There is a giant problem the U.S. cities, counties, and states absolutely cannot solve: Going to work while caring for and educating our children.
It’s a giant problem that requires a giant solution.
The grades 1-12 schools in America are both educational facilities and vital childcare facilities.
Working parents fund child care for under-age children.
The Trumpian “solution” is to send all the kids to school and all the parents to work, and don’t worry about people dying from the virus.
It’s the usual Trumpian, “Let’s get business going so the stock market and I can look good in time for the election.”
(Remember, “Eliminate Obamacare with no replacement,” which was a similar Trumpian “plan.”)
Big New Obstacle for Economic Recovery: Child Care Crisis
The New York Times, Eliza Shapiro and Patrick McGeehan, July 11, 2020NEW YORK — When New York City decided to reopen its school system, the nation’s largest, on a part-time basis in September, it set off a new child care crisis that could seriously threaten its ability to restart the local economy and recover from the coronavirus outbreak.
President Donald Trump and his aides are putting pressure on state and local officials to bring children back to classrooms full time this fall, saying the fate of the economy depends on it.
Business and union leaders said the city needed to mount a kind of Marshall Plan-like effort to find child care for many of the system’s 1.1 million students when they are not in classrooms.
They said there was no way the economy — from conglomerates in midtown Manhattan to small businesses in Queens — could fully return to normal if parents had no choice but to stay at home to watch their children.
Under a plan announced by Mayor Bill de Blasio this week, classroom attendance would be limited to only one to three days a week in an effort to protect public health.
The city’s approach is similar to that being followed by many school districts, which are concerned that crowded schools might intensify the outbreak.
The decisions on school reopenings are also fueling a contentious political debate over whether elected officials, educators, and public health experts are moving forward too cautiously, even as the number of virus cases soars in the United States.
The problem is so huge and seemingly so intractable that it can boggle thinking. No matter what solution is presented, a dozen “but, what if” problems present themselves.
To solve the huge and seemingly intractable problem we need big new thinking.
We can break this huge problem into individual, though related problems, each with separate solutions.
- Parents need money
- Local school districts need money
- Teachers need money
- Businesses need money
- Businesses need workers
- Children need teachers
- Children need protection from the virus
- Teachers need protection from the virus
- Families need protection from the virus
- Children need supervision.
Since schooling of grades 1-12 is both a national and a local problem, every government — federal, state, and local — must have a role in solving the problem.
Here is the Trumpian “solution:”
“Parents have to get back to the factory,” Alex Azar, the federal health and human services secretary, said this week.
“They’ve got to get back to the job site. They have to get back to the office. And part of that is their kids, knowing their kids are taken care of.”
In short, it’s no solution at all. It a statement of wishes.
To find a solution, let’s consider the governments’ roles.
I. The federal government, being Monetarily Sovereign, has and can provide, infinite money. It can provide a solution to every money-related problem.
The key is not to worry that some people will receive too much money, but rather to worry that some will receive too little.
Thus, the federal government can solve all money-related problems merely by providing sufficient money to the local governments.
II. Each state government and school district in America has its own unique problems that the federal government cannot solve with national laws.
Given sufficient money, each state and school district is best equipped to understand and to solve its own local educational problems.
The solution for the federal government is to pass the buck by telling all 50 states:
“Help your local school districts develop plans to educate and protect your children, your families, your businesses, and your schools in the best way you can.
“The federal government will finance your efforts. Think big.
“Money is no object.“
Stop reading now, to visualize that if your own local school districts had infinite money to solve problems 1 – 10, what would they do?
And remember, the solutions should not be constrained by concerns that some people or businesses will receive too much money.
Given infinite money, how would your local school district provide every stakeholder — every child, every parent, every teacher, and every business — with what they need?
Keeping that in mind, see if solutions appear for you:
Some educators and public health experts said they were worried that fully reopening the schools before the outbreak is contained could recklessly lead to the spread of the virus.
The fundamental problem has to do with schools that can’t themselves maintain adequate social distancing and masking to protect students and teachers.
So think big. Given infinite money:
Could your area provide spaces — private homes, auditoriums, movie theaters, gymnasiums, sports arenas, etc. — that given sufficient money, could be converted into additional classrooms and safe, child-care areas that would allow for social distancing?
Could you provide effective masks to everyone?
