Q&A about The Villages and COVID-19 ...

As a public service, I’d like to answer some questions about The Villages and its response to the coronavirus outbreak.

GF from the Village of Labelle asks:

Why are so many things shut down but not the liquor stores? 

Dear GF:  You must be new here.  I suspect you’re not from Florida, either, or you’d realize that if you can buy a single beer in a gas station to drink while you gas up, our laws about alcohol are probably not as strict as wherever you came from.  Most Floridians appreciate how cheap and plentiful liquor is here. And it’s only common sense that if you are going to be stuck inside for a week or more because of the coronavirus, liquor will help you cope better than bottled water.      

BS from the Village of Belvedere asks:

I winter in The Villages but usually return home to New York in April. Should I stay until the outbreak is over, or is it safe to head back to New York now? 

Dear BS: By your use of the word “winter” as a verb you’re obviously a pretentious twit. I’ll bet you also have an old New York state license plate on your golf cart, along with a bunch of Yankees logos, too.  You want everyone to know you’re from New York. We already knew you were a New Yorker without advertising it on your golf cart.  You told us right after your first hello.  And you’ve told us again and again.  We know you can’t get a proper bagel here, or a real pizza, and that everything is better in New York. So for goodness sake head back early. Go ahead. It’s probably perfectly safe to go back to New York.  Don’t pay any attention to those people on TV here who say otherwise. They don’t know nearly as much as a real New Yorker like you. 

Then put your house here on the market. Someone will snap it up in a heartbeat. You’ll make a nice profit and you can go “winter” someplace else where everyone will always recognize how special you are because you’re from New York.     

DF from the Village of Hemingway asks:

Many of states in the Northeast have banned single-use grocery bags. Why are grocery stores here like Publix and Winn-Dixie still using single use plastic bags? 

Dear DF: How to put this? Okay, in the middle of a pandemic where people are dying, you’re worried about plastic bags?  Really? Because of people like you our stores are phasing out plastic bags for no other reason than the constant whining from snowbirds.  Thanks a bunch.  Nobody says you can’t bring your reusable plastic bag from Wegmans or wherever you shop up north to our stores.  You’re perfectly free to decline with a self-righteous snort their free plastic or paper bag to tote your groceries home. But don’t expect anyone here to fall down on their knees to worship you if you do. 

BTW, while you are ostentatiously virtue signaling how environmentally conscious you are, do remember that unless you continually clean and sterilize your reusable bag after every use you are increasing your exposure to food-borne bacteria as well as the coronavirus.  Oh, and one last thing:  paper bags are completely biodegradable; your plastic reusable bag isn’t.  

BP from the Village of Charlotte asks:

There haven’t been many reported cases of coronavirus so far in The Villages. Why do you think that is?  And could we expect more?

Dear BP: I expect our exposure to the virus, and subsequent infections, to remain fairly low, because the people who would have brought the virus from New York, New Jersey and Connecticut were already here when all hell broke loose up there.  So we only have to worry about those who traveled down after then, which is still significant but not like the mass migration we experience in late fall and the beginning of winter. Not surprisingly, The Villages doesn’t get a lot of dumbass spring breakers who could care less if they infect everyone, either.

Our only real risk factor is from morons who refuse to respect social distance rules and suggested safety protocols, and those weasels who’ve lied to the authorities and their friends here about where they’ve travelled. Unfortunately, there are too many of both here. 

PK from the Village of Dunedin asks:

Why are store shelves in The Villages now out of toilet paper? 

Dear PK: The obvious answer is that a bunch of selfish jerks bought all the toilet paper. Why? I have no idea.  It’s not as if they aren’t manufacturing more or delivering more all the time.  Yet every time there’s a rumor some store has toilet paper, there’s a mad rush to buy it all up; sometimes there are lines outside stores at 7AM because of this. By now some folks must be hoarding a year’s supply of toilet paper.  I suspect some houses here have spare rooms completely filled with toilet paper.  

The hoarders aren’t embarrassed.  Somebody with a thick Long Island accent in Walmart the other day proudly bragged he had 48 rolls at home. I was supposed to be impressed; instead, I thought, what an asshole.  Then again, because of his accent, I should have expected that. 

JM from the Village of Collier asks:

Can my dog spread this virus? 

Dear JM:  It’s not likely.  But by your question, I have to wonder: are you kissing your dog on the mouth? Please stop. You are creeping out the rest of us. And we’re pretty sure your dog doesn’t appreciate it either.  Also, just because your dog isn’t a potential spreader you shouldn’t take furball everywhere you go, like to the grocery store.  Stop with the bullshit about your dog being a service animal, too: anybody can buy that stupid vest. Real service animals have been specially trained to perform tasks – quivering while being toted around in a stroller isn’t a useful task.   

