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Originally Posted by someone123
Yeah, I think this is approximately what's happening. And in general if life gets a bit worst the richest are most able to cope on average. A government edict may cause famine or death for a poor day labourer in India ("walk hundreds of km home to your hut and stay there or be punished") but not even be noticeable to a rich person ("you should stay where you are but nobody will check").
I don't believe there is any specific billionaire agenda with lockdowns. I think people just support the policies based on what their motivations and costs are. And some have more influence than others. If you're a rich old Boomer stereotype on a large property the pandemic measures have little practical cost to you. Even the travel restrictions aren't such a big deal now (if you get covid, just wait in your villa for another week before flying back).
Meanwhile for the poor there was often no benefit even to the lockdowns. There was no lockdown of chicken plant workers. They just went to work and got covid. The poor old people are in packed homes or old folks' homes and they got covid too.
One cynical theory I heard was that because well-off people are now testing positive for omicron the shame will drop and "society will decide" to move on.
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Also, wealth on paper doesn’t mean buying power follows.
If the Canadian government decides to print several new trillion dollars right now and injects that into the economy, a $3 loaf of bread will now be $6, an apt that rented for $800 a month will now rent for $1,600, and my Canadian real estate previously worth $x Canadian dollars will now be worth $2x Canadian dollars, literally overnight.
“I doubled my wealth in Canadian dollars overnight”, sure, but maybe when measured in US dollars or Euros, I’m not any wealthier than before.
Extreme example: imagine that you owned a rental property in Zimbabwe at the start of their infamous runaway inflation. Eventually, your building brings in several trillion quintillion dollars in monthly rent; multiply that by the same standard cap rate as before and you’re now (on paper, in Zimbabwe dollars) 10^23 times richer than before, but in practice, you’re not. You could even be functionally poorer.
Edit: since I have some leverage, that scenario of printing fresh gazillions of dollars would actually make me wealthier (my debt, fixed in Canadian dollars, would magically diminish vs the value of my assets), but for the sake of the example, imagine an unleveraged portfolio.