Depending on your area’s climate, could temporary structures, with heating, air conditioning, bathrooms, and lunchrooms be erected?
And, given sufficient money, could your area’s children and teachers be transported, by car and bus, to and from these spaces?
And, given sufficient money, could teachers, guardians, and teaching equipment be provided to these spaces?
While employees who have been working from home during the pandemic might have some flexibility, that is not the case for many low-income families and essential workers.
Unions that represent essential workers say many members face child care difficulties in normal times and now are being forced into an even worse predicament.
Consider your area. Given infinite money, how would you arrange to care for children who are not old enough to go to school?
Public school parents will not learn what days their children can attend school until August, so it will be difficult for working families to let their employers know before late summer when they can show up in person.
Working parents have expressed confusion and anxiety about the prospect of a part-time return to schools without a child care plan.
“I’m not sure how we will pay the bills,” (one parent) said, adding that a private day care could cost more than his wife’s annual income. “It’s insane that no political leaders have any answers for working-class parents.”
Jose Maldonado, secretary-treasurer of UNITE HERE Local 100, said 15,000 employees in his 18,000-member union were laid off because of the coronavirus and were eager to get back to work.
Many of those members had jobs serving food in cafeterias, delis and airports. Those who have kept working have had laid-off workers care for their children, Maldonado said.
Few of you are old enough to remember World War II, when the U.S. solved similar problems.
Millions of men and women went off to war, yet back home, children still needed to be cared for and schooled, and families still needed money.
Back then, the “greatest generation,” led by Rosie the Riveter, funded by federal dollars, did the impossible.
Missing millions of American workers, America continued life and even prospered. Back then, people pulled together. That’s why they were known as the “greatest generation.”
“Every way that you look at it, it feels impossible” to plan for fall, said Emily James, a mother of two who teaches high school English in Brooklyn.
“The city has to come up with some way to provide child care instead of trying to make everything work through the schools,” she said, adding that she was nervous about whether teachers would be safe returning to buildings.
Some experts say they worry that the flexibility some companies offered on child care in the spring will wane come fall.
This week, a woman in California sued her former employer, claiming she was fired because her young children made noise during calls while she was working at home.
“As we start talking about reopening, there’s almost this compassion fatigue, that I’ve put up with you and your lack of child care long enough,” said Brigid Schulte, who runs the Better Life Lab at New America, a research group.
The city’s employers are also desperate for clarity on school reopening and child care.
Miriam Milord, owner of BCakeNy, a bakery in the Prospect Heights section of Brooklyn, said, “It would be great for employees to have child care.”
This summer, a teenage girl from the neighborhood has been supervising Milord’s 12-year-old son and a few of her employees’ children at her house while the parents bake and sell cakes.
Milord said she laid off 10 of her 16 workers but had brought four of them back. Some are single mothers who would need child care on the days their children are not in the classroom.
“We definitely would like to hire back one or more of them,” Milord said. “But what’s the plan?”
Wylde said she had heard suggestions about how the private sector could pitch in to provide space for students when they are not in school, including using empty hotel ballrooms and auditoriums and even vacant storefronts.
But she said those ideas seemed unrealistic given the huge number of students involved and the potential liabilities. Finding enough space would require a sweeping plan — one, she said, that would rival the Marshall Plan, which provided aid to Western Europe after World War II. Such an endeavor would also dwarf the largely successful effort in 2014 to create space for universal pre-K.
City officials have not yet formally proposed any of these ideas to the business community, she said.
And therein lies the problem.
Local communities, which do not have sufficient money, are being left to come up with solutions that require sufficient money.
The federal government, which has infinite money, has not offered any money or a plan.
Small-thinking politicians are paralyzed by concerns that some people and businesses will cheat or otherwise receive too much money.
So all solutions are met with objections.
The solution is for everyone to work together, just like we did during WWII.
It requires the federal government to tell the states (and the states to tell the local school districts), “You do it; I’ll pay for it. And I’ll give you logistical help if you need it.”
Will it take a trillion dollars? Five trillion? Ten trillion. It doesn’t matter. The federal government, being Monetarily Sovereign, has infinite dollars.
But, we have to think big to solve this big problem, and we have to work together and we have to start, today.