SC from the Village of Osceola Hills asks:

I live in the New York City area but didn’t want to be shut in and stuck at home for God knows how long because of this coronavirus thing.  I arranged for a private jet to Florida last week to take me to my winter place in The Villages.  Some people are angry; what’s the big deal?       

Dear SC: I’m going to take a wild ass guess you’re a Democrat. I’ll also bet you haven’t told anyone – your neighbors, your friends, your social circle, anyone you’ve had contact with here since you arrived – that you might have been exposed to the virus in New York. In fact, you probably have been and you know it.  So, to your question: I think you are a selfish, self-centered prick who doesn’t give a rat’s ass about anyone but yourself.  You connived your way around all the restrictions put in place by the Feds and our governor designed to keep potential COVID-19 carriers from us. Congrats. I’m sure you’re really proud of yourself, and how you beat the system.  It’s jerks like you that are spreading the virus farther than it would normally go.

Clowns like you are also why Trump may quarantine the entire New York metro.  You all simply can’t be trusted to do the right thing on your own.  And you don’t care about anybody else.  

That's it for today. Stay safe.   

Stupidity and the coronavirus outbreak ...

Along with the coronavirus outbreak, we’re seeing an outbreak of stupidity. 

Large segments our population – specifically the young – are simply refusing to respect the requests to avoid gathering in groups. 

I am not surprised one bit.  What did anyone expect from them after being coddled and told how special they are all their pampered lives? Suddenly they’d care about the health and wellbeing of others? Seriously? When you’ve been told all your life you’re so special that the rules don’t apply to you, nobody should be surprised at their behavior.

They know they aren’t at the highest risk of dying from the virus; older people are, and they don’t care what happens to older people, even older family members.  They only care about themselves.  They’re selfish, self-centered little twits whose every whims have been indulged by their parents, their teachers and everyone else.    

Now they are going to repay all that special attention by getting infected and then spreading it to their older and more vulnerable bosses, parents, and grandparents.  Thanks, kids.     

We’re also learning how screwed up we’ve allowed things to become.  More importantly, how completely brain-dead our political class is. 

Here’s a bit of gratuitous advice to our political leaders: We can’t bribe our way out of this economic collapse. It didn’t work in the financial collapse in 2008 and won’t work now. Sometimes you just have to let things bottom out before they can recover. This is one of those times. 

The only way to solve the current economic problem is to stop the virus and get people back to work.  Everything else is bullshit. That means if it takes shutting everything down and quarantining people against their will to get people to stop spreading the virus, so be it. 

Sending checks to people in the meantime is, then, bullshit.

This will not bring the economy back. It will only make things worse.  If the poohbahs in DC thought about it for a moment, they’d understand that sending people money for not working is something we already do – it’s called unemployment comp; that mechanism already is in place and it should be used this time around, too.  We can always add more money to the unemployment comp system but we shouldn’t ignore it as the best answer to unemployment. 

If the goal is to keep people afloat until they have work again that’s the answer. It always has been. The only freaking answer that makes sense.  We don’t need a new safety net program, we already have enough of those already and they don’t need to be expanded. 

People on Social Security will still get their checks, so will those on disability. SNAP benefits and other food assistance programs are already in place.  There’s no need to expand these.   

But of course, we all know that’s not what the checks-in-the-mail plan is really all about.  It’s about giving those who already don’t work or could but won’t work a check, too. This includes bogus dependents “families” in urban areas routinely claim, illegal immigrants, and all the other weasels and slackers sucking off and defrauding the system already.

Essentially, the Democrat base. Surprised?   

So here’s a logic question for the geniuses in DC who want to pound money into the economy to quick-start a recovery: If stores, restaurants, and entertainment places are all closed, where would anyone spend the extra money you want to send them?

Oh, they’d use it to pay their rent and other bills, they say.

Like what other bills? We’re talking about a month at worst.  And I will never believe that crap that 40% or Americans couldn’t come up with $400 for an emergency – that’s absolute, unmitigated bullshit; some perhaps, but 40%? Almost half of Americans? 

Or that the parents of between 20-30 million school children can’t afford to feed their own kids; that’s supposedly why we have to feed them meals at school. And with public schools shut down, we need to find a way to continue to provide meals to those kids – they are depending on this free food to survive, despite the SNAP benefits we already provide to their parents for the same purpose. Seriously, how did we ever allow this to happen?

It's all bullshit.   

