Hey, thanks for the clarifications, and apologies to the community that I started ranting. The equivalence between "takes time to train up" and "20 years of sy

Hey, thanks for the clarifications, and apologies to the community that I started ranting. The equivalence between "takes time to train up" and "20 years of systematic dismantling" is that we have lost many of the experts we might otherwise depend on in a national emergency. For example, Trump dismantled the Pandemic Response Team. You can't easily replace that overnight. Longstanding cuts to CDC budgets, etc. You are also correct that I was making a rather unexpected analogy between our current crisis and the environmental crisis. Yes, this would catch a reader off guard and cause the confusion you suggest. Here it is again: The economy is a complex system. Each part basically assumes that the rest of the parts are there. Imagine Amazon without a postal deliver service, for example. Or your grocery store without a trucking industry. Much of the global economy is now shut down. We will have to re-start it, which we will do, but it will be painful because of complex interdependencies between parts. Here is the analogy: Life on earth is also a complex system. We have done our best to extract and destroy as much of it as possible. For example, insect populations are down by 80% in Western countries. We take for granted that the natural environment is there, providing what it has always provided, without realizing how badly we have disrupted it. Just as the US has taken good health for granted and dismantled things like the CDC, taken good roads for granted and not repaired them, taken good education for granted and demonized public school teachers (hello, Wisconsin!)....