Rodger Malcolm Mitchell
Monetary Sovereignty Twitter: @rodgermitchell Search #monetarysovereignty Facebook: Rodger Malcolm Mitchell …………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..
THE SOLE PURPOSE OF GOVERNMENT IS TO IMPROVE AND PROTECT THE LIVES OF THE PEOPLE.
The most important problems in economics involve:
- Monetary Sovereignty describes money creation and destruction.
- Gap Psychology describes the common desire to distance oneself from those “below” in any socio-economic ranking, and to come nearer those “above.” The socio-economic distance is referred to as “The Gap.”
Wide Gaps negatively affect poverty, health and longevity, education, housing, law and crime, war, leadership, ownership, bigotry, supply and demand, taxation, GDP, international relations, scientific advancement, the environment, human motivation and well-being, and virtually every other issue in economics. Implementation of Monetary Sovereignty and The Ten Steps To Prosperity can grow the economy and narrow the Gaps:
Ten Steps To Prosperity:
2. Federally funded Medicare — parts A, B & D, plus long-term care — for everyone
3. Social Security for all or a reverse income tax
4. Free education (including post-grad) for everyone
5. Salary for attending school
6. Eliminate federal taxes on business
7. Increase the standard income tax deduction, annually.
8. Tax the very rich (the “.1%”) more, with higher progressive tax rates on all forms of income.
9. Federal ownership of all banks
10.Increase federal spending on the myriad initiatives that benefit America’s 99.9%
The Ten Steps will grow the economy and narrow the income/wealth/power Gap between the rich and the rest.
MONETARY SOVEREIGNTY
#Monetary Sovereignty - Mitchell 
I agree about the increase in funding, Rodger. But honestly, re-opening schools this fall should really be a non-problem, as several other countries such as Denmark, Norway, and Iceland have discovered, with no outbreaks linked to their schools, even without masks or social distancing. Ditto for Germany as well. Taiwan only closed very briefly, and Japan still did not force all schools to close, and they are none the worse for wear. And Sweden never even closed their schools at all, nor did Belarus, and again the prophets of doom proved to be wrong in that regard.
Thing is, unlike influenza and most other infectious diseases, children are simply not superspreaders of COVID-19, and are barely even susceptible to the virus for the most part. As for teachers and staff, they are far, far more likely to infect each other than catch it from students. Closing schools was an example of following an influenza model that turned out to be wildly inaccurate.
All decisions regarding schools should really be as local as possible, though all should plan on reopening in September at the latest, while taking precautions, then play it by ear. Some schools may need to get creative at times. If after reopening there is a fresh local outbreak in the community and/or one linked to the school, and/or excessive absenteeism, then schools can choose to *briefly* close like they did in Taiwan earlier this year, or like many localities in the USA did for swine flu in 2009. And by briefly, I mean anywhere from a few days to two or three weeks at most. But no more blanket statewide, nationwide, or prolonged closures.
I personally have no dog in this fight myself, as I have no kids nor employees myself, and do not work in any schools. But what I am far more concerned about is the long-term effects on children from prolonged school closures and the utterly dystopian atmospheres that many American (and British) schools will likely become after reopening. Which IMHO is far worse for children than COVID.
https://www.globalresearch.ca/the-sad-faces-of-our-children-in-lockdown-covid-captivity/5718058
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I see you have no children, which might affect your beliefs. Please give me your recent source of information telling you that children and teachers would be safe in schools. At one time it was believed young people don’t catch the virus. That has now proven false. Have you checked Sweden recently?
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No problem, Rodger, here is a brand new one from literally yesterday:
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/07/13/german-study-finds-no-evidence-coronavirus-spreads-schools/
And that is not only true in Germany, but apparently in other countries as well for months now.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-04-26/nsw-health-report-tracking-coronavirus-covid-19-cases-in-schools/12185582
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanchi/article/PIIS2352-4642(20)30095-X/fulltext
https://www.usforthem.co.uk/what-do-we-know
It is true that children can get COVID, but it nevertheless remains quite rare for them to get serious disease or die from it, and rarer still for them to infect adults. They are statistically more likely to get struck by lightning or hit by a bus, apparently.
