Awesomely Astute

Love your sister

Love Your Sister: A Brother’s Like Tick

So advised Samuel Johnson in his book Love Your Sister. My younger sister Julie is not dying of a terminal illness as his was. She is, however, going to die and has decided to stare down that unknown date by accepting its inevitability and engaging positively with the world while time permits. Hence her blog is called Countdown as she draws down from 90 years.

This perspective gels with my own thoughts on longevity and mortality. I struggle to understand why so many engage in denial and delusion about finity and consider it impolite to regard someone at 90 to be no closer to death than another at age 20. This denial is usually closely followed and deflected by declarations that said 20 year old might be hit by a bus anytime. While true, probability demands a more realistic assessment of life chances.

If you are curious to access her blogsite you will note one of her status descriptors as grandmother. Do not dismiss this lightly with the common expectation that you will read folksy dotings. Grandparents have a more nuanced perspective to share and a stockpiled quantum of love to distribute; their words merit active listening.

As one drawn to philosophy myself in later life, I was interested to read an article by Prof Simon Critchley recently in which he claims in the title “to philosophize is to learn how to die.” He sets out his views in the context of coronavirus and imposed isolation and its attendant anxiety and fear. Death is not a surprise interruption to our lifelong narrative as it comes for all of us. It can be imminent for some and capricious for others. But it is reliable.

I think what my sister is doing is ensuring she leaves behind a quantum of love that feeds and infuses the generations to follow. None is wasted and its productivity is immense. The parents we shared left that for us. Critchley reminds us that “a life lived well, a philosophical life, is one that welcomes death’s approach.” Normality, he suggests, encourages us to live a “counterfeit eternity” as we pretend life will go on and death just happens to others.

Prof Critchley has provided for me what I believe is the nub of Julie’s intention for her Countdown blog: “pulling away from the death-denying habits of normal life and facing the anxiety of the situation with a clear-eyed courage and sober realism.”

In the midst of some very jaundiced and poor thinking we are urged to think well. To think with integrity and good faith. Some shun thinking when it interferes with their fixed-form ideology and tribal membership. Some think poorly and disingenuously. Others, like Trump, don’t think at all and are untroubled by erudition.

As so often said, none of us are perfect. We all have some abrasive, echidna spikes or messy iron filings or burrs adhering to us. But we can put away the rasp and chisel and just admire the humanity of grandparents who have come so far. So here’s to thinking well. Countdown? I get it!

Day 32 Wednesday 22nd April

Snap-back might turn out to be a mouse trap, but the urge towards a flawed normal grows apace. Signs of hope include the proposed re-opening of Bondi, Tamarama and Bronte beaches next week. A second is my success in purchasing toilet paper for the first time in over a month. In fact, my only option on spotting this exotic item was to take a pack of 45 rolls. This had the twin effect of making me afraid of being mistaken for a hoarder and fearing I may be assaulted on the way to my car, so in demand was the product I was carrying with no possibility of concealment.

Testing is to be ramped up for identified hot spots and at risk communities. Only a trickle more cases today, 21 to total 6,649 and now 74 deaths. NSW has 5 only added overnight for 2,974 and 33 deaths. The world count is 2.5 million cases and over 174,000 deaths. The US had 2,600 deaths overnight for a total of 45,000 deaths from 800,000 cases in the land of the free. America seems already to be in the grip of a virus affecting the mind, whose symptoms are exceptionalism, an obsession with rights and a superiority complex. The vocal are champions of a failed state they want reopened pronto.

It has been suggested, via social media of course, that Mother Nature decided we had made a hash of things and so sent us the virus and directed us to go to our rooms and not come out again until we understand and behave. Now we have that chance to behave. Among the initiatives we could adopt is to arrange a vocational exchange for a year between the PMs of New Zealand and Australia. We can offer Jacinda free child care. On the other side we need to stop pretending trickle-down works, lift the lid on female participation in every facet of public life and industry, and find a way to renew trust in government and re-invigorate democracy.

