Bailouts are not very efficient. And the hypocrisy of those big corporations and folks who berate any other form of handout as socialism is outrageous. But when the airlines and health care industry need billions from the government it's fine. Most of which ends up in the hands of the CEOs etc. It's outrageous. If those multi-billion dollar industries need tax payer money, they should be forced to pay it back. If you benefit from capitalism during the good times, then you should be willing to accept the bad. If some of the airlines and cruise companies go bust, then good riddance. The customer service on the airlines is atrocious because they have a captive audience and squeeze every last penny by cutting customer service. They used 9/11 as a pretext to make more profit. Time to let someone else give it a shot instead of bailing them out.
In terms of the government response, it is a gigantic effort. They are doing the best they can. I take issue only with the notion that this situation could not have been predicted. There have been pandemics since the beginning of human history. Maybe they can't predict the specifics such as the time and manner, but it doesn't take Nostradamus to know that they are coming. The public health organizations that are funded very well by the tax payers dropped the ball. No plan. Its been haphazard. You can't expect politicians to fix that on the fly. They need to have a plan in place beforehand instead of figuring it out day-by-day. It's too late by then. With that said, the predictions of complete doom are overblown. In a couple weeks things will settle down. In a couple months the news cycle will move on to something else and no one will concern themselves with preparing for the next pandemic like no one concerns themselves with the inevitable earthquakes and fires but instead allow folks to overpopulate those areas to maximize the harm from these events when they do occur. We are much more reactive than proactive in most situations.
