A risk-averse society is a dying society.
We have a meme up at PragerU: “‘Until it’s safe’ means ‘never.'”
The pursuit of “safe” over virtually all other considerations is life-suppressing. This is true for your own individual life, and it is true for the life of a society.
I always give the following example: I have been taking visitors to Israel for decades, and for all those decades, people have called my radio show to say, “Dennis, I would so love to visit Israel, but I’m just going to wait until it’s safe.” And I’ve always told these people, “Then you’ll never go.” And sure enough, I’ve gone there over 20 times, and they never went.
I have never led my life on the basis of “until it’s safe.” I do not take ridiculous risks. I wear a seatbelt whenever I’m in a car because the chances are overwhelming that in a bad accident, a seatbelt can save my life. But I get into the car, which is not 100% safe.
You are not on earth to be safe. You are on earth to lead a full life. I don’t want my epitaph to be, “He led a safe life.” It’s like another epitaph I don’t want: “He experienced as little pain as possible.”
All of life confronts you with this question: Are you going to take risks or play it safe? If you play it safe, you don’t get married. If you play it safe, you don’t have kids. There are real risks in getting married; there are real risks in having children.
If you want to lead a good and full life, you cannot keep asking, “Is it safe?” Those at college promoting “safe spaces” are afraid of life, and they want to make you afraid of life.
We’re going crazy on the safe issue. It is making police states. That’s my worry: In the name of safety, many Americans are dropping all other considerations.
They’ve been meticulously trained to, over many decades, with the making of a police state foremost in the minds of the Planners.
- Entries
To be safe you can’t walk out your door in the morning. You also can’t stay inside.
Life is a risk and it only ends one way.
Fear is the weapon of the tyrant.
*shrug* We were all born dying.
While the PTB (obviously) are doing what poiticians and wannabe tyrants do, which is abusing whatever power they get, the people getting off on the lockdowns and shutdown are a bit of a different story, in some cases…
For a lot of the Millenials etc, this is probably the first time they’ve hit what they imagine are hard times and a real danger to face. So they’re Pandemic LARPing, and finding it all terribly exciting. And, for some of them, it’s an excuse to get out of school and job, so they really don’t mind seeing it extended.
For people like us… we’ve seen hard times in our past, and they sucked. We’re really not all that anxious to do it again.
But no one asked us. They never do.
“So they’re Pandemic LARPing, and finding it all terribly exciting.”
Hmm, not something I noticed or thought about, but I bet you’re right. Lesson learned perhaps.
All those “Heroes” on the “Front Lines”! The “Essentials” keeping Society running! in the face of extreme danger! All those work from home types keeping the critical ummmm something running.
All those Polluters like manufacturers and business closed. Yeah Gaia!
Liberal Millennials finally got something to fwap over!
Hertz goes bankrupt.
Oh yeah, they were one of those undercapitalized businesses that everyone talks about.
We are seriously screwing ourselves. Damn Governor Cooper here in NC is unsure and has to have Phase Two last until June 26.
These people are evil. Absent Nursing homes we’ve had less than 300 deaths in a population of 10.5 million.
That’s less than gangbangers in Chicago must kill in a typical 12 weeks.
Hey, well you know, if they can’t last 3 months without business they weren’t viable anyway…
“These people are evil.”
They make the devil look angelic.
The vast majority of their regular business wiped out, and with a large inventory of depreciating assets that require care and maintenance? Yeah, Hertz was screwed. Cruise companies with their ships are in a similar situation, as are airlines.
Even if the lockdowns eventually end (and that is a BIG if, at this point), demand for some of these companies and industries is going to be slow to rebound. The fear-mongering has panicked a lot of people, and vacation travel and cruises are obvious things to cut when people’s budgets are tight.
Sure, people don’t spend on extra’s when they are afraid.
The entire travel industry is screwed. The only reason Boeing survives is defense. Hertz? No, they can’t survive.
We’ve yet to see the economic destruction heading our way. It’s a wave in the middle of the ocean. The rise of destruction is barely perceptible at this point, but soon enough it will approach the shore.
Yes and some people are lamenting it now even as they went hysterical about the WuFlu in March and handed these people this Power.
They don’t even recognize themselves in the mirror when someone shows them what they looked like.
Of course Hertz would have problems. Had we not locked down they would have got through them. They clean and disinfect their cars well between customers. At some point salesmen will be back on sales trips. Which would you like to be in: Ahmed’s Taxi that’s never clean? Public transport like a subway or bus system? Your own rented car?
BTW Hertz market cap on Feb 20 was $2.9 Billion. It’s now $404 Million.
They are reorganizing only the US Operations. This does not include the franchises, which are not owned by Hertz.
But it does appear even that slim equity value will disappear, unless they can cut a deal with Creditors to maintain control.
Almost $3 Billion down the drain. At least. Since we won’t know if the Creditors will have to take any losses.
The good news is they still have $1 Billion cash on hand to remain operating through bankruptcy.
Yea, I looked up their numbers. Long term they could survive if the economy came back soon and came back in a similar way it was before the chinaFlu. I don’t see it being soon and I don’t see it returning to the same as before for years. I’m going to hope that I’m wrong about that and I admit to seeing some signs that I am, as noted in the past. I see at least one if not two airlines going under as well. Hotel chains? What do you do when there is 1/3 to 1/2 the customers as before? Every part of the travel industry, the backbone of which is the business traveler, is in serious trouble.
Lessons can’t be learned until one admits they had it all wrong. Those that just pretend are the worst.
I agree about the approaching wave of economic destruction. Hertz will be one of the first of many, many, many big name companies that go bankrupt. Highly leveraged companies are like just-in-time supply chains: they are hyper-optimized for a strong economic environment with easily available credit. They work great when times are predictable. But they are also extremely fragile to market shocks and have very little resilience.
But the people who set these things up are mostly long since gone, with their hefty consulting fees and option packages and golden parachutes. It is going to be the regular employees, shareholders, and creditors who get left holding the bag.
Hope you all have a great Memorial Day.
Thanks, Barry! Wishing you and yours the same.
To everyone here, especially the Vets and their families, Happy Memorial Day.
A service and repair man came by this morning to fix something. Pulls up in van, and NO MASK! HOORAY!! No Kabuki Theater!