Month: March 2020

Massive overreaction

AustralianActuary Life

The COVID-19 virus does not warrant the massive overreaction that political leaders have forced upon citizens around the world. This is genuinely a case of the cure being vastly worse than the disease.

It beggars belief.

The elderly and infirm may be at risk – they always are, and thousands die from flu viruses each year. But the typical workforce is not overly vulnerable. The damage caused by these mini fascists in the corridors of power is immense. We are getting close to being put under house arrest.

What political price will they pay? I hope it is huge. They will try to claim credit in a few months that their actions saved the world. Wannabe Churchills, and the fascist authoritarians who never let a crisis go to waste so they can sieze more control and influence are in evidence everywhere.

What a disgraceful set. And we voted them into power.

Bookmark this and come back to me in 6 months time to admit I am correct.

 

That’s not a knife

AustralianActuary Economics

Does anyone remember Crocodile Dundee?

Mick

“That’s not a knife!” Mick said dismissively at the New York punks trying to hold him and his girlfriend up with a small folding penknife. “This is a knife!”

Stop me if I told you this before but COVID-19 is not a pandemic. COVID-19 is a penknife. Spanish flu in 1918-19 was a pandemic. It killed more than 20 million people in the space of 18 months. COVID-19 is entering the northern hemisphere spring with fewer than 10,000 deaths globally, having killed the first in November, ie 4 months ago. The virus will be stopped by the sunshine of the northern summer.

COVID-19 kills those who catch it and who are weak for other reasons – age, infirmity, respiratory weakness etc. But not all who are exposed catch it. Not all who catch it die. This panic is misplaced. In fact the cure, as imagined by panicked politicians, is worse than the virus. This is no reason to kill small businesses and strangle taxpayers to support the barely surviving business.

Then the clueless central bankers add to our misery with their incredibly stupid policy response – “whatever it takes, there are no limits to what we will do” said the pathetic creature Philip Lowe, so-called governor of Australia’s central bank. He is willing to trash the Australian currency for this? He obviously never recovered from his university education.