I feel the same about increasing childcare assistance for people without jobs – why?  So they don’t have to care for their children while they don’t have a job? And are at home already?  

Equally stupid are bailouts for the airlines, cruise lines, hotel industry and probably soon theme parks, Broadway, dinner theaters, food trucks, and hot-dog vendors, the way it’s going. With talk of as much as a trillion bucks on the table, every business is going to have its hand out; every business will claim that without help they’ll go bankrupt and thousands will lose their jobs. 

Guess what, corporate weasels, most of those thousands of jobs have already been furloughed or cut by you. You’ve already lost that bargaining chip. 

As far as bankruptcy, so what? If your company is destined to survive it will, probably in better financial shape than before. If it doesn’t survive bankruptcy someone else will surely take its place, buy its assets, move on and most likely hire a lot of its former employees. 

And for those running small businesses, as I once did, sorry guys, shit happens. That’s why there’s business-interruption insurance. That’s why you need to keep a reserve, too.

If your business is running on fumes month to month barely making payroll while piling up ever more debt year after year now’s not the time to blame everything on the coronavirus outbreak. Uncle Sam can't save you. It may sound cruel, but some businesses are destined to fail. Many will during this outbreak because, as I said, shit happens.  We need to let that occur. 

Overall, we need to stop focusing so much on what Wall Street does, or what investors like, and concentrate on stopping this virus no matter what it takes.  The rest will take care of itself. 

We don’t need to spend trillions in stimulus in the meantime. It’s just money down a rathole.  As it was before in the 2008 financial crisis.     

Unofficial update from a resident of Sumter County, FL ...

The demographically oldest county in the country is doing fine. 

I bet that surprises everyone. Old people are supposed to dropping like flies from the coronavirus right now.  Then again, thousands of Americans should be dead by now or are soon to be if you believe the fearmongers dominating the news. 

If there ever were to be a danger zone it should be here in The Villages, Florida.  The average age here is 66+; this does make this the oldest county demographically in the United States. 

That’s not to say the virus won’t eventually make it to The Villages, or that when it does it won’t wreak havoc, but so far we’re not seeing it. Sure, we have the assholes wiping out shelves of toilet paper and Clorox wipes, and I haven’t seen hand sanitizer on the shelves in weeks. 

Yet the panic buying seems to have settled down a bit lately. We were at our Walmart Neighborhood Market a day or so ago – it’s one of their small-store concepts – and they had stacks of fresh produce, plenty of milk, bread, eggs, juice, canned goods, pasta, cereal, etc. Prices were about the same as always – no sign of gouging.  Plus, gas at their station was down below $2 a gallon.   

Our little Walmart was out of toilet paper of course, but that’s probably because of the assholes who think TP is suddenly a hedge against the virus; some of them lined up at 7AM recently at a local Publix because of a rumor that store had gotten a shipment overnight.  Our Walmart also had plenty of bottled water on pallets, which some bozos had been panic buying as if they believed for some reason our municipal water systems would somehow stop working.

In terms of basic necessities, our grocery stores are restocking as usual.  And certainly, this being The Villages, while the shelves may be bare of rubbing alcohol from time to time, the liquor, wine and beer shelves remain fully stocked at all times. Nobody is running out of food or drink. 

Now, there have been some radical changes.  The Villages has shut down the free nightly live entertainment on the three town squares for the time being. Restaurants here are closing their sit-down dining areas and shifted to all take-out or delivery.  Events at the rec centers and entertainment venues have all been cancelled and our movie theaters are all closed.

Gyms and indoor fitness centers may be closed but the pools are all open.  The golf courses remain open and I see people out golfing every day. 

Yesterday our first drive through virus testing site opened. However, to use it you first have to do a telehealth visit with a doctor to confirm your symptoms and get approved before you’re eligible for testing.  That’s probably going to piss off many of the perpetual whiners here – mostly from the Northeast, and often snowbirds – who have no symptoms at all but still feel entitled to be tested, because, well, they’re SOOOO important.  Just ask them …

We’re all still hoping that April will start the northward flocking of the snowbirds. God willing they’ll all be gone by May 1, and we’re hopeful the virus will have petered out by then, too.  Two scourges will have – we hope – run their course for this year. 

Until then, we’ll just have to deal with the inconveniences posed by both.

That’s the unofficial update from America’s demographically oldest county.    

Despite what the terrorists on cable and network TV and online are putting out every day, old people aren’t keeling over in the streets from the coronavirus everywhere we go.  At least not here in The Villages. Not yet, and perhaps not at all if we’re lucky. 

And if we continue to use common sense about social distancing, staying away from sick people, and washing our hands.  