In bringing a greater variety of minds to work on co-creation we could form a red team, as Travis McLeod has suggested (Centre for Policy Development, 24 March), to provide “an independent critique and a counter to groupthink”. Step into this space progressives. Get your voice heard. How are those behavioural economists in State and Federal nudge teams doing convincing us to behave differently? With Sam Mostyn, Travis McLeod also notes it would be a mistake to go back to where we were and they say: “We need to reflect seriously on our national capacity before the crisis – the lack of complexity in our economy, diminishing capability across our public sector, and the inequity in our communities.” Lets press for a new normal.

Day 31 Tuesday 21st April

I started this journal planning to do a daily entry for what was looming as the two critical weeks of the pandemic and our response to managing it. I kept going to monitor an eagerly awaited flattening of the curve and now I need to continue to see if snap-back means what it suggests. Also, I couldn’t resist adopting the 40 days and 40 nights’ template for biblical plague and pestilence. It has been instructive to observe the human response. Many are getting twitchy about catching the road out.

Fueled by social media we now have a new vocabulary for our times, of which the road out and snap-back are just the most recent. Pronunciations are intriguing such as sell fisolation which suggests either retail home insulation or share-broker advice to sell fisolation. The political class gave you lifters and leaners (thanks Joe Hockey). In the same spirit I give you spenders and stackers as we find out who will spend stimulus payments to grease the economy and who will simply add it to their Scrooge McDuck money bin. By the way, what did happen to all that money we gave the banks in the GFC?

More people also now appreciate that preventive health is more efficacious than repairing humans when they break down. NSW schools go back on a stepped attendance program from May 11 and elective surgery can recommence, again in a phased fashion. Virgin has submitted to voluntary administration with the loss of 16,000 staff and contractors. The oil price is in negative territory and the RBA (Reserve Bank of Australia) has provided an update on what we have done and how we are going to get out of it. The Newmarch aged care facility has demonstrated what a bad idea it is to go to work sick, with 14 staff and 28 residents testing positive to COVID-19.

Nearly 2.5 million cases worldwide now with 170,380 deaths. Australia’s total cases grew by only 13 to 6,628 with still 71 deaths. The state of NSW recorded only 6 more (total 2,659 and still 30 deaths).

This is an irresistible time for thinking, for those that do. Among the current round of ideas generated by the great disturbance, and scenarios for the future, are the following:

The case for a Universal Basic Income in the UK was pressed in a Prospect article (Stewart Lindsay, “The case for a universal basic income is stronger than ever” Prospect, April 16, 2020). The author claims “(the) scheme would, for the first time, create an unconditional income floor, boost the incomes of the poorest families, cut poverty levels, reduce inequality, strengthen universalism and cut means-testing.”
Another Prospect article looks at how we pay for all this financial propping up (Tim Pitt, “We must soon reckon with the most contentious economic question: who pays for this crisis?” Prospect, April 17, 2020). Pitt notes that “our tax system is riddled with perverse incentives and needs updating for the digital age. From business and property tax to the balance of taxation between income and wealth, the system needs to change” and concludes “the central goal should be to build a better, fairer tax system.” Again, this is for the UK and we don’t have any of those problems in Australia, do we?
An implied suspicion of corporate malfeasance underlines Bernard Keane’s Crikey article (“Corporations are working to mould the post-pandemic economy in their interests”, April 20, 2020). In it he says: “Despite the pandemic, what hasn’t changed, certainly in Australia, are the power structures that give corporations sway over public policy: a virtually unregulated political donations system, an almost complete lack of transparency around influence-wielding, a revolving door between the political system and corporate appointments, a media sector dominated by partisan and ideological media outlets, a politicized public service and the absence of a federal anti-corruption body.”

Erstwhile Labor Treasurer Wayne Swan says we need a deep discussion about a new social contract for the 21^st century (Crikey, 20 April, 2020)

Something to think about?

