by Chris Black
The way people in “dissident” political circles talk about the fallout of the COVID hysteria really speaks volumes about what people’s lives and priorities must be like.
People are very flippant in saying “COVID is over” or “NPCs fixating on Current Thing”—the simple fact is that the long-run effects of the mass hysteria and overzealous COVID policy are going to be with us for years.
The mass hysteria is no longer being pumped as aggressively by the media, but this doesn’t undo the massive dysfunction that’s been created across the entire economy and the day-to-day function of society.
I cannot even get a plumber to give me a firm answer on when they can come by to deal with an issue for me, and this is with dozens of different plumbing companies in the area. They all say they’re short-staffed.
How is this relevant to COVID?
Well, when you print a third of all USD in circulation within a two-year time frame, that kind of destroys the value of your currency. And then people kind of develop new expectations for how much they should be paid, since the wages that were once adequate are no longer adequate. And then business owners who budgeted for certain wage growth expectations can’t afford to meet those demands, because they too are suffering from the devaluation of the currency. So they can’t retain employees, because no one will work for nothing.
And that’s how you get from “you are going to die of the common cold, the sky is falling” to not being able to get a plumber to come to your house.
We can do this with other stuff, too. Try getting a doctor’s appointment right now—like, a real doctor, not urgent care or a nurse practitioner—this was already a pain before the scamdemic, but good luck doing it now.
How about contractors to build something for you? See you in six months.
Even something as simple as shopping at a retail store seems to have become a noticeably worse experience, since pretty much every type of business is struggling to retain employees right now.
When boomers say “nobody wants to work anymore,” they’re not exactly wrong, they just don’t understand the actual reason why—it’s not because “that Biden gave out too much welfare”—it’s because the value of the dollar and the incentives to work or not work have been completely and totally fucked up.
The “COVID is Over” crowd really want you to just pretend like there isn’t a straight line between the massive shutdown of March 2020—in which tens of millions of Americans lost their normal jobs and demand went through the floor—has nothing to do with any of the economic pains we’re experiencing now.
It’s not just a straight line, it’s the obvious and direct cause of all this.
In a sane society, the people responsible for this would lose everything. A serious dissident movement would make this a core part of its platform, and would frame the issue in terms of visiting real consequences upon the cowards and control freaks that caused all this.
The normie cattle got bored of talking about COVID, the excitement of living in fear lost its edge, and the political utility of keeping restrictions in place wore itself out.
And “dissidents” went right along with that.