As for Sweden, they actually seem to be doing fine right now as per Worldometer, with the virus almost gone and, unlike some countries, will most likely not see a second wave. Anders Tegnell does seem to be rather vindicated. Their cumulative COVID death rate was indeed high, but still fared better than several lockdown countries like the UK. And while their COVID-specific mortality was clearly worse than their Nordic neighbors, their all-cause mortality was actually in between Denmark’s and Finland’s.
http://inproportion2.talkigy.com/nordic_comparison_4jul.html
And while Stockholm unfortunately screwed up early on, their “second city” of Malmo apparently got it right after learning from them, hence their low death rate (lower than even Copenhagen, Denmark across the Oresund).
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/06/14/inside-swedish-city-may-prove-countrys-strategy-right-along/
But yes, I probably am a wee bit biased since I don’t have kids of my own. Though if I did and I was stuck with them day in and day out for months, I would probably be even more in favor of reopening schools sooner than later just to keep what is left of my sanity, lol. And IMHO keeping schools closed will certainly not make anyone want to procreate anytime soon–the much-awaited baby boom predicted to occur nine months after the lockdowns will most likely be a baby *bust* after all, with American birth rates precipitously dropping to Japanese levels or lower, perhaps even long-term. Which is good of course in terms of reducing overpopulation and its grave ecological consequences such as climate cataclysm and the sixth mass extinction, but birth rates being stuck too low for too long (i.e. a TFR stuck below 1.5 for more than a few years in a row) unfortunately carries its own set of social and economic problems as well.
Of course, if we really are in this for the long haul as the pundits claim, we could go back to the days of the village raising the child, in a most literal sense. But that also has its own set of downsides as well, and social distancing would make that rather difficult and cumbersome at best. A dystopia like “Mandrake” by Susan Cooper (think Orwell’s 1984 meets the Dark Ages, albeit relatively high-tech) would be the most likely result of any such attempt to do so.
Of course, herd immunity is ultimately inevitable at some point, likely much sooner than later. So we may not be in for as long a haul as predicted after all.
https://swprs.org/coronavirus-antibody-tests-show-only-one-fifth-of-infections/
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Yes, I had seen the same articles, but I had a few problems with them.
1. Children do get other forms of COVID, as well as every other viral disease known to humanity, so are we to believe there is some as yet unexplained, magical effect with the #19 virus that prevents it from infecting children?
2. Children exhale, just like the rest of us, and when they exhale, they exhale any viruses they have. So are we to believe there is some magic that prevents their viruses from infecting other family members and teachers?
3. Children put their hands to their faces even more than adults do, So are we to believe there is some magic that prevents the virus they pick up on their fingers won’t get into their mouths and lungs?
4. It wasn’t long ago that teenagers also were supposedly “immune” to COVID-19, but somehow lately that magic “immunity” seems to have disappeared.
Yes, I had seen the articles, which reminded me of the articles that appeared in February, indicating masks are not necessary. But, I don’t believe in magic, and I suspect that after school starts, you’ll hear Trump begin to say that school children getting the virus is a “hoax,” as thousands sicken.
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Even if we don’t know the reasons why, the statistics speak for themselves, and we have months of data now. A few possible reasons include: 1) Cross-immunity from recent exposure to other (common cold) coronaviruses, likely more frequent in children, 2) age-related differences in the number, density, and location of ACE2 receptors (the lock that the virus picks to get into our cells), 3) age-related differences in the innate immune system, or 4) other unknown factors that are not yet fully understood.
Furthermore, is quite curious how we didn’t close down schools for extended periods of time for the past few influenza pandemics (2009, 1968, and 1957), or even other bad flu seasons, despite the fact that plenty of kids were seriously affected by these viruses or at least acted as superspreaders to adults. In each of those cases, most schools were kept open, while a few schools here and there were only briefly closed, usually due to excessive absenteeism and/or exceptionally severe local community outbreaks. And yet this new virus seems to largely (albeit not entirely) spare children, while it’s best estimate infection fatality rate (IFR) for the general population is roughly equivalent to the 1957 and 1968 flu pandemic. So what changed?
Either way, both then and now, Farr’s Law prevails as the one model to rule them all, and one thing remains certain. When it comes to viruses, you can run, but you can’t hide. At least not for very long. People understood that until very recently, yet as of March 2020 seem to have forgotten that.
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Thanks for another spot on post.