Day 30 Monday 20th April

Many in the media are calling this pandemic the great disturbance. This talent for understatement is akin to an associate in South Carolina referring to the American Civil War as the great unpleasantness. With case numbers declining and deaths stable in Australia, calls for a “snap back” are becoming more insistent. Not, however, with the same unanimity of the lemmings over the cliff in the USA who are swapping public health discipline for perceived civil liberty entitlements.

The Grattan Institute has crunched the numbers and projected an unemployment shock of 14%-26% or 3.5 million of the workforce. Sectors such as retail, hospitality and particularly the arts are likely to be hit first. Concerns are rapidly moving from the human to the economic, especially how to pay back $320 billion. We need to find a way to make the dismal science less dismal. Some industry links need to de-couple from their co-dependence. Job losses from BHP in earlier years in Wollongong were more keenly felt because of the knock-on impact on supply enterprises. Virgin is one of those “sticky” enterprises that associated industries adhere to in a tenuous symbiosis. It will unravel this week without significant external support, including possible part-nationalization, a sign of market failure.

Coroners are already at work diagnosing national responses to contingencies like COVID-19 for application when the next unknown threat strikes. Many have been slow to utilize technology effectively. New alliances after snap-back need to be based on something other than defense capability. We need to neutralize ethnocentrism and triumphalism (which might now be called trumphalism).

A mandatory code is being drafted to bring the tech titans to heel to pay for stolen content from news organizations, using the product of journalists on their digital platforms. The issue is being viewed legally as a competition rather than a copyright matter. These culprits are the same global giants we have been unable to extract tax due from. In other current news former PM Malcolm Turnbull has published his revelatory memoir “A Bigger Picture”, controversial both for the release by a PM office staffer of pirated digital copies and for what he says about former colleagues and the bully that is POTUS.

Adelaide welcomed a plane load (374) of returning Aussies who will now go into mandatory fourteen-day isolation in hotels. In a tiny glimpse of a snap-back, Coogee, Maroubra and Clovelly beaches were reopened but not for sunbaking or social gathering, just for exercise at a distance from others.

In justifying the general exultation, Australia reported only fourteen cases today (total 6,620 and still 71 deaths). NSW accounted for just six new cases (total 2,963 and 30 deaths). The global count is 2,407,380 and 165,000 deaths (though the reports of some nations are regarded as rubbery).

Day 29 Sunday 19th April

A sustained decline in new cases since mid-March suggests Australia has passed the peak of the pandemic. However, we must remain vigilant against new community clusters. It will be four more weeks before an easing of restrictions is seriously considered (mid-May). More testing (411,000 so far) and tracing will be conducted during this time. The new mantra for the road out strategy is control and suppress.

There are world-wide recriminations over the handling of the virus crisis. Many see the crisis as an opportunity for reform and a recalibration between growth and fairness. The rugged individuals in the USA are characterizing returning to business as usual as liberation, with support from their President. Some nations are already experiencing a double dip, or second wave, of contagion after relaxing their grip on control. Many health systems have been practicing just in time logistics and off-shoring to the detriment of their preparedness. It seems totalitarian regimes simply lie, as China has done, while democracies equivocate and dissemble. Both could use more transparency and integrity.

Some great brains are working on vaccines, others on economic recovery. We need big thinkers at the moment but we also need little thinkers, the electorate, able to distinguish truth from falsehood. We could even borrow some brains from America as they are clearly not using them at present. There will be a legacy of scar tissue. Who will blink first in the stand-off between get backs and the virus; I’m backing the virus.

Speculation of a virus-induced geopolitical tilt suggests France and Macron could be at the global centre of gravity. 42 year-old Macron sees the crisis as an existential event for humanity that will change the nature of globalization and the structure of international capitalism. It may also provide an opening to tackle environmental disasters and social inequalities.

