I never knew how much I appreciated normal till there wasn’t normal.
So how do you feel? We made it through week one. Hopefully, only 6-7 to go.
I have washed my hands and used hand sanitizer so much they are a dry and bloody wreck. Yes, I keep forgetting to put hand cream on at night.
And the fear runs deep. Every little feel of a chill or warm temperature change is scary, do I have an upset stomach, was that last breath a bit short, all these sensed feelings which in normal times you never notice are so amplified in your brain the paranoid like me can barely survive being healthy.
My youngest is happy because now everyone else is practicing better hygiene. I love my children, yet they have their personalities and the youngest has some very definitive feelings about people’s personal practices.
So where do we go from here? Right now everyone is focused on today and tomorrow. And yes tomorrow, not the future, just tomorrow.
One side note here. I have recommended you read a website called Pitchforkeconomics before. I was listening to some of the podcasts last night and one caught my attention because I have tried to espouse ideas that we need to come up with better programs to address poverty. (Is the American Dream a lie? is the specific episode) My ideas are attempts at functional ways to improve people’s plight. The specific entry last night discussed specifically how poverty affects the brain. The guest on this episode, Christian Cooper, has written on this topic and his discussion was eye-opening. Please give it a listen. It is good to understand some of the effects poverty has on people when you want to draw up plans to combat it. Mr. Cooper has also written on this topic and what he has to say is powerful. The better half works in an environment where she helps parents of distressed children. I asked her to listen to the episode this morning and she is spending the day reading in depth what he wrote and more.
Today I am going to do a quick rehash of some of my ideas from the 2010 crisis for you to ponder on. And my ideas are meant to continue our country in the best light possible which means we still need to keep our society open, growing and prosperous. I have also talked about what it means to be prosperous before and will address this in a future post.
I could say much about what our government can do right now, but we also need to think about how we transition past this, what do we do in six or eight weeks if we are lucky.
I will make a quick hit list for now of things to do. And this list is an economic plan to get people back to work and move us forward in the 21st century to fight off a possible recession as soon as possible. I understand sending checks out so people can survive, but once we get past this we need to make better decisions going forward.
And I have this reference page I started to help me find old posts to share. I looked at it the other day and realized I haven’t worked on it in over a year. Sheesh on myself.
Anyway for economic development to get us moving forward again
We need to develop desalination plants. And we need to work with Mexico on developing these in the Gulf of California. Both countries' agriculture could thrive as we include building large greenhouse complexes in the Sonora desert. This creates new sources of clean water, new food supplies that can be exported so you have both domestic and trade benefits and a host of jobs developing and maintaining all this for years to come.
The airline industry is going to take a hit. Some airlines may not make it past this year. That means some capacity is going to fall off. Great time to build electric trains relying on green energy. These trains would be for short trips like Austin to Dallas or Phoneix to Los Angeles. The East already has a large train structure in place, but the west is still wide open. Large solar plants creating more energy could fuel short trips and let the airlines concentrate on the long haul flights that still will be needed. Basically, airline jobs just move to the trains and there will be many construction jobs as you build this out over time.
This was just a couple of quick-hit ideas. I know right now many of you are focused on your immediate needs and so am I, however we blew the opportunity last recession to change our thinking which to me includes retraining to go along with the unemployment benefits we will need, focusing on reward-based taxation for corporations that actually invest in future business and not their own hoarding of wealth and high taxation for those that sit on their hands or don’t take care of their employees, expanding the education we give our children, helping people relocate to where jobs might spring up and open eyes in general that we cannot use the same ole solutions for the new problems facing us. One problem will be how do we improve healthcare moving forward. This will be a priority.
One quick idea and not mine since some of this is already being addressed by state workforce organizations and that is virtual hiring fairs for service workers affected by current events so they can get jobs where needed in the supply chain or grocery stores where there is a temporary need for people. This is how we need to think.
Anyway I do not want to overwhelm you in one post so I will be assessing life and spitting out new ideas and rehashing other ideas as time permits.
Wash your hands folks and believe it or not rainy or cloudy days are good. Keeps you want from wanting to get out.
Cheers
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