It will never be “too late”. The great depression lasted 11 years, and the economy eventually bounced back. The economy will recover, the dead won’t come back.
The economy will spring back, usually better than before as people adapt and innovate. It always has. Dead people? Not so much. If you are so concerned about a trade-off between which people should die so people can go out and shop, please set the example, Mike. Tell the world you will sacrifice your life for a couple points on the Dow and I’m sure there would be a lot of people that will hold a party and cheer for your sacrifice.
“Little league coach stonings?” Do I even want to know what that’s referring to? And LOL at trying to drag Macy’s demise into this. They, along with Sears, did themselves in with fiscal irresponsibility and inability to respond to market changes. Covid just made it a mercy killing.
Looks like the chuds should’ve taken their own advice, which they weren’t shy to dispense to the rest of us over the last four decades, and have some funds saved for a rainy day. A crash was bound to happen one way or another, after Trump was elected. Each of the last four GOP presidents have crashed the economy at least once.
Mr. Lester is too intelligent to listen to Dr. Fauci. He is right up there with Rand Paul. Exceptional people! Not quite as exceptional as Mr. Trump, but exceptional all the same.
I’m working on a series of rallies where true economic liberators can get together in sports arenas in every state, where they will meet and confab isolated from those nasty fact-telling scientists and the fake news media – and after the arena doors are unlocked two weeks later the survivors can tell us what they came up with.
The art of lying, type 4-A (a larger number than Lester often manages): The fallacy of the excluded middle.
Yes, it’s painful. And it will BE painful for quite some time. And yet, I’d rather be in pain than dead, even with “only” 4% probability. But there’s an awful lot of middle ground between what we had at Xmas last year and what’s pictured here.
Mikey finally nailed it. The GOP plan is to drag corpses back to an economy that’s in ruins because Mitch McConnell hates the idea of helping regular Americans weather the storm.
America is a strong, wonderful, powerful nation. We are an inventive, creative, resourceful people. When we reopen we will open stronger and more stable than before. We will make our nation, our culture more vibrant, productive and than ever before.
The cowards and weak-kneed live fearful, sad little lives. They hold us back and slow us down. If we fail, it will be because of these cowards.
It is so easy for the armchair critics to insist the rest of us stay home regardless of the consequences. So easy for them to insist that others sit idle and lose all of their savings, retirement money (if any) and sink deeper into debt.
How many rent payments can you skip before you are evicted? The landlord has the same obligations we homeowners have. Mortgage payments. Taxes. Utilities. Those obligations don’t just stop because you want to wave a magic bailout wand.
Print money and hand it out to the little people? Pass a law that suspends all payment obligations for every person and company? Force farmers to grow stuff and raise livestock for free?
Sooner or later we have to get back to work. The longer we wait the worse its going to be.
For those who point to our recovery from the Great Depression I have a few reminders. The only reason we emerged from that desolation was WWII. Slowly as we ramped up production to supply England and then at a breakneck pace in 1942. With much of the regular work force in uniform jobs were available for anyone willing to work. Despite which we suffered rationing of almost every daily need.
With the end of the war came massive unemployment and recessions in 1945-66 and 1948-49. Korea kickstarted the economy again. Followed by recessions again in 1953-54 and 1957-58.
Keep in mind that prior to the 1960’s America was the ONLY undamaged industrial powerhouse in the world. Europe, Japan, Korea, China, all were rebuilding from the rubble. Most of them using our money and our goods. Those days are long gone. We must rebuild from our own resources. We had a good start these last few years. Let’s not blow it by turning into a welfare state.
What recovered the US from the Great Depression was a willingness to accept enormous debt so as to produce materials for war and to employ people to make them.
The regressives want to pay the rich and ignore everyone else. We are already a welfare state - for the rich!
Where is the money that was going to improve infrastructure? The f*king regressives have done zip. You want people to be able to pay rent? Give them jobs, jobs that will help rebuild this country so that we can go forward as a society. And pay living wages for that.