Creatives are doing their best to cheer us up with massed remote video recordings and pieces of whimsy and humour. Mainstream visual media, however, needs to stop incessantly repeating four week old footage of that tall, jeans and mask-clad woman emerging from a pop-up COVID-19 clinic.

Australia added 41 more cases today (total 6,606) and deaths stand at 71. Of these NSW has 21 more cases for 2,957 and 30 deaths. Globally we have over 2.331 million and just under 161,000 deaths.

Day 28 Saturday April 18th

Another beautiful sunny Autumn day in the Illawarra, making it impossible to be miserable. It is also the birthday of my late father, Winston (1916-2012). The Ruby Princess has still not left Port Kembla with its ailing crew; 2 passengers who returned to the US have died, along with the 19 in Australia. The Queensland Government has allocated $2 million to keep Virgin viable. And sub-40 year olds were reminded that COVID-19 can afflict them too.

Since the lockdown four weeks ago I have not been able to purchase toilet paper from conventional supermarkets, not hoard but to procure only enough for our needs. Unfortunately, my fellow humans have selfishly been acquiring much more than they needed. Today I managed to get a six pack from our local servo. It is a sign of the times that this is newsworthy and the source of smug joy.

Readers may have detected I am not a Trump fan and I do allow myself to wallow in the vivid descriptions of his ineptitude. However, I am close to promising to ignore him and write no more on the subject. History will judge his effectiveness in confronting the virus. So thanks go to New York Times columnist Jennifer Senior for filling my cup with gems like “a man renowned for intellectual incontinence”; “he has all the focus of a moth”; “his prefrontal cortex is entirely offline” (Trump’s Brain: A Guided Tour, April 16, 2020).

Calls for a relaxation of shutdown restrictions have become more urgent and pressing, not least in the US where individual states are said to have some discretion on easing. There is much talk of mitigating impacts of the virus on the economy. Reactionaries seem at ease with sacrifice, not theirs, as collateral damage, human dross to be trimmed in the interests of capitalism. This sentiment was expressed by Crikey correspondent Michael Bardley yesterday as:

“Get the economy moving, return everyone to work, let the virus spread a bit and smooth a few dying pillows for people we’ve given the dignity of being allowed to hug their grandkids once more. If they die, well, we all die eventually…It’s an appalling tragedy, happening right now before our eyes. The rush to give the privileged back what they feel has been temporarily removed from their grasp is unseemly. They’re able to express such mercenary awfulness because they don’t believe that they’ll, personally, ever be poor, sick or dead.” (“Wake up, reactionaries. Your world has changed – forever. Crikey Weekender, April 17, 2020)

Forty two more cases for Australia (total 6,565) and now 69 deaths. For NSW, 10 more cases for 2,936 and 29 deaths. Global incidence of COVID-19 damage is around 2.2 million cases and over 154,000 deaths.

Day 25 Wednesday 15th April

The IMF (International Monetary Fund) Chief Economist says the world economy may shrink 3% in the worst recession since the Great Depression. It should, however, rebound 6% in 2021, conditional upon many unspecified factors. She predicts the Australian economy to shrink 6.7%. Job listings are already down 50%.

Emerging conflict is brewing over whether schools should be open or closed for term two. It seems there are fissures opening in cooperative arrangements between state and federal jurisdictions and across party lines. As this relationship is so critical to contain the virus, perhaps a suitable boundary spanner needs to coordinate relationship management.

There is growing concern that reported deaths are not capturing those who die outside of hospitals. An example is provided by the UK as the more than 12,000 reported are for hospitals and do not count those who die in nursing homes and other facilities, or indeed, at home. It has been reported that one in five deaths in the UK are due to the virus.

An enquiry into the bungled release of contaminated tourists from the Ruby Princess continues. When the war is over there will be enquiries into other aspects of the handling of the contagion. These will probably focus on information flow, coordination, resource distribution and logistics. With every reported death such enquiries may become more acrimonious as we return to divisive postures.