The Democrats just keep going lower ...

I will never ever vote for a Democrat again. 

I have in the past, when I was much younger. But that will not happen again. Ever.

The Democrat Party has finally crossed the last threshold with me. It’s using the coronavirus as a political lever to sneak through plans and programs they know could otherwise never pass legislatively. Why wouldn’t these? Because these are stupid and wasteful ideas designed solely to expand the role of government into everything and increase everyone’s dependence on it.

It’s an absolute travesty. It’s a con job. They are fostering fear and uncertainty about whether any of us live or die for naked political gain. 

It’s not enough to blame Trump for the coronavirus, which is ridiculous. No, they want to convince Americans that Trump is doing nothing to protect them. They claim he’s hiding the “real” number of infected Americans and the danger to everyone here from the coronavirus. Instead of taking bold action, Trump’s pretending it’s not that big of a deal, they say.  It’s clear – to them – that he doesn’t believe in science or is listening to health professionals. 

He's obviously more worried about the economy than saving American lives; this just shows how he favors the rich and corporate America over average families, the Democrats claim. 

They’re blaming him for the lack of test kits – although part of the shortfall is because manufacturers can’t get important components like reagents because, wait for it: those are manufactured overseas in places like China. The same China that gave us the coronavirus, is trying to shift blame for it to the U.S., and has openly threatened to cut off supplies of antibiotics and other pharmaceuticals to us unless we stop criticizing it. 

Democrats are pushing the idea that everyone who wants a coronavirus test should get one for free, immediately. Which means all the assholes who panicked and wiped out supplies of toilet paper and bottled water would suddenly descend on every doctor’s office, emergency room, and hospital every time they simply sneezed. This would overwhelm our entire health system unnecessarily. Which would also prevent anyone truly ill from getting necessary treatment.

Democrats want to instantly dump billions more into Medicaid, food stamps, paid sick leave, and unemployment benefits, while killing any work requirements for SNAP benefits.  If these all sound familiar it’s because these are what Democrats have demanded for years. They just have a new justification: coronavirus. 

They’re also talking about giving $1,000 to everybody, yes everybody, to help us all make ends meet while the plague envelops us. 

This is just phase one, according to Nancy Pelosi. Expect more ornaments on her tree to come. The Democrats’ wish list is just starting. They’ll milk this crisis for all they can. And that’s why my disdain for the Democrats grows stronger every day. 

Eventually, the coronavirus spread will end.  It will burn out like other viruses always have.  Just like our annual influenza outbreak does.  But I honestly believe Democrats and the media will try to keep the coronavirus hysteria going as long as possible.

Fear sells, fear increases ratings, and fear allows more cover for scammers like the Democrats.  

For now, the best advice is simple. Don’t hang around sick people. If you’re sick stay home.  Wash your hands. Clean surfaces with antibacterial wipes often. Avoid crowds. Avoid touching others or things others have touched. That’s pretty much it. 

If you’re old or have an underlying health condition be more alert about all of the above.

And wait for this to pass. Which it will.

There are valuable lessons to be learned from this. 

Most importantly, China is not our friend; it is our rival and wants to replace us as the world’s superpower. The coronavirus outbreak – and how China handled it and is trying to shift blame now – should prove that no one in the world should ever trust China.  On anything.  It’s engaged in an asymmetric non kinetic war with us; that means it’s not dropping bombs or shooting missiles at us now, but it’s a war on a variety of fronts for global supremacy, nonetheless. 

Next, Democrats have absolutely no ethics.  They truly believe the end justifies the means; the only thing that matters is winning. They are desperate to regain power and they don’t care if they terrify the populace, destroy the economy, or destroy Americans’ faith in each other or our institutions to do that. Trump is merely the symptom of everything that stands in their way. 

Has Trump made mistakes? Sure.  But has he done nothing to save lives? 

Nonsense. 

Has he done enough? Probably not. 

But I don’t think a Democrat President would have done any better.  Certainly not either of the clowns Democrats are about to nominate. 

Rest assured, I won’t vote for either of them. Nor for any other Democrat in my lifetime.  They sealed that deal for me with the way they are politicizing the coronavirus outbreak. 

It’s beyond shameful. 

Do Americans believe Pelosi and Schumer?

Pelosi and Schumer apparently think so.  Their pals in the media do, too. 

The American public can’t be that dumb.  I understand some people only hear what they want to – only stuff that reinforces the views they already hold. Hence, people who watch The View.    

But seriously, if anyone actually believes everything Pelosi and Schumer say, they are probably only a couple of IQ points above the need to be watered.  If it weren’t for their involuntary nervous system they’d forget to breathe. 

