
“I Run a Family-Owned Construction Firm. Here’s What Covid-19 Did to My World” - jseliger
https://quillette.com/2020/04/02/i-run-a-family-owned-construction-firm-heres-what-covid-19-did-to-my-world/
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weare138
I feel sorry for the author but it's somewhat ironic that Quillette published
this article considering their strong Libertarian leanings. It's years of
misguided economic policies built on baseless and fictional Randian ideology
trumpeted by publications like Quillette that got us to the point where the
largest economies in the world with the most resources are suddenly the most
ill equipped and dangerously unprepared nations in a global crisis.

~~~
mindslight
> _As any small business owner knows, there are costs that you have to pay
> regardless of whether or not there’s work. For us, that includes a bank loan
> that’s killing us, vehicle loans and insurance, employee health benefits,
> commercial general liability insurance, workers compensation premiums,
> utilities, and mortgage payments. Before I fuel up a single truck, cut a
> single paycheck or buy a single pallet of materials, I need CAD$8,134 (about
> US$5,800) just to pay these costs._

Most of this business's cashflow problems are seemingly due to _debt_ , which
is somewhat orthogonal to "Randian ideology". Libertarian thinking is actually
more associated with hard money and the _Austrian_ school of economics, rather
than the Keynesian debt-treadmill that is currently binding up. If this
business were asset-positive, health benefits and utilities would be the few
remaining costs when work shut down.

Tangentially as a libertarian I was actually hoping to glean something from
this article to help me understand _why the plague suddenly has a political
party_. Alas.

~~~
weare138
Modern Libertarianism is Ayn Rand's horribly written capitalist pornography in
practice. You can't separate the two at this point.

~~~
mindslight
Every political philosophy is rooted in valid critique and lofty ideals, but
gets selectively amplified by the status quo and used to justify oppression.
This is part of why I use a lower case 'l' to describe being a libertarian.

It comes down to judgment. If a "Libertarian" thinks that reducing government
means taking the opportunity to dismantle the CDC while NSA/DEA/TSA/ATF remain
untouched, they're a useful idiot. Or more aptly, defunding the CDC/FDA while
leaving their veto authority in place.

If you do not see how your own favored philosophy ends up doing this bait and
switch in the limelight, you too are likely working as an enabler for
oppressive paid-for policies. The major function of voting is to make the
winners think they actually want the ensuing corruption.

