Maggie's Farm

Friends of mine have barraged me with commentary on the "disaster" that Florida is, particularly with regard to Covid.  Anecdotally, I was told urban (and this seems to confirm) ICUs typically range from 55-80% full at any given time, depending on seasonality.  The current occupancy rates, in some places, are in the 90s, so while that is very high, it's worth noting ICUs are usually very full.  The real concern is the ability to expand, as needed.  I believe, based on the response in April, this is something our system can handle fairly effectively.  I'm not being too relaxed or naive.  I'm not diminishing or putting down the efforts of our medical personnel.  I am applauding them for their efforts, their hours, their professionalism, and creativity as they have found many solutions and treatments along the way to help mitigate and ease many of these issues.  That is the beauty of not only our medical system, but our overall economic system.  Flexibility and ingenuity.

Our friend the Manhattan Contrarian has presented his excellent piece on why Florida has made New York look silly and misguided in the midst of all this.

I doubt the media will present the story as MC has.  I applaud our friend MC for presenting the facts.  After all, he lives near the center of the echo chamber.

I'll toss in one more point of comparison - New Jersey, which like NY has similar governance, though a much smaller population (8.9mm) than Florida (21.5mm) and New York (19.5mm).  Covid cases have reached 440k in NJ, about in line with where Florida is as a percentage, but it has almost 19k deaths - similar to Florida (older and with a larger population).  Comparatively speaking, New York City alone has roughly the same population as New Jersey, but has had roughly the same number of cases as New Jersday (390k) and more deaths (24k).

"Follow the science" is a real thing, but not the way Progressives present it.  For them, it's really "Follow the politics, which pretends to be science."

It's getting worse.
California, intent on driving its residents into utter poverty, has sped up its attack on the wealthy.
There was a time when people headed there to make their fortune, and many did.  California was, for many years, the image of 'the future'.  Even with the recent tech boom and Silicon Valley, there was a resurgence of its forward-thinking vision.

Over the years, California has proved itself incapable of managing such basic things as water or even electricity.  The misguided desires to centrally plan everything, and overtax people to do it, will kill the state.  This is a given.  

California has succumbed to politicians' worst instincts and is not only taxing people to death, but chasing business away, and enforcing social ideas that are (to put it mildly) out of touch with humanity and reality.  It should not be surprising that so many people are leaving for places like Texas, Montana or several other states which are outside the deep blue Progressive belt of shame.

Cali, which I used to visit regularly for business, is nice.  I'd consider living there...at one point in time.  Not so much now.

Last week I spent some time working as a volunteer at the local Food Bank.  I figure I'll put my time to good use and help others, and so I've been signing up to volunteer there.  I was amazed at what I did, and how it was set up.
There were 6 of us volunteers, not a huge group (considering they had openings for 30), but as our leader said "I know we can do great things despite being small in number."  

What struck me are how priniciples of good business and manufacture can be utilized for more than just businesses and provide great value.  The gains and innovations that come from free enterprise are useful and widespread - and it's not just about making a profit, it's about being efficient.  Efficiency - that's where the value is.  Adam Smith noted this in his writings over 250 years ago, as he talked about the division of labor and how valuable it was (his pin factory description comes to mind). 

When modern Wokesters discuss the gains of our economy they diminish and degrade all aspects of capitalism, right down to free enterprise and division of labor.  The division of labor is at times described as 'mind-numbing' and 'unfulfilling'.  They love to talk about the 'dignity of labor', and yes working is dignified.  But from their perspective the 'dignity' is in doing ALL the tasks required to reach an end result.  Yet here I was at the Food Bank utilizing this division to help people in a big way, and feeling very fulfilled in doing my small, 'mind-numbing' role.

We have boxes of food stacked behind an assembly line - cans of tuna, boxes of mac and cheese mix, cans of fruit, pancake mix, etc.  As our team arrived, we positioned ourselves between the boxes and the assembly line.  First person in line took an empty box, put some food items in, passed it on to the next person who put in one or two items, all the way to the end where the last person put in a flyer with information on SNAP, taped it shut, and stacked it on a pallet that was then lifted and loaded to a truck when it was filled.  I personally handled putting 3 items into each box, and noticed that others struggled to open the food boxes.

I saw some box cutters nearby, grabbed them and during down moments ran from stack to stack ripping them open so the process wouldn't slow too much.  After 3 hours our team of 6 had assembled almost 700 boxes of food - a week's worth of food for 700 families. 

3 hours of work doing, basically, one thing - loading 3 cans/boxes of food out of one box into another box.  If I had to do this on my own, I calculated that maybe it would have produced about 20 boxes an hour or 60 total per person.  We'd have had to open all the boxes ourselves, shift the food, make sure the right quantities of each were added, put in a flyer and then tape it shut.  Maybe 30 per hour or 90 boxes over 3 hours.  At what may have been our extreme best efforts alone, we'd have completed 540 boxes.  As a team, as an assembly line doing 'mind-numbing' and 'unfulfilling' work, we may have fed almost 160 more families. 

Leftists would claim their worldview applied 'properly' would eliminate the need for Food Banks.  Of course, history has proved them wrong many times and they are simply ignorant of this fact.  My experience says that the surpluses of capitalism and free enterprise - donated to the Food Bank, which we were repacking (some of it was name brand foods!) - more than supplements the presumed shortcomings of the free enterprise system.  Could we do more?  Certainly we always can do more. 

But for me it was a lesson in good business practice and economics, and one I truly enjoyed.

As a side note, the woman working next to me was a younger Hispanic woman who was very chatty.  She obviously volunteered often, as she knew many of the full time workers on the forklifts.  She told them she'd lost 150 pounds.  I looked at her with surprise.  She replied "I'm 5'4" and have 3 kids and I'm a single mother.  The weight was killing me, so I chose to lose it.   And I did."  I congratulated her and asked what she did for a living.  She replied "I run my own trucking company out of my house, I have 5 trucks and if I need to drive I will, but I've got full time workers now.  I also help others in my neighborhood sell their crafts online."  I was surprised and said "You still have time to volunteer here?"  She said "I'm a workaholic, what can I say?  I have to keep moving." 

I was very impressed with her motivation and generosity.  People like her make our nation great.  They are the best of us. I don't see anyone in Washington who could match her in terms of tenacity, willpower, desire and a generally good nature.  An inspiring story as I prepare for the new year.

One of the weird things about a layoff is extraction.  I have a long runway before I'm actually no longer with the company.  I'm still working, mainly with the people who I have to complete projects with or transition those projects to.  I'm never a fan of companies that show people the door the minute they are let go, unless it is for cause or if that person works in a particularly sensitive area.  Giving people time allows them to prepare, and help the people they are leaving prepare.  It's easy to be bitter and say "I'm giving them nothing" but that's counterproductive.  Best to leave on a high note and focus on the future.  

In the meantime, I'm not really working as much as I had been.  I was literally told I can do whatever I want and handle it all as I see fit.  So I'm doing what's right for myself while doing what's right for the people I worked with and respect.