The real problem lies in the banking, financial and monetary systems and their monopolistic paradigm of Debt Only. And the solution is in a new paradigm, namely direct and reciprocal monetary gifting with a 50% discount policy at both retail sale and at the point of note/loan signing.
That single policy does more for every economic agent individual and commercial than 5000 years of the current paradigm.
Add in a $1000/mo. universal dividend, a new non-profit truly national banking system and you can not only end both inflation and poverty forever but enable large tax decreases, end expensive and energy-intensive international supply chains, promote green re-industrialization, direct consumers toward sane ecological purchases and enable fiscal spending to handle the mega ecological projects that have so long been thwarted by the idiotic idea that money created ex nihilo is somehow scarce and we can only create money as debt instead of as both/either debt and gifts.
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That sounds like an excellent pathway to the idea of a gift economy.
http://gift-economy.com/
https://sacred-economics.com/
The specious idea that somehow everything must have strings attached because reasons is a psychological stumbling block that is, among other things, at the very root of everything wrong with the past several thousand years. The UBI / Citizen’s Dividend / Economic Bonus is the quickest and most effective way turn such a flawed and outmoded paradigm on its head and pave the way for the new paradigm. And that new paradigm (gift economy) never really went away, it was simply hidden all along by the exchange economy that was superimposed on it (and leeched off of it) for millennia.
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You’re correct that UBI/Unversal dividend is a great policy, but without a 50% discount at both retail sale and at note signing it could easily just de-generate back into the new serfdom because there is no effective means of controlling/ending price inflation. C. H. Douglas had both a universal dividend and what he called a compensated retail discount of a smallish percentage way back in 1928. The problem with that was that it would have been just a superior theory to both Keynesianism and the neo-classical “synthesis” that Keynesianism got morphed into…..when what is required is a true paradigm change in money and hence the economy.
If one studies historical paradigm changes one of the characteristics of each of them is increased abundance in the body of knowledge/area of human endeavor that the change takes place within. The high percentage discount/rebate policy at retail and note signing will create that abundance. Another signature of historical paradigm changes is increased survival, for instance the increased abundance and survival that mankind experienced in the paradigm change from hunting and gathering to agriculture, homesteading and urbanization. Finally, there is an historically verifiable phenomenon known as a mega paradigm change which is one that immediately, continuously and personally effects every individual. There has only been two mega paradigm changes in human history, the rise of human self awareness and hunting and gathering to agriculture, homesteading and urbanization. The twin 50% discounts at retail sale and at note signing and the program of aligned policies and regulations attending it will result in a change from the current paradigm of Debt Only to Direct and Reciprocal Monetary Gifting and it will be the third such mega paradigm change.
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Contrary to popular belief, general price inflation never is caused by government deficit spending.
Self-awareness and agriculture? I would have voted for the use of fire.
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Correct, Rodger. Inflation is caused by shortages of goods and services, especially food or energy. And indeed, the #1 biggest game-changer in (pre)history was that fateful day when someone discovered that FIRE COOK FOOD!
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It isn’t any coincidence that the top three economic reform movements are Mosler’s Modern MONETARY Theory, Keen’s Minsky’s FINANCIAL Instability Hypothesis and Hudson’s FINANCIAL Parasitism. All they really lack is another key signature of paradigm changes, a new tool/invention and/or insight. (raising crops and animal husbandry) (the invention of the telescope and the discovery of the ellipse) (the Gutenberg Press)These Macro-economists, for all of their correct theorizing have succumbed to abstraction and hence not looked at and perceived the point of retail sale which is the terminal summing point for all costs for every good and service including profit, terminal ending point for the entire economic/productive process because it is where production becomes consumption and therfore the terminal expression point for any and all relevant economic factors like inflation for instance….and hence not perceived the unitary efficacy of a price and monetary policy at that point. All terminal ending/summing/expression points are potential turning/pivoting points, and all paradigm changes are characterized by conceptual opposition (unconsciousness-consciousness) (nomadic hunting and gathering-agriculture, homesteading and urbanization) (Debt Only-Monetary Gifting). Finally, the actual operations both mentally and in the temporal universe of all paradigm changes have been basically simple (the inversion of the positions of the earth and the sun) (hand written to machine produced communication) (moving around the land to staying in one place). Hence the key to perceiving paradigms old and new is their simplicity of operation and yet their depth of beneficial effect. Direct and Reciprocal Monetary Gifting at the point of retail sale and note signing fits all of the above criteria wisdomicsblog.com Systems were made for Man, not Man for Systems.
