Knee-jerk decisions have ensured suffering, virus & economic, will last longer

Fuelfix reports: “In typical times, a sudden collapse in oil prices would result in a corresponding rise in demand, as businesses and consumers alike take advantage of lower energy prices, to run more trucks or take that extra drive to the beach. In time, oil prices rise. But with much of the world stuck at home, that same rebound is unlikely to happen this time, said Pearce Hammond Jr. “As we get past the virus and people start moving around again [demand] should come back up, but how quickly? How soon are people going to get back on planes?” he asked.

The obscure nature of the future is a paralytic for investors of capital, from the smallest businessman thinking to use his tiny savings to buy a new piece of equipment he hopes will produce a good return on investment over the coming years, to the analyst at a huge investment firm needing to recommend to her firm and its clientele where to move capital.

The obscure nature of economic problems today has been explosively exacerbated by the reaction to the Wuhan virus outbreak by local and state officials.

Instead of a first focus on medically hardening of vulnerable populations and most easy spread of the disease to those most likely to be hit hardest by it, many of those officials chose actions which focused on those least likely to contract the disease and to have the worst of symptoms.

In so doing, officials put the larger population’s economic future into doubt and increased panic among the wider public with their bans, shelter orders, and threats of fines aimed, not at those who needed serious monitoring and quarantine due to exposure or risk, but at those less likely to be disease spreaders or sufferers.

An economic disaster already was underway in Texas with the collapse of oil prices; officials have made it worse by a knee-jerk response that has done catastrophic damage to what were healthy parts of our economy.

They have ensured that the suffering from both the virus* and economic hardship lasts longer for everyone.

* For those who do not understand the much discussed “flatten the [bell] curve” it pushing the peak down corresponds with extending the time at which disease spreads before enough in the population are immune to provide what is know as herd immunity.