Oh, Those Waivers

There was an article in the paper the other day about a Wall Street trader who went back on the trading floor, but before he did it he had to sign a waiver that he would not sue the Stock Exchange or anyone connected with it if he contracted Coronavirus.

I read it only a day or two after I learned that the Donald Trump’s re-election committee was telling all the people coming to one of his rallies that they were welcome, but when the registered they found it involved a waiver not to sue if they contracted Coronavirus.

Meanwhile, it seems that all the negotiations about getting sports back - baseball, basketball, football - involve waivers too. If you come to play and your wife or child contracts Coronavirus, well you signed a waiver as a condition of playing.

I’m beginning to see a trend. It came to me when I read that Mitch McConnell wants a liability provision in the next federal stimulus package that would keep business owners from being sued by their customers if they come in and later contract Coronavirus.

Kinda changes the image of the small businessman who demands that he be allowed to reopen his store. You should have the right to go in, but if you get sick don’t bother suing.

Well, if he sold you a sandwich and you got sick, you could sue. If you bought a refrigerator that didn’t work and he wouldn’t honor the warranty you could sue. If you get sick and die, your family wouldn’t be allowed to sue.

So much for standing on your own two feet.

It’s not that I don’t appreciate the fact that a lot of people worked really hard to build up a small business, and that they might lose a lifetime of work because of Coronavirus. On the other hand, I have more sympathy for the person who loses everything because they contract a potentially deadly disease because a store opened too quickly and the government gave the owner blanket immunity.

Suppose your kid goes back to school, gets sick and has to spend two months in a hospital. You can’t afford the bills, of course, and to pay the debt you lose your house. Now, you can’t sue the school district, you can’t sue the administrator who demanded 35 kids be packed into one classroom, and you can’t sue the teacher who was in charge of those kids in a small classroom, with no power or ability to move them somewhere else.

Tough luck for you.

But, let’s say you ran a big hotel, and you have been losing revenue every day. Well, the government has grants for you, ways to soften the impact of the Coronavirus on the economy. Especially if you charge ten times what a Motel Six does for a one-night stay.

By that last comment, you might think I am anti-capitalism, and you would be right and also guilty of over-simplifying. Capitalism is vital to our nation, our economy and our way of life. But, it is also way out of control. Go back to the invention of the PC, where everyone had a computer and most of us spent most of our time just wasting time on it.

Businesses, however, quickly learned how to use computers to do many wonderful things to increase their bottom line and to raise the salaries of their top executives to heights never dreamed of by anyone who wasn’t Louis XIV.

My problem with capitalism today is that very often, the winner of any contest is the one who can hire the best people, the most lawyers, the best doctor. You didn’t see too many middle class people get caught up in the college admissions cheating scandal, or bribing public officials to get a permit to do work on their house.

Let me share an old family saying with you, one that may tell you a lot about my family when I was growing up. Just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they aren’t out to get you.

Anyway, we were talking about waivers and fine-print exemptions on contracts. So, you think all you have to do is read whatever you are signing or buying and you’re in good shape.

Well, when was the last time you read all the fine print on your credit card contract or your airline ticket, or in the agreement you check off when you update anything on your computer.

In the past few weeks, I’ve noticed that more and more of my searches end up getting hijacked and directed to businesses I don’t want and never asked for. In the past month, my wife and I have gotten at least 20 recorded calls from the same recorded voice, telling me this was my last chance to lower the interest on my credit card.

Of course, the recording never says which bank credit card they are talking about. And, obviously, doesn’t have any idea what “last chance” actually means. Heck, if they don’t even know that, how am I ever going to want to do business with them.

What do you think of my family motto now?

The Big Game

So, once again I just have to blog something.

I took a break for a while, because there is a lot of life going on around me. And there is a lot to enjoy in my house, and a lot of thinking to do.

Besides, a lot of other people who are actually better than I am have been filling the opinion columns in a lot of newspapers, big ones like the New York Times and the Washington Post, and small ones all across the country.

Yes, I do look at daily papers across the nation randomly. Call it a hobby. Some of them are really remarkable. In Florida and South Carolina and Texas, in Las Vegas and Kansas City. Do it a few times and you might be impressed.

Still, once again, I have the annoying feeling that a lot of the media is missing the big picture as the world is falling into chaos. Disease, racial strife, a collapsing economy, disorder in our streets, murders by police - it’s hard to decide what to look at first.

Well, our print and electronic media are covering it all, but sometimes it seems a little too much. It’s enough to make you want to look at old reruns of Law and Order.

Yet there is really one thing we should all be watching. The clock is ticking, and the ground rules still haven’t been agreed on.

Oh, wait. You might think I’m talking about the return of baseball. I admit I have been watching the Kia Tigers tear up the league from their South Korean stadium in Gwangju, but that’s not what I’m taking about.

The clock I am talking about is the countdown to Election Day.

You all know it’s coming. Same time in November, first Tuesday after the first Monday. Regular as clockwork.

Since we’re in June now, that gives us in the body politic about five months to decide on their candidate. Most of us have already made up our minds, and there likely will be some surprises as we march to November. But there is one small group which seems to be quietly looking at the contest and coming up with some grim decisions.

That would be the Republican office holders who more and more will be forced to choose whether to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with Donald Trump or to break away from him.

There are lots of Republicans up for re-election. Some in Washington, others in state houses all over the country. Governors judges, state legislators, special election contests - almost too many to count.

With a lot of primaries already over, some candidates who ran as Republicans by swearing their loyalty to President Trump should be switching a bit to appeal to independents and (gasp) even some Democrats.

And we have a president talking about going all around the country to hold rallies for his base, and will want local officials standing shoulder to shoulder with him to pick up every vote he can get.

I figure those Republicans can keep the ball in the air for maybe another five weeks before being forced to finally make a public statement about their support for the President. Maybe longer if there are big demonstrations about racial injustice in their state, or if there is a big spike in Coronavirus. Maybe there will be a huge jump in unemployment claims, or an outbreak of foreclosures.

Now as the world keeps buzzing around, and all those interesting and scary things are happening, we can wonder about the November surprise and where it will come from - the White House, Russia, China? Maybe North Korea, or our allies in Europe. Maybe Jared Kushner will reveal a new Middle East peace plan, although even Donald Trump says that would be very hard.

For me, I will be happy to watch the pages turning on the big calendar on my basement door, and waiting for October to show up. It won’t be the run-off to the World Series, of course. It will be something more important. A bigger game. As big as life itself.

Be safe and vote. Good advice now. Good advice in November.