It’s not like it has not been done before. WPA anyone? Has your restaurant failed? We need to be able to feed workers and the unemployed. Your experience running a business providing food could get you employment. Or even continue your business, subsidized by the government if you feed those on WPA. And because of the social distancing that will continue to be needed for some time, you’ll have to adapt to lower customer density in space and time. That means adjusting your business’s intake of food for the business to a smaller base. Government subsidy can help with that.
When you can again stand on your own, and have fulfilled all obligations, you can try to return to a pre-pandemic kind of business (but that may take a while).
The fact is, it is going to require massive programs that employ people to rebuild the country and not just highways, but pretty much everything. Most people have not been considering that increasing automation will rmean most jobs held by humans will be done by machines. Even insurance agents.
Now is the time to build the future, not try to rebuild a past that will die anyway. Now is the time to spend on a future for all, not just a few.
The states that are open aren’t going to keep the ones closed indefinitely. Just simple fact. We “flattened the curve” now you want to “find a cure” and the country’s not going to roll over for rule changes. The purpose of life isn’t to avoid dying at all cost, it’s to live and that comes w/ risks. And water is wet.
Yes, Mike, you’ve done it. You’ve uncovered the sooper secret liberal agenda of burning down all of civilization just to make some meaningless point. How incredibly subtle and insightful of you. Why, just the other day I was telling my fellow liberal friends down at the hipster coffee house how much I’m looking forward to destroying the livelihoods of everyone around me and just so we can… I don’t know, make you mad, I guess.
Thanks to the diligence and testing, South Korea decided to start relaxing their strict social distancing rules and allow people to start resuming normal life. They still needed to wear masks and take precautions.
On May 2nd, a 29 year-old South Korean male went out to party at at least five nightclubs in Seoul. He wore no protection and was CV=19 positive. The result? He exposed over 5500 people to the Covid19 virus, which the government has been trying to track down and trace so they can test. As of the 13th of May, over 120 people have tested positive for CV-19 and secondary infections have spread across the Peninsula to cities like Incheon and Busan (the opposite end of the country). Testing has expanded to over 20,000.
Korea will get these locked down in time, but it’s really a setback that will take time, all because of ONE person who didn’t think they needed to worry about protecting others and just wanted to have a night out on the town.
https://en.yna.co.kr/view/AEN20200513004755315
“SEOUL, May 13 (Yonhap) — Cases linked to nightspots in the Seoul neighborhood of Itaewon hit 120 on Wednesday as secondary infections surfaced across the country, stoking concerns over the possibility of a bigger outbreak.
Infections in Seoul accounted for more than half of the cases at 70, with the number feared to rise after more visitors to the affected area are tested for the coronavirus. Some 20,000 have so far been tested, according to the health minister.
Authorities have been on the alert after a 29-year-old tested positive following visits to five clubs and bars — King Club, Trunk, Queen, Soho and H.I.M — in Itaewon, a popular nightlife district also known for its international community, in early May.
In less than a week, the case quickly swelled to a cluster infection, affecting not only those who had been to Itaewon but 43 who were infected through secondary transmission."
newyorkslim about 4 years ago
Great image… but it ain’t gonna be that bad.
Vidrinath Premium Member about 4 years ago
OK Boomer
Aliquid about 4 years ago
It will never be “too late”. The great depression lasted 11 years, and the economy eventually bounced back. The economy will recover, the dead won’t come back.
brwydave Premium Member about 4 years ago
At least Olivia passed while wearing her favorite dress.
braindead Premium Member about 4 years ago
A great illustration of the Republican* plan to respond to the pandemic:
Let ’er rip!
Wlly Blly about 4 years ago
It’s amazing how little faith Mike has in our citizens.
ferddo about 4 years ago
Do you really believe that capitalism is such a fragile system that the country can totally collapse within a few months?
Patjade about 4 years ago
The economy will spring back, usually better than before as people adapt and innovate. It always has. Dead people? Not so much. If you are so concerned about a trade-off between which people should die so people can go out and shop, please set the example, Mike. Tell the world you will sacrifice your life for a couple points on the Dow and I’m sure there would be a lot of people that will hold a party and cheer for your sacrifice.
Barry Onyx about 4 years ago
“Little league coach stonings?” Do I even want to know what that’s referring to? And LOL at trying to drag Macy’s demise into this. They, along with Sears, did themselves in with fiscal irresponsibility and inability to respond to market changes. Covid just made it a mercy killing.
Looks like the chuds should’ve taken their own advice, which they weren’t shy to dispense to the rest of us over the last four decades, and have some funds saved for a rainy day. A crash was bound to happen one way or another, after Trump was elected. Each of the last four GOP presidents have crashed the economy at least once.
Judge Magney about 4 years ago
Sounds like they’re heading for a Trump rally.
6.6TA about 4 years ago
Mr. Lester is too intelligent to listen to Dr. Fauci. He is right up there with Rand Paul. Exceptional people! Not quite as exceptional as Mr. Trump, but exceptional all the same.
thelordthygod666 about 4 years ago
I’m working on a series of rallies where true economic liberators can get together in sports arenas in every state, where they will meet and confab isolated from those nasty fact-telling scientists and the fake news media – and after the arena doors are unlocked two weeks later the survivors can tell us what they came up with.
Daeder about 4 years ago
Why would they be stoning the corpses of people who died from the corona virus?
Concretionist about 4 years ago
The art of lying, type 4-A (a larger number than Lester often manages): The fallacy of the excluded middle.
Yes, it’s painful. And it will BE painful for quite some time. And yet, I’d rather be in pain than dead, even with “only” 4% probability. But there’s an awful lot of middle ground between what we had at Xmas last year and what’s pictured here.
Uncle Joe Premium Member about 4 years ago
Mikey finally nailed it. The GOP plan is to drag corpses back to an economy that’s in ruins because Mitch McConnell hates the idea of helping regular Americans weather the storm.
Durak Premium Member about 4 years ago
America is a strong, wonderful, powerful nation. We are an inventive, creative, resourceful people. When we reopen we will open stronger and more stable than before. We will make our nation, our culture more vibrant, productive and than ever before.
The cowards and weak-kneed live fearful, sad little lives. They hold us back and slow us down. If we fail, it will be because of these cowards.
Andylit Premium Member about 4 years ago
It is so easy for the armchair critics to insist the rest of us stay home regardless of the consequences. So easy for them to insist that others sit idle and lose all of their savings, retirement money (if any) and sink deeper into debt.
How many rent payments can you skip before you are evicted? The landlord has the same obligations we homeowners have. Mortgage payments. Taxes. Utilities. Those obligations don’t just stop because you want to wave a magic bailout wand.
Print money and hand it out to the little people? Pass a law that suspends all payment obligations for every person and company? Force farmers to grow stuff and raise livestock for free?
Sooner or later we have to get back to work. The longer we wait the worse its going to be.
For those who point to our recovery from the Great Depression I have a few reminders. The only reason we emerged from that desolation was WWII. Slowly as we ramped up production to supply England and then at a breakneck pace in 1942. With much of the regular work force in uniform jobs were available for anyone willing to work. Despite which we suffered rationing of almost every daily need.
With the end of the war came massive unemployment and recessions in 1945-66 and 1948-49. Korea kickstarted the economy again. Followed by recessions again in 1953-54 and 1957-58.
Keep in mind that prior to the 1960’s America was the ONLY undamaged industrial powerhouse in the world. Europe, Japan, Korea, China, all were rebuilding from the rubble. Most of them using our money and our goods. Those days are long gone. We must rebuild from our own resources. We had a good start these last few years. Let’s not blow it by turning into a welfare state.
Baslim the Beggar Premium Member about 4 years ago
Lotta claptrap from the usual sources.
What recovered the US from the Great Depression was a willingness to accept enormous debt so as to produce materials for war and to employ people to make them.
The regressives want to pay the rich and ignore everyone else. We are already a welfare state - for the rich!
