The cynic in me wants to point out that the mass media has been looking for an excuse, a way out, of talking about tremendous gains in the economy – so when the opportunity comes along to not only talk about inevitable corrections but create a sense of panic so that they forge a self-fulfilling prophecy about a true economic collapse, how could they possibly resist? Their political self identification was at risk. You don't even need a conspiracy, you just need a largely homogenous social group which inhabits a large chunk of the culture of mass media.

Of course, once panic has been unleashed in the population, the population doesn't act in sane, reasonable ways. They scoop up toilet paper by the truck load, even though toilet paper doesn't go off, will continue to get produced, there's millions of units in logistical storage along the way – and they will rapidly pick up all the fresh vegetables they can get their hands on, at least for a few days, even though they have no means of storing it long-term.

At a time when Uber should be blowing the top off of potential earnings and its stock skyrocketing, because it, GrubHub, and DoorDash are in a prime position to help keep what local restaurants and shopping locations can scratch by scratching by doing delivery – their stocks are crashing and staying low.

It's almost as if when you have dire warnings blaring 24/7 about how everyone is going to get a highly lethal virus, there is no protection, there's nothing you can do, except isolate your self from society and each other (incidentally making you more suggestible and controlled), people get a little antsy.

There's a new one every three years or so for the last couple decades. Sars, Mers, H1N1, bird flu, ebola.

Four years. There's a new one every four years for the last couple of decades. I wish I could think of something else that happens every four years, something that might have political import. Something that could be used as a fear leverage against the populace in order to make them more amenable to certain modes of thought. I just can't put my finger on what it is.

It must be the Olympics. That's gotta be at. The Olympics. Absolutely no political events with significant import going on every four years.

And it's at this point I start sounding like one of those crazy conspiracy theorists that I deride so often, and I don't want to. I resent being put in the situation where I start sounding like a conspiracy theorist. I am not positing a conspiracy.

I am positing opportunism, and the best I can hope for right now is that the out and out economic panic that has been inspired comes back to bite those working in media who have hyped up threat at the cost of everyone else's jobs right in the ass.

I've said this about the lines coming out of politicians mouths over the last two months and it doesn't stop being true. They talk and what I hear is:

"I can make you safe, so safe. I can make you completely safe from everything. All you have to do is be my slave. Just be my slave. You'll be very, very safe."

Personally, I can take a little risk. I want to take a little risk. When the opposite of a little risk is slavery, I can take quite a bit of risk, indeed.