Ah Choo!!

It might be a bit premature to ask this question, but it seems pertinent to the present pandemic. The question was prompted by a comment my son-in-law made to my wife, last night, about the fact that capitalism is dead. Hmmm.

Trust a Labour supporter of Jeremy Corbyn to suggest such a thing.

Politics aside, there might be some truth to the concept.

When you look at how different countries have responded to, and helped contain, the novel coronavirus, it is obvious that some systems of government are better suited to managing a crisis than others.

And now the western nations are having to throw huge amounts of money at the situation to help slow the pandemic. As Susan said, people who have paid taxes for their whole lives are now being helped by their government. It’s almost like they paid into an insurance fund. This is a first.

Usually ONLY the rich get bailed out when a recession happens. “Too Big To Fail” is their motto. But this time, they don’t have the ‘little people’ propping them up: they’ve all been sent home to ‘shelter in place’ during the coming economic storm.

There is an old childhood rhyme about careers that is coming back to haunt us:

Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Sailor, Rich Man, Poor Man, Beggar Man, Thief…