Economy

During the eighties our economy suffered mightily from the decimation
AIDS wreaked on us.I don't imagine the terrible losses in the economy directly
related to this disease were noted at the time because people were either growing
very rich, or suffering awful financial stagnation. The leveraged buy-out reared its head to cover up
some of the suffering. Then in the nineties, President Clinton inspired such confidence
in the consumer classes, that business re-bounded and boomed for quite
some time. Even now, however, President Clinton expresses some regret at not
putting some regulatory muscle-flexing in place to steady Wall Streets wild
bucking products and practices.
But such damage had been done by the year 2000, that in order to cover
up a lot of systemic loss, bundling, and hedging were the only things
booming. At least keep as much money in the world as possible with
Americans, even if the middle class has to be gutted, aye?
So many of those who died of AIDS in the first twenty years the disease
flourished were those spending untold billions in this economy every
single year. Except for the start and finish of the dot.coms, billions
dropped out of our economy each year for twenty years, at least.
AIDS victims, before the disease began to spread so quickly, and take lives so
soon after diagnosis, were spending untold billions on cars,
designer clothes, shoes, furniture, furnishings, grooming services,
flowers, candy, toys for children in their families, travel, higher
education, theater, gourmet foods, personal products, books, mutiple
residences, etc.
As quickly as these dead were buried, prices rose continually on the things
they were no longer buying; so that some businesses just couldn't make up
the differences in customer base at all, and finally folded.
Every year for twenty at a minimun,, we lost more and more revenue from the
fortune AIDS victims had been previously spending in our country.
I cannot imagine the situation was much better in Europe ,where England
had been a prosperity leader ,yet still under Margaret Thatcher and co.
seemed totally uninspired by the need presenting itself in this crisis.
At the same time consumerism was bearing up under these blows, the health care industry
found itself over-burdened with delivering an excess of already scarce
health care dollars to help victims of a disease for which no actual help
was available. The costs for that may be inestimable; but financial institutions
involved in losing cleintele, losing businesses, losing large personal credit
limit accounts, were determined to absorb no losses.
To his credit,President Clinton did do all he could to help fund the research
which would be able to develop effective medecines for the disease; and he invested
in public education initiatives which could help slow the spread of it. The dissemination of information about AIDS was sorely needed, yet completely neglected
all during the eighties. When it was finally accomplished during the nineties, it
helped motivate high-risk persons to seek early diagnosis.
That fact alone may have saved countless lives, and so much of our economy.
In the final analysis, we have suffered greatly from the losses in great
measure of so many crucial things that were once cheaper when so many more people
were buying them in such great number.
The loss of life is never ever cheap, or even tolerable, especially for human beings,
because the way those humans express humanity is part of the fabric of all our
lives after all.