I think we can all agree that a modern day “panic button” was installed after 9/11.
In the days, weeks, and months following the attacks all kinds of new bells and whistles and policies were installed. Remember that terrorist color chart alert-o-meter; red light, green light, yellow light, blue light? Sure you do, and all the added security everywhere you went mostly noticeable at airports. I’d wake up back then and shower and if the alert-o-meter said green I knew I was going to have a terrorist free day. And who can forget the anthrax scare when were told to cover our windows with visqueen in the event of some major chemical attack. Don’t you love when people replace car windows with plastic. I digress. However, as the days rolled on and we caught our collective breath post 9/11 I think we all realized there’s really only so much you can do or are willing to do to protect yourself from the bogeyman and by that I mean most of us did nothing differently and hoped for the best. Although news outlets saw something that became the gift that keeps on givin’ and that is, some form of chaos is good for biz. Ratings skyrocketed for 24 hour cable news outlets following 9/11 and I guess rightly so in that none of us had ever experienced this madness on our shores before so we needed to feel our way around together. But when the shock subsided so did news ratings. The reason I’m bringing this up now is because “breaking news” made its bones during 9/11 and anything that remotely looks like it can be exploited is. The latest situation racing up the charts is the coronavirus. Will it go big or go home in this country? I dunno. It might but that doesn’t matter because cable news has got something to hang their hat and surgical masks on and for you and me it’s time to grab our ankles. Hey didn’t we go through this with Sars, and H1N1, and Ebola, and the West Nile viruses? I think we did and what did you do differently back then besides wash your hands a lot? Probably nothing. Please tell me is the stock market the EKG of our economy or the heart of it because watching all this financial erotica lately I feel as if I should be doing something even though any broker will tell you not to get involved with stocks unless you plan on riding them for at least 5 years and not to look at returns day in and day out for obvious reasons. How much of this panic is follow the leader panic? The only people who should be panicking in this country are the marketing people for Corona beer since some people have stopped buying it because they somehow think the beer is tied into the virus. BREAKING NEWS: “Ladies and Gentlemen we have a pandemic on the way.” OMG! I’ve got to get the bread and milk and Purell. I’VE GOT TO GET THE BREAD AND MILK AND PURELL!! And CNN has a chubby.

Gunga galunga,
Garry