Monday, May 25, 2020

Thank You Lockdown Power Freaks: For the First Time in 30 Years, The Percentage of Those in Extreme Poverty Will Increase

Anthony Fauci

Jackson Diehl, Washington Post Deputy Editorial Page Editor, writes:
Here’s some unexpected good news from the covid-19 front: In many of the world’s most miserable places, where health agencies have been bracing for a devastating onslaught, the coronavirus so far has delivered only a glancing blow...

It’s hard to overstate the health catastrophes that were expected and that, until now, have been avoided. Some experts predicted up to 100,000 deaths in Idlib province, where 3 million Syrians, half of them displaced, are crammed into a territory where hospitals have been systematically destroyed by Russian bombing. But there have been no deaths reported so far. The same is true in Gaza, where nearly 2 million Palestinians are served by 40 intensive care beds; and in the densely packed camps, where some 1 million Rohingya have precariously sheltered since being driven out of neighboring Myanmar....

Unfortunately, that is not the end of the story. Even though they haven’t been directly ravaged by the virus, the world’s poorest people may yet suffer some of the pandemic’s greatest losses — in the form of plummeting incomes and, as a consequence, growing hunger. “There’s a huge covid impact which is economic, and that is drowning out the disease itself,” [Mark Lowcock, the U.N. under-secretary-general for humanitarian affairs and emergency relief coordinator,] told me during an interview last week...

The math is pretty straightforward. The global economy is now expected to shrink this year by at least 3 percent, delivering a direct hit to the primary goods exports, remittances and tourism on which many poor countries subsist. According to Lowcock, for the first time in 30 years, the percentage of the world’s population in extreme poverty — those living on less than $1.90 a day — will increase.

At the beginning of the year, the United Nations reckoned that 130 million people would be at risk of starvation. “Now we think there will be 265 million,” Lowcock said. “We could have mass hunger and multiple famines.”
It should be noted that Trump's top COVID-19 adviser (or at least he was) has admitted that he never took into account secondary consequences of the lockdowns (SEE:  Anthony Fauci Admits He Has Not Taken Into Consideration The Unseen Deaths Caused by the Lockdowns).

He now appears to have changed his position on this as he has done on many other points (SEE: Nutjob Fauci Now Says Staying Closed for Too Long Could Cause ‘Irreparable Damage’; Calls for Opening Up the Economy).

Fauci has been extremely erratic in his recommendations. It is really difficult to understand what drives this bizarre little man, but he is certainly not a person that should be anywhere close to power and influence. Power positions themselves are evil and should be eliminated (SEE: Foundations of Private Property Theory) but Fauci has a unique ability to destroy from such a position and at the same time create appreciation from the masses. This is very dangerous.

On a related anecdotal note, I know of no major libertarians or Austrian school economists that have been infected by COVID-19--and I have been asking far and wide--but I am aware, from friends of at least two suicides that were likely COVID-19 related.

-RW
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2 comments:

  1. I know it was just a passing reference in the article, but I was struck by the fact that those darn Russkies are STILL targeting hospitals (when they run out of elementary schools).
    Those folks in Idlib are darn lucky to be in the loving care of those moderate ISIS rebels.

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  2. In Washington State there are thousands of people who have been waiting over 10 weeks for unemployment and still waiting to be paid. It is a disaster, all the while the fraud is paying out millions to Nigerian Scammers.

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