By Josh Resnek
The city has gradually shut down. Traffic is still flowing on the city’s streets however by and large, the city is closed down with very little economic activity going on.
All of us have noticed how many food outlets are providing take-out. Take-out takes some of the rough edge off of the closure of restaurant eating areas where people can sit and commiserate.
What is needed for every place in the city that sells food is for every employee to be wearing gloves, and if possible, masks.
To do business otherwise is dangerous for the employees and for the customers – you and me.
Each time I go into a place, which is now a rare occasion, I am wearing gloves. I just went to a mask.
Each door handle we touched has been touched by dozens if not hundreds of hands – and many of those hands belong to infected people.
You must be careful. Many people are going to die in the next 30 days.
The bad news we are hearing everyday on television and reading about on the Internet isn’t fake news.
This virus is real. It is a real killer.
Even when you take money from a money machine at a local bank don’t open the door with an ungloved hand. Don’t touch the keypad on the money machine unless you clean it or have gloves on. Even the money could be dirty!
How to deal with this?
God knows.
I understand more than several Everett firefighters have been quarantined because one or two firefighters have apparently been diagnosed with the virus.
Where are they supposed to quarantine themselves? With their families, so everyone can potentially get sick?
Hunker down. Be careful.
By Josh Resnek
“You know you’re going to kill me with these interviews,” the mayor’s Blue Suit said to me recently.
“From the day he picked me up at the cleaners, the mayor has been outraged about me talking with you. He’s tossed me around. He’s thrown me on the floor. At one point, he grabbed a big pair of scissors and he screamed at me,” the Blue Suit said.
‘What did he scream?” I asked.
“I’m going to cut you to shreds you bum,” he threatened.
“He held the scissors tightly against my pant leg.”
“I’m going to cut off your leg unless you keep your big mouth shut,” he answered the Blue Suit told me. “I was petrified.”
“Then he tossed the scissors to the floor, called me a wrinkled piece of second grade cloth and design, and scrunched me into a ball before tossing me inside the car he was driving. Boy, what a bad experience that was. You have no idea,” the Blue Suit said to me.
“You know how jealous and greedy the mayor is,” the Blue Suit said to me.
“Everyone who knows him knows that about him,” I answered. “You don’t know how nasty and underhanded he can be. I do. I know all his secrets,” the Blue Suit said.
“That’s not the first time he’s threatened to cut someone up, you know,” the Blue Suit said.
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“He did it to an employee at his donut shop. He put a knife to her throat. I know. I was there. The Revere police came. They wrote up a five page report…and then it just seemed to disappear,” the Blue Suit said to me.
By Josh Resnek
With the collapse of the world economy due to the Coronavirus, the price for a barrel of oil has tumbled to a near all time low for the modern era.
Because world use of oil has plunged as the world’s economies closed up, less and less crude oil is needed although more and more crude oil is coming into the marketplace.
When supply far outstrips demand, prices come down.
It is the way of the capitalist world.
Quick translation of the above: the price for a gallon of regular gasoline has come down dramatically and will continue to fall for the next few weeks unless something dramatic happens in the international marketplace.
In Everett, the price for a gallon of regular gasoline on Tuesday at some stations was as low as $2.19 on Broadway, and at $2.49 at the Citgo about 20 yards down the street.
By Walt Pavlo
For the Leader Herald
I knew a guy who worked tirelessly at his business, a specialty steel fabrication plant for large chemical plants throughout the United States. He was up early in the morning and stayed until his last employee was done. He worked weekends, worked holidays and missed vacations. His business, for a while, was successful, until it was not. The large plants that were his primary clients started sourcing to India, China and South Korea. The one day, the bank called his note and the company went bankrupt. The man lost his life’s savings. That man was my Dad.
There was no bailout package for his small company and many like it that were put out of business through pressures that were not of their own making. Large corporations have for years outsourced much of their manufacturing to cheaper labor in other countries. Labor unions were often criticized for wages that were too high, leaving the United States unable to compete. Corporate America justified and embraced supply chains that spanned the world but allowed them to maximize profits. Now, those same companies want a bailout. That hardly seems fair.