I agree with you PB, and the QE and free (and cheaper than free) money, which will be extended to the banking industry and billionaires in this moment of bargain priced asset sales, will yet again only exacerbate the wealth imbalance.
It's not healthy free enterprise at all. It has more a smell of shadow-state cronyism.
On the subject of parallel universes, I've just been talking to public sector acquaintances in Canberra (about the fresh travel restrictions into Australia - messing up all my plans).
I distinctly caught a whiff off triumphalism about the travel curbs, with references to the share market tumble, "failure of capitalism" and "Trumpism" et al. Also pride in the widespread restrictions being implemented, as if the intervention in itself is evidence of the "benefits" and "rightness" of intervention, rather than something perhaps prudent, but unfortunate.
Anyway, what I wish they'd get, is that these cyclical banking crises (where the big state/shadow state are essential facilitators), far from bringing down the Big Capitalists, have been feeding the very wealthiest at the expense of productive, law-abiding citizens.
My phone calls to Canberra also made me wonder if some souls, with life-time guaranteed jobs in a very stable, secure environment, are enjoying whatever armchair drama, and disruption of endless routine, the COVID19 reaction brings - similar to the way that children may be hoping for a few golden months off school.
But I really wanted to mention the Spanish Flu; though I know some object to mention of that subject as if it's Ju-Ju.
Here goes... Why did Spanish Flu, after spreading like wildfire, quickly die out, all on it's own?
Well, after 1918, doctors and public officials successfully pushed the idea that "measures" had worked, but more modern research by virologists (I quote my Geneticist stepson) indicates something very different.
As the milder mutations of the flu could spread faster, and exponentially (due to the symptoms being less noticable and less personally disabling), they crowded out the more deadly strains, and at the same time created (the much quoted) "herd immunities" against the more potent variations.
For those who believe in Gaia, or self-righting properties of eco-systems, this is a beautiful phenomenon.
So we might hope that COVID19 becomes less and less potent as it spreads.
Finally, I'm also very interested to see how quickly governments will allow the various promising vaccines to reach the public - so much of the development time is consumed by safety testing, clinical trials. If my hopes are wrong, and the virus turns out to be a plague of hideous morbidity, will governments allow proportionate regulatory exemptions to speed up public vaccination?
Just to be clear, my stepson is following all measures implemented. He already works with contained harmful organisms in a sterile lab, so stringent precautions, and general good sense, are already part of his work and lifestyle.
(20min delay)