President Trump’s arrogant over-reach in condemning and withdrawing funding from WHO will have ramifications he hasn’t considered. It is one thing to hector and admonish an international agency for its handling of the pandemic, but quite another to render it less effective for the future for all nations. He appears impervious to learning or changing his actions following new information. Trump’s act of deflective petulance should result in US academics and system planners being denied access to the considerable output of public health initiatives and research generated by WHO.

Our days lack variety at present due to minimal interaction with others. Not quite ground-hog day but getting close as I examine a diary which is truly a blank canvas. When we wake from this nightmare we don’t want more of the same as before again. That was not so good for many people. To what extent do conservatives acknowledge, understand and show empathy for the less well-off whom they may regard as personally deficient? In contrast, Jason Wilson says in the Guardian (7 April 2020) that

“Progressives need to start forcefully making their own arguments about the meaning of the crisis. They need to offer a response that emphasizes social solidarity, equity, justice and peace.”

Who will lead us? Who is best equipped to co-design our future with us, not for us? Who is capable of posing the “what if” or “how about” questions concerning the following policy conundrums?

Universal Basic Income (step up enonomic modelers please and run the numbers).
How about a x1.2 loading for the votes of electors 18 to 30 as we are planning for them?
Flexible workplaces that are less office-centric (which is an obsolete form of supervision).
Industrial relations that are flexible for the worker as well as employer. We are traffic.
Address climate change in a properly committed manner with urgency and innovation.
Reduce media monopoly power that does so much damage to public discourse.
Hedge market sectors and conduct risk assessment to mitigate over reliance on single segment trade, eg, Chinese students in universities. Simple diversification applied.
Create an obligation for outrider views to be substantiated with credible evidence.

We have arrived at mid-April with nearly two million reported cases of COVID-19 and 127,594 deaths across the globe. Australia has 6,447 cases (47 added today) and 63 deaths. 371,000 tests have been conducted. NSW has added 16 new cases for a total of 2,886 and still 26 deaths.

Day 24 Tuesday 14th April

Another day of enforced inaction on our daughter’s birthday. A beautiful Illawarra Autumn day. A day when a beach romp with your dog is a highlight. A day that comes with knitted-brow warnings to be patient and careful, hosing down prospects of restrictions being gradually lifted. Despite the cash intervention of the Job-keeper initiative, we are told it is likely that the jobless rate will escalate from 5.1% to 10%.

So, the little histograms on the right hand side are getting shorter. Only 41 new cases today (though fewer tests may account for some of this) for 6,400 cases nation-wide and the death toll still at 61. NSW has only 7 new cases for a total of 2,870 and remaining at 26 deaths. The big band sounds of febrile amplitude have given way to light strings. But beware the revival.

If norms in the new post-virus world are up for grabs then we all need to claim our agency as citizens to insist on a say in its design. We are in desperate need of some diverse, intelligent alternative voices and to not accept the spin served us. The vacuous POTUS today reviewed the early response to the pandemic and re-wrote history to serve his interests, manufacturing a little fake news along the way.

As far back as March 13 Peter Wehner wrote of Trump that his “misinformation and mendacity about the coronavirus are head-snapping… this is a massive failure in leadership that stems from a massive defect in character.” (Ideas. The Trump Presidency is Over.) He went on to describe the bill of goods Americans have bought:

“Trump is such a habitual liar that he is incapable of being honest, even when being honest would serve his interests. He is so impulsive, shortsighted, and undisciplined that he is unable to plan or even think beyond the moment. He is such a divisive and polarizing figure that he long ago lost the ability to unite the nation under any circumstances and for any cause. And he is so narcissistic and unreflective that he is completely incapable of learning from his mistakes. The president’s disordered personality makes him ill-equipped to deal with a crisis as any president has ever been.”

Over 23,000 dead in the US so far. World deaths stand at 119,686.