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Rodger,
Yes you’re correct that deficit spending itself has no actual effect on inflation. It’s actually a result of the systemic scarcity of free and clear individual income which of course results in a concomitant scarcity of actually available business revenue. That systemic reality tempts business decision makers to commit the economic vice of inflating their prices whenever they perceive more money coming into the economy. Given that the US has never had an inflation rate higher than 14% (and that was after 10+ years of war in Vietnam and an increase of nearly 400% in the most important commodity in modern economies, namely petroleum, due to the Arab oil embargo), a 50% discount/rebate policy to the price of every good and service means that the “miracle” of integrating beneficial price deflation into the economy becomes possible.
Hyperinflations never occur before several disastrous circumstances like losing a war, having virtually all of one’s productive facilities destroyed and then having a complient central bank that leverages up speculators who short the currency, so such are very rare. Even if despite punitive tax regimes for arbitrary price rises we still had 3-4% inflation you could just make the discount/rebate percentage 53-54%.
Actually you’re right, fire might be a mega paradigm change itself, or at least a paradigm change within the mega paradigm of self awareness.
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The amount of money coming into the economy is not the relevant factor. Supply is the relevant factor. All inflations are caused by shortages of necessities, most often shortages of food or energy (oil).
Business decision-makers can inflate prices only if they have a monopoly on the food or oil supply.
Governments can create inflations by actions that restrict the supply of food or oil, which is what happened in Zimbabwe.
Governments can cure inflations via spending to obtain and distribute food and/or oil. That is why, counterintuitively, government deficit spending can cure inflations, which is how the infamous German inflation was cured.
The U.S. inflation you mentioned, which as you said was caused by an oil shortage, could have been cured immediately had the U.S. government gone on the market and purchased oil and distributed it to the economy at a low price. The world would have suffered inflation, but the U.S. inflation would have been cured.
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“Business decision-makers can inflate prices only if they have a monopoly on the food or oil supply.”
Sorry, but not so. They can incrementally inflate (3-4% per annum) in conjunction with their competitors who generally also do so.
You’re correct that industries like pharmaceuticals and health insurance can inflate at higher rates because they enjoy virtual monopoly powers from patents and lack of any useful regulation.
Asset inflations also can occur, especially in the housing market because of financial speculation and as we saw in the run up to the great financial crisis in 2008 because of idiotic and destabilizing “weapons of economic mass destruction” known as mortgage backed securities, credit default swaps and other derivative products.
Scarcities ARE a factor, but the most underlying problem is the current monetary paradigm of Debt Only as the sole form and vehicle for the creation and distribution of money/credit.
The number of economic problems resolved and the cross system positive effects the twin 50% discount/rebate policies enable are proof of their paradigm changing efficacy.
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If you’re talking about food, I don’t see how they can do it “in conjunction with competitors.” Too many different producers of too many different foods.
If the heirloom tomato growers and packers raise prices, the beefsteak tomato, plum tomato, and yellow tomato growers and packers will fill the breach. Or people will do without tomatoes. No possibility of overall inflation.
Consider a national drought or the Zimbabwe situation where farmland was taken from farmers. Those can cause an overall food shortage which leads to an overall price inflation. Inflation is not an increase in some prices. It is an increase in virtually all prices. An agreement among competitors can’t do it.
If you’re talking about oil, that is (or was) a monopoly situation. No longer, now.
Price increases in the housing market don’t cause overall inflation. Needs like housing, education, clothing, and transportation are important, but not financially important enough to cause overall national inflation.
Shortages of food, oil, and to a much lesser degree, workers (i.e. full employment), are the ONLY factors that can cause national inflation. Neither an excess nor a shortage of money causes overall price inflation.
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Of course a massive increase in virus testing will yield higher numbers of positive results, uncovering the remainder of the iceberg of asymptomatic and mild infections (i.e. the vast majority of infections, particularly for young people) that would simply have been missed and ignored before.
And notably, these numbers began increasing while schools are still closed and have been closed for months now, so they have to be catching it from somewhere regardless.
But I guess the MSM has to keep the fear factor (particularly fear of the unknown) going as long as they can with articles like that one.
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