Risk

"So see, for two straight posts I have written about something other than the pandemic.  But let me just add a little something for Beagles, and that is I would hate to have a shop and have it go bankrupt., but I would hate even more to be dead." - Uncle Ken

The lady barber in question was not offered the choice of going bankrupt or dying, she was offered the choice of going bankrupt or opening her shop in defiance of the governor's order and risk losing her license.  Life is full of risk, we pays our money and we takes our chances.  With financial investments, the general rule is: the greater the risk, the greater the potential gain or loss.  The barber lady has a certain amount of sweat equity as well as money invested in her business.  If she went bankrupt, she would lose all of that and also be out of a job.  The same if she loses her license, but there's a pretty good chance that her potential loss of license would be temporary, since the legality of the governor's order is being tested in the courts as we speak.  I expect that she took all that into consideration when she made her decision and chose what appeared to be the less risky option.  Then again, maybe she is just a hot headed reactionary who gets a kick out of defying authority regardless of the cost.  Be that as it may, I doubt that the prospect of imminent death entered into the equation.

In our lifetimes, we have seen a number of things come and go that were supposed to kill us all, yet we're all still here.  Okay, we're not all still here, some of us have died and the rest of us will too someday, but if you worry too much about that it can drive you crazy.  The best we can do is proceed with our lives, exercising a reasonable degree of caution and taking reasonable risks when we deem the potential gain to be worth the potential loss.

Trust:  Of course we cannot trust people to be absolutely honest, which is why we have government.  This government, however, is staffed by people, and government people are just as capable of duplicity as civilians.  Also, both kinds of people are capable of making honest mistakes with good intentions.  That's why the Founding Fathers devised a system of checks and balances, to prevent one guy from making a mess of things, either accidently or on purpose.

Some good news for a change:  The legal marijuana business in Michigan is booming, they've been selling seven million dollars worth of pot a week since the corona hit the fan.  Just think, if we had not legalized the stuff, most of that money would be going to Mexico.