Where is the money that was going to improve infrastructure? The f*king regressives have done zip. You want people to be able to pay rent? Give them jobs, jobs that will help rebuild this country so that we can go forward as a society. And pay living wages for that.
It’s not like it has not been done before. WPA anyone? Has your restaurant failed? We need to be able to feed workers and the unemployed. Your experience running a business providing food could get you employment. Or even continue your business, subsidized by the government if you feed those on WPA. And because of the social distancing that will continue to be needed for some time, you’ll have to adapt to lower customer density in space and time. That means adjusting your business’s intake of food for the business to a smaller base. Government subsidy can help with that.
When you can again stand on your own, and have fulfilled all obligations, you can try to return to a pre-pandemic kind of business (but that may take a while).
The fact is, it is going to require massive programs that employ people to rebuild the country and not just highways, but pretty much everything. Most people have not been considering that increasing automation will rmean most jobs held by humans will be done by machines. Even insurance agents.
Now is the time to build the future, not try to rebuild a past that will die anyway. Now is the time to spend on a future for all, not just a few.
Vidrinath Premium Member about 4 years ago
Mike, how come you aren’t pointing out to us that YOU feature so prominently in other ’toonists work?
Steve Sack drew you:
https://www.startribune.com/sack-cartoon-anti-stay-at-home-protests/569823472/
Clay Jones drew you:
https://www.gocomics.com/clayjones/2020/05/14
Is there some Counterpoint bylaw thing where you can’t mention it?
jhayesd31 about 4 years ago
Trump supporters are like this Now!
( The most uneducated counties in the nation voted for Trump. )
mlester101 creator about 4 years ago
The states that are open aren’t going to keep the ones closed indefinitely. Just simple fact. We “flattened the curve” now you want to “find a cure” and the country’s not going to roll over for rule changes. The purpose of life isn’t to avoid dying at all cost, it’s to live and that comes w/ risks. And water is wet.
Wlly Blly about 4 years ago
No Mike, we haven’t “flattened the curve”. The incidence of cases is still spiking. Where did you get that misinformation?
thisismaryella about 4 years ago
Yes, Mike, you’ve done it. You’ve uncovered the sooper secret liberal agenda of burning down all of civilization just to make some meaningless point. How incredibly subtle and insightful of you. Why, just the other day I was telling my fellow liberal friends down at the hipster coffee house how much I’m looking forward to destroying the livelihoods of everyone around me and just so we can… I don’t know, make you mad, I guess.
Patjade about 4 years ago
A cautionary tale:
Thanks to the diligence and testing, South Korea decided to start relaxing their strict social distancing rules and allow people to start resuming normal life. They still needed to wear masks and take precautions.
On May 2nd, a 29 year-old South Korean male went out to party at at least five nightclubs in Seoul. He wore no protection and was CV=19 positive. The result? He exposed over 5500 people to the Covid19 virus, which the government has been trying to track down and trace so they can test. As of the 13th of May, over 120 people have tested positive for CV-19 and secondary infections have spread across the Peninsula to cities like Incheon and Busan (the opposite end of the country). Testing has expanded to over 20,000.
Korea will get these locked down in time, but it’s really a setback that will take time, all because of ONE person who didn’t think they needed to worry about protecting others and just wanted to have a night out on the town.
https://en.yna.co.kr/view/AEN20200513004755315
“SEOUL, May 13 (Yonhap) — Cases linked to nightspots in the Seoul neighborhood of Itaewon hit 120 on Wednesday as secondary infections surfaced across the country, stoking concerns over the possibility of a bigger outbreak.
Infections in Seoul accounted for more than half of the cases at 70, with the number feared to rise after more visitors to the affected area are tested for the coronavirus. Some 20,000 have so far been tested, according to the health minister.
Authorities have been on the alert after a 29-year-old tested positive following visits to five clubs and bars — King Club, Trunk, Queen, Soho and H.I.M — in Itaewon, a popular nightlife district also known for its international community, in early May.
In less than a week, the case quickly swelled to a cluster infection, affecting not only those who had been to Itaewon but 43 who were infected through secondary transmission."