They can’t possibly be holding down real jobs; I can’t imagine any regular business hiring them, except for some horrifyingly dangerous job no one with any sense at all would do.  Or, perhaps they could get hired in government or in government-managed social services where common sense obviously isn’t always a mandatory requirement for employment.

Maybe that’s why so many employed there are Democrats. 

I prefer to think the people who claim to agree with everything said by Pelosi and Schumer realize these two are lying bullshit artists spouting a constant stream of crap no one could possibly believe.  But because they hate Trump just as much as these two, they’re okay with this nonsense.  However, they know it’s actually all ridiculous blather by these two buffoons. 

I’d rather think that’s the case. I’d hate to think that anyone could take them seriously.  

We are all aware the effects of the latest coronavirus are being felt across the world. Air travel is down. People are cancelling trips. Conventions and conferences are being rescheduled or cancelled.  Companies overseas are halting production sometimes at the request of their governments.  This is rippling across global supply chains and affecting companies here dependent on overseas suppliers.  The big banks and large investment firms are predicting economic contraction. 

Hundreds of thousands are known to have been infected with the virus, with perhaps hundreds of thousands more not documented.  A relatively tiny fraction of those known to be infected have died – less than 1%, in fact; mostly the elderly already with serious underlying conditions. 

Pelosi and Schumer blamed Trump for the deaths.  They blamed Trump for the first stock market slide because he didn’t act soon enough. They blamed him for not having enough supplies on hand, for not having a vaccine already for a month-old virus, and for not “showing leadership” in the face of such a crisis, which at that point had claimed about 11 American lives. Total.

Panic ensued. Stocks slid further.  Nice job, Nancy and Chuck.   

Then, over this weekend the Saudis and the Russians got into a pissing match.   

The Saudis wanted to curtail production to stabilize prices in the face of reduced demand from China in particular from the coronavirus event. The Russians refused to curtail production.

So the Saudis abruptly cut their crude prices by 6-7%. This caused the world crude market to plummet. Which was okay with the Russians, because they want prices to fall to curtail fracking in the U.S.; fracking here – only economic when oil prices are in the $50+ per barrel – has made the U.S. energy independent and the world less reliant on Russia’s #1 export for cash. 

Russia’s probably regretting blowing off the Saudis right now since world crude prices dropped to as low as $30 a barrel almost immediately. And make no mistake, Russia may want to hurt the U.S. fracking industry, but Russia desperately needs hard currency and oil is their biggest export. The Russian economy is taking a huge hit when world prices go this low. 

The possibility this might also hurt our own oil companies, and throw some heavily leveraged fracking companies into bankruptcy, sent our stock market down more than 2000 points.    

Now Pelosi and Schumer are blaming Trump for this slide as well. Pelosi went on TV midday to say the dramatic market slide was because nobody had confidence in the Trump administration to handle the coronavirus outbreak.  She said nothing about the collapse of oil prices as a cause. 

That’s despite leading market analysts blaming the most recent and deepest drop on the cratering oil market on top of jitters over the worldwide economic slowdown from the coronavirus outbreak. In effect, it’s a perfect storm of two unfortunate events hitting at the same time.   

Trump has nothing to do with either one.

The first started in China; the second in Saudi Arabia and Russia.  

Blaming Trump for the new shortage of masks, medical supplies, antibiotics, and critical pharmaceutical ingredients is way off base, too.

The real reason for these shortages is that almost all of them are now made in China. That’s right – China.  Why? Because it’s cheaper and more profitable to make them there.  So we don’t make them here anymore.  That’s made us far more dependent on China for our own health and safety than we should have ever allowed to happen.

If anything, Trump has been warning of our dependence on China, and the need to bring back critical manufacturing industries back to the U.S., for years. The same Democrats now accusing him of letting the U.S. run short of critical medical supplies routinely attacked him whenever he spoke of the national security need to bring manufacturing back to the U.S.     

It's impossible to believe anything Nancy and Chuck say – they are willing to destroy this country if it destroys Trump.  That’s why they are blaming Trump for everything and doing everything in their power to prevent him from succeeding.

If that means encouraging stock market drops that eviscerate people’s 401(k)s and other retirement savings, so be it.  If that means fostering unwarranted fear that the coronavirus is about to kill thousands of Americans because we are woefully unprepared to handle, so be it.   

The only thing Nancy said I believe is that she prays every day for the President. I think she does. But she never said what she’s praying for. 

With the coronavirus panic and the stock market crashing, she most likely believes her prayers have finally been answered.