Today, two years after COVID-19 first hit these shores from China, most studies confirm that the heavy-handed government lockdowns of businesses, restaurants, schools, churches and parks did more harm than good to our health and well-being.
States and countries with strict and prolonged lockdown and stay-at-home orders had slightly better health outcomes, but they ruined their economies and had highly adverse effects on children.
If any good comes out of COVID-19, it should be that we’ve learned this lesson the hard way, and never, never again should we allow politicians to impose these unconstitutional lockdown orders again.
Now we have evidence of more collateral damage from lockdowns, and perhaps this will persuade even those on the far left who generally support the heavy hand of government.
Shutting down the economy hurt the poor the most and vastly widened the chasm between rich and poor. Lockdowns squashed small startup businesses, hurt low-income workers whose jobs were first in line to be destroyed and devastated educational advances of children in the worst school districts.
For example, we have learned that high-achieving children did fine with remote learning. However, those who scored below average in school performance or from low-income families without computer skills tended to tune out and shut down online lessons completely. We know from teachers that as many as one-third of children rarely, if ever, even turned on a computer during the lockdowns. The long-term educational setbacks for these children as they grow to adult age could be devastating.
Just who were the winners from lockdown nation? Let’s start with the corporate titans: Walmart, Google, Amazon, Walgreens, Apple, McDonald’s, Pfizer, Goldman Sachs, etc. They were rewarded with the designation of “essential” by the politicians. Their doors stayed open. They raked in dollars by the millions.
You don’t have to take my word for it. Here is a headline from MarketWatch earlier this month: “Big Tech’s pandemic year produces mind-boggling financial results.”
We learn that big businesses scored a “$1.4 trillion payday” during the pandemic. Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Google and Microsoft increased their profits by 45% last year. “Wow, bring back more pandemics!” they must be shouting around the boardroom table.
Then there was this nugget from the front page of the New York Times: “Wealth inequality is the highest since World War II.” George Soros, Bill Gates and Warren Buffett won the lottery.
Don’t get me wrong: I’m not a basher of Big Tech or Big Pharma. On the contrary, I love a rising stock market. If firms make great products or services that people want, hooray for capitalism. Everyone’s better off.
But here, we see the hypocrisy of the left in the media come shining through. The left denounces inequality, but it embraces the policies that allow the uneven playing field.
When will the bleeding hearts learn this history lesson that keeps repeating itself like a skip on a vinyl record? Big government creates economic unfairness. It never solves it.
Stephen Moore is a senior fellow at Freedom Works. He is also author of the new book: “Govzilla: How The Relentless Growth of Government Is Devouring Our Economy.” To find out more about Stephen Moore and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.
“The Lockdown ruse worked. Official edicts from state and federal offices have become a total mockery to the Constitution and the Rule of Law. And with each passing day, these abuses of power stray further and further from any “public health” related issue. That development was totally by design.
In truth, leftist Democrats had long sought an excuse to open their floodgates of power-grubbing corruption, to seize control over our Nation, never to relinquish it. The Wuhan virus merely gave them the facade of a “crisis” to make it all happen in the midst of fear and panic. Predictably, the direction in which our Country moved, ever since the start of the “lockdowns,” has been relentlessly leftward. Contrived chaos always has that effect. In retrospect, the stage was being set, long before the “Plague of 2020” hit our shores.”
AND IMO that was their INTENDED GOAL.. Not an “unforseen side effect!”
“Big government creates economic unfairness. It never solves it.”,,,,but they could only get away with it without the help of Big MEDIA. The age of individual liberty has given way to the age of the social collective. People no longer define themselves as unique, special, above the fray, but just who and what social collective they belong to, and what piece of that collective puzzle they play. Our inner cities are collectives of gangs where the individual can no longer survive on his own but is forced to join one gang, one party. one neighborhood, one race, one big business or another or perish. This is not your father’s America. There are still islands of individual American freedom out in the countryside, but they are being overwhelmed as well with illegal aliens, and alien socialist ideas that make a mockery of the States every becoming United again, now being everywhere divided by a false media who believes themselves to be untouchable, where lawsuits, jail and fines are no longer viewed as a threat.
Exactly. EVERY Govt initiative, to “END something”, has not just failed UTTERLY AND TOTALLY< BUT made things worse..
War on Poverty – WE HAVE MORE IN POVERTY now, than we did back in the 20s!
War on drugs – The cartels are in many ways, MORE POWERFUL THAN EVEN OUR military..
War on crime – GEE, do we need ANY More evidence that the loonies are running the show?!
To respond to ” Ituser
Did ypu Mean likecNancy Pelosi, Like the democrat , Socialist, Burnie Sander, And The Woman Whp Heard That The Middle Class Americans Had To Pay more For Gas At the Pump Said, ” Let Them Buy A Battery – Powered Car, In Other Words, ” Let Them Eat Cake , She Could Care Less That The Working Middle Class Were Suffering…
As Was once said, Author Unknown , “The Most Scarest Words Ever Heard, Hi, I’m From The Government & I’ m Here To Help.”
I hope America sees that politicians and ultra rich are for slavery as they are the ones who will be waited on hand and foot while the actual productive portion of society struggle 24/7 to provide for their families.
“the hypocrisy of the left” does not only include the Democrats, it also includes the RINOS, as both the Democrats and the RINOS are in bed with big business.
AND all big tech/media!
As Rahm Emmanuel once Said, ” You never want A Seripus Crisis to Go To Waste … ” The Wealthy Took Full Advantage of The Crisis And Their Businesses Thrived While The Working Middle Class Had To Pay More For Everthing Gas For Their Car, Groceries, and Necessities That they Needed.
The pandemic was created by the corrupt politicians and healthcare industry as the avenue for mandates and assuring the freedom of choice we once had never returns.