A few thoughts on the current situation…
On the one hand, workers and employees in Germany basically have a large safety net. The German state is in a comparatively good position in 2020 and the social benefits are guaranteed even if we are ill and the company is closed. If we are unemployed, we receive unemployment benefits for many months and then further social benefits.
We are medically cared for, no matter what happens. Even our wife and children (no matter how many children) are covered by family insurance free of charge if one person is the main earner. And if no one in the family goes to work, you get social benefits from the state. This is an incredible luxury compared to many parts of the world.
We can allow ourselves to stay at home because of Corona – this is a luxury that many people worldwide do not have.
On the other hand, if you look at America, for example, here people work even though they are not well, because if they are ill they lose their job and with it their health insurance – this is fatal and is called the “final stage of capitalism”. Well, the state wants to help here now, but I doubt that this can cushion all this.
I am just as much thinking about chronically ill patients, for example dialysis patients. Here, people are worried about whether the care can be maintained and, in addition, these patients are part of a risk group and must also regularly go to hospital and possibly meet sick people.
And of course the self-employed, it can and will hit them incredibly hard, but here, too, Bavaria is advancing very fast because the state is doing so well – you can now get between 5 and 30 thousand euros quickly and unbureaucratically as a small business owner, so that you can cushion the worst of the impact.
And the larger companies are sure to get a lot of state aid, guarantees and loans. How it looks like in reality, you have to see, many existences will surely collapse if it goes on like this for several months… But in every crisis there is also the spark of an opportunity.
Everything is networked, all companies, and if it stops somewhere, this can trigger a chain reaction. As a self-employed person you have more reason to worry, or, if the company you work for was already in a bad financial situation.
The positive thing I see in all this is that people and humanity are shown that it does not always continue at full speed on the highway of life and how fragile life is.
Personally, I find this standstill and slowdown incredibly pleasant. Now it is a global pandemic, but very quickly it can come to a sudden standstill due to a personal setback, be it a diagnosis of “cancer” in one’s own life – and nothing is the same anymore.
From the current situation one can learn great lessons for one’s own life, if one allows it.
This message of the current events is not bad for some people who always drive full throttle in the fast lane. And you think about your family and your inner circle, you show consideration for each other, these are very positive things.