Stealing from the young in Britain

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Pity the young of this country: their future prosperity and career prospects are being sacrificed in a lockdown primarily designed to save the elderly. That narrative of intergenerational injustice is one we keep hearing. But it’s  nonsense to suggest pensioners will be getting “an unmerited free ride during the country’s slide into recession”. The countless billions with which the Chancellor hopes to safeguard jobs and restore growth will be borrowed at ultra-low interest rates (the official guidance is of long-term Treasury debt being issued with a coupon of 0.3%). And who will buy this debt? Mainly British savers and those British pension funds that are obliged to keep a significant portion of their portfolios in government bonds. If the economy does eventually recover, the younger generation will stand to benefit from all this cheap, long-term borrowing.

But oldies like me? Quite the opposite: it will ensure yet more abysmal returns on our savings. But who’s complaining? In that “spirit of mutual support and solidarity” that the young have so admirably exhibited, “I declare them fully deserving of our fiscal sacrifice”.  (Dominic Lawson, the Sunday Times, London).

My comment:  In Britain the disdain for the old is clear and obvious.  I am old myself and I happen to sympathize with the grievances of the young.  We had ( a generalization) secure jobs, often for working lifetimes.  They have little job security at all, and many have to cope with the disgusting gig economy.  We (most of us) could buy houses at reasonable prices and have seen their value rise exponentially. Few of them can afford to buy in  the over- priced housing market.

We had decent pensions.  They do not, and where they do the pensions are money purchase pensions.  We, if we went to university had government help (all my tuition was paid by the taxpayer!).  They start working lives with huge college debts around their necks.  And the bosses of their colleges pay themselves huge sums.

No wonder there is inter generational disdain.  This situation, similar to that in the US, was created by politicians and greedy company bosses. And the Baby Boomer generation created the worst of it.  No wonder one hears so much grievance .  No wonder the young runners and cyclists pass close by, panting, without masks, making a silent protest about the world we are leaving them?

What a relief! Help for deserving, struggling millionaires.

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Slipped into the recent corona virus relief package was a $170 billion tax cut for the wealthy that will give people earning over $1 million a year an average tax cut of $1.6 million per year.   In 2020 alone, taxpayers will pay $90 billion for this wealth transfer to just 43,000 millionaires, 20 percent more than Congress gave to desperate hospitals and more than triple the money allocated for Coronavirus testing.

What would an Epicurean say about this?

“It is impossible to live pleasurably without living prudently, honorably and justly, and also without living courageously, temperately and magnanimously, without making friends, and without being philanthropic”.  (Philodemus)

He might also make some pithy comments about blatant corruption. But then the gravy train is the longest surviving train in the world, probably stretching back to the Neanderthals.

Something I don’t think we have been told about

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Five years ago, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services tried to plug a crucial hole in its preparations for a global pandemic, signing a $13.8 million contract with a Pennsylvania manufacturer to create a low-cost, portable, easy-to-use ventilator that could be stockpiled for emergencies.

This past September, with the design of the new Trilogy Evo Universal finally cleared by the Food and Drug Administration, HHS ordered 10,000 of the ventilators for the Strategic National Stockpile at a cost of $3,280 each.

But as the pandemic continues to spread across the globe, there is still not a single Trilogy Evo Universal in the stockpile.

Instead last summer, soon after the FDA’s approval, the Pennsylvania company that designed the device — a subsidiary of the Dutch appliance and technology giant Royal Philips N.V. — began selling two higher-priced commercial versions of the same ventilator around the world.

“We sell to whoever calls,” said a saleswoman at a small medical-supply company on Staten Island that bought 50 Trilogy Evo ventilators from Philips in early March and last week hiked its online price from $12,495 to $17,154. “We have hundreds of orders to fill. I think America didn’t take this seriously at first, and now everyone’s frantic.”

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A screenshot obtained by ProPublica of a Trilogy Evo portable ventilator, sold by a medical supply company on Staten Island.

The US government recently invoked the Defense Production Act to compel General Motors to begin mass-producing another company’s ventilator under a federal contract. But neither Trump nor other senior officials made any mention of the Trilogy Evo Universal. Nor did HHS officials explain why they did not force Philips to accelerate delivery of these ventilators earlier this year, when it became clear that the virus was overwhelming medical facilities around the world.

An HHS spokeswoman told ProPublica that Philips had agreed to make the Trilogy Evo Universal ventilator “as soon as possible.” However, a Philips spokesman said the company has no plan to even begin production anytime this year.

Instead, Philips is negotiating with a White House team led by Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, to build 43,000 more complex and expensive hospital ventilators for Americans stricken by the virus.  (The Guardian, April 2020) 

My comment: Wouldn’t it nice to know exactly what is going on?  Any good conspiracy theorists, with a nose for profiteering, out there?

What, you ask, has this to do with Epicureanism? Nothing, if you don’t believe in making big companies fulfill their obligations.  Nothing, if you agree with profiteering.  And nothing if you reckon it’s o.k standing by while hospitals, desperate for ventilators, have to watch patients die unnecessarily.

This version of capitalism is not fit for purpose.

Epicurus and pleasure

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The idea that life’s objective should be pleasure was greeted with horror by contemporaries, who believed that man’s highest calling was self-sacrifice, self-denial and worship of the Gods, and the Emperor. The early christians regarded pleasure as a form of vice. To them the pursuit of pain triumphed over the pursuit of pleasure. Bravery and death in war was particularly admired – “Dulce et decorum est pro patria morí” – a particularly objectionable point of view, fortunately mostly discarded in the slaughter trenches of the first World War.

By “pleasure” Epicurus did not mean selfish wining and dining and self-indulgence.  In fact he offered his guests bread and waiter, and equated pleasure with good company and enlightening conversation.  He meant a happy life, fun with  good friends, lifelong learning, philosophical discussion, avoiding stress and anxiety and the pursuit on money, power and politics. His was a modest life, lived simply with good conversation.

Living up to the ideals of Epicurus is actually rather difficult, especially the bit about stress and anxiety.  Some are in overload about that, but hopefully working on it.

A tale of social mobility

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When Hashi Mohamed arrived in Britain from Kenya as a nine-year-old Somali refugee, he spoke no English and was grieving the death of his father. Raised in Wembley, he went to a state school where he vividly recalls the headteacher being brutally beaten up. Yet he went on to gain two degrees and now – as a practising barrister – he has written an essential book on social mobility.  His tips for success? A “firm handshake, eye contact. Remembering people’s names; making sure you’re on time.”

He tells the 22 people to whom he acts as a mentor to avoid slang such as “innit” and “izzit” – but his methods aren’t always welcomed. “I’ve been criticised for my approach, on the basis that all I am doing is making the case for the status quo.” But those who tell young people not to change are fostering an “equally dangerous idea: that you can go up against the system and win, that you can somehow do it entirely on your terms”. He has himself settled on a mid point. “I’m an insider, but still with an outsider’s gaze”.  ( Sathnam Sanghera, The Times, 18 January 2020)

My comment:     Isn’t “Remember the firm handshake, the eye contact, people’s names, and making sure you’re on time” what every good Dad tells his children?  It certainly was what my own father impressed upon me, even if I do have a total empty hole in my brain where name storage should reside.  The real truth is that this man is very smart, very ambitious, a good lawyer – and a supporter of the status quo. You have to admire his get-up-and-go in a foreign country.