Adversity does not create character, it
reveals it.
This hurricane season has shown adversity
also opens opportunity; good, bad and sometimes
lighthearted.
First the good.
In the run up to Irma, essential
supplies, such as fuel, food and water were rapidly
depleted by fleeing citizens.
Those staying behind added plywood, batteries
and generators to the list of dwindling commodities.
Prices for available goods ascended rapidly
and the media said such price gouging proves the
inherent evil of capitalism and they screamed for
government intervention.
Once again, they are wrong, here being why.
Let’s assume you own a lumber
mill or water bottling plant in Georgia and your
trucks are loaded with product which normally yields
two dollars profit per unit.
Suddenly Florida’s plunging supply and rising
prices means you could pocket twenty dollars per
unit once delivered.
What would you do?
When the price is tightly regulated, you park
your truck and drink your coffee while fawning over
the fair ladies on The View.
Floridians go
thirsty and can’t board up their windows.
In a free market economy, you
would fire up your truck, fix the old one behind the
shop, borrow your neighbor’s mini-van and deliver as
much product as possible into the marketplace.
Suddenly, the
Sunshine State would be awash in drinking water and
plywood.
When demand is high, an increasing price always
increases supply; a principle America’s founders
understood well.
Moving to the evil end of
opportunity, brings us to the looters.
It is not surprising decades of propaganda
has convinced the unwashed there is no dishonor in
stealing stuff to which the ruling class says the
downtrodden are entitled.
Look at Antifa and BLM.
The only difference between cleaning out a
flooded Footlocker and voting for government
freebies is who is stealing the bounty.
Theft is theft whether the perpetrator is
wearing a hoodie or a coat and tie.
Covetousness and theft are the lifeline of
progressivism, even though both are “shall nots” in
the Ten Commandments.
This brings me to my lighter opportunity.
A video clip showing a Florida
reporter battling the wind and rain was broadcast
worldwide.
While speaking of Irma’s danger and the
deserted boardwalks, the camera panned the beach
before accidently stumbling upon a lone fisherman
bait casting into the storm surge.
Apparently, he did not get the get-out memo.
The anchor stammered, “let’s not show that,”
and he continued hyping Irma.
I chuckled thinking that could be my
father-in-law if he lived in Florida, as he too
would believe evacuations are for sissies if the
fish are biting.
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