President Trump has called on the American free market to behave like it has in the past when the nation is faced with a crisis — pivot from business as usual to providing solutions to our needs. And, boy howdy, are we getting results!

Free Market Nimbleness

American businesses are sensitive to the wants and desires of their customer base because the free market model allows allows the consumer to just walk away from products or services that don’t meet their needs. Contrary to commie Bernie Sanders charge that “we don’t need” 23 choices of deodorant, such market pressure on competing brands is like regular training for an athlete. It keeps one lean, flexible and alert to challenges to peak performance. No one can merely coast through the years feeling one has done just enough and customers will show up anyway. American history is littered with the names of business large and small who lost to a leaner, hungrier competitor.

This expectation of innovation is baked into free-market capitalism. It allowed for huge production numbers of needed equipment during WWII, even as the country was just coming off years of economic downturn of the Great Depression. The current pandemic has resulted in critical shortages and the market is responding.

Brewing giant Anheuser-Busch is making hand sanitizer to help during the coronavirus crisis — while a series of hip New York firms also producing artisanal bottles of the potentially life-saving product. […]

A series of small boutique New York distilleries are also making their own — with beautiful bottles giving them a decidedly more artisanal feel.

“I never thought in my life that I’d be in the hand sanitizer business,” Stephen DeAngelo, founder of Brooklyn’s Greenhook Ginsmiths, told Eater.

The Greenpoint company has been shipping small bottles along with online orders of its booze — and has accepted two orders from hospitals, for 2,500 gallons and 1,700 gallons of hand sanitizer, Eater said.

We'll be working with the @RedCross and other non-profit partners, to determine where the hand sanitizer will be needed most.

— Anheuser-Busch (@AnheuserBusch) March 22, 2020

Ford and 3M team up for respirators

As the Wuhan coronavirus is a respiratory virus, one of the biggest worries is not having enough ventilators and respirators on hand if there is a sudden spike in patients. Ford has come up with a remarkable innovation using parts they already have.

Ford announced today that it is partnering with 3M in order to manufacture powered air-purifying respirators (PAPRs) as part of its response to the COVID-19 pandemic. These respirators are often called positive-pressure masks as they take contaminated air, pull it through a filter, then push it to the sealed mask using an air blower.

Ford will assist by providing components from their parts bin to build the respirators. The design released by Ford (top) will use 3M filters that draw air into a blower motor sourced from an F-150 and then pushed through a tube up to a mask that is sealed to the user’s face.

I read that and could not help but recall this scene:

Quarantine in the digital age

I certainly don’t want to ignore the real hardships that have come about from the draconian hard-stop that has been imposed on our lives. Too many businesses are shuttered and people at home with no income to not worry about the consequences if the lock down drags on. However, the presence of the Internet ameliorates some of the negative effects. Many businesses have been able to allow their employees to work from home. People isolated at home can order groceries online for delivery or food for pick-up from restaurants even as those eateries are closed to dining-in. Many churches and synagogues are conducting their services online. Schools and colleges are offering their courses online. How wonderful, too, that it allows for digital appointments with one’s doctor, thereby decreasing pressure on medical facilities and risk of increased infections.

And we can visit with, and check on, our family members via all manner video chat applications.

We can, and should, be grateful for living in a country based on the principle that the greatest good comes from individual liberty.

featured image, composite by Victory Girls Darleen Click including 1943 WWII