Looks like we are finally getting the upper hand on this nasty bug that has killed more than half a million of our fellow Americans. Case rates are plummeting and the immunized proportion of the population is climbing rapidly. Soberingly, if the observed death rate of 2.5% continues, we will still lose another quarter of a million lives before it is all over. The final death toll will probably exceed the number of Americans who died in World War I, World War II, Korea, and Vietnam combined.
We will emerge from the shadow of the pandemic a very different country than before. The pandemic has slammed working people hard. Millions have lost jobs, life savings, and small businesses. Many are unable to make ends meet. Millions have been spared from homelessness temporarily, because of the moratorium on evictions. However, when that moratorium is over, the rent bill will be staggering, and without help, homelessness is likely to spike. All of this happened through no fault of the people suffering these setbacks.
Meanwhile, those of us with significant amounts of money invested in the stock market have been blessed with a massive windfall in soaring financial assets – also through no particular virtue of our own.
