads, food on their tables, and clothes on their backs, it’s all going to come crashing down when the service industry crashes. 

We can’t make those over-worked, underpaid people, and the kids they’re toiling to raise and support, the sacrificial lambs for “getting the economy back on track” during a pandemic.  We can’t make them literally risk their lives for $10/hr so Karen can get her nails done or Kevin can get a haircut.   And we can’t make them risk their children’s lives by sending the kids back to school so the service industry can roll again.

We have to FIX our seriously broken economy.  We have to bring industry back to our own shores.  We have to make stuff, not just buy stuff.  We have to have living wage jobs for families, so if kids can’t go to school, the rent will still get paid.  We have to have health care that doesn’t eat 30 cents out of every dollar everyone earns, so that everyday Americans have to choose whether to eat or go to a doctor.         

It’s not, “It’s the economy, stupid.”

It’s “Fix the stupid economy.”

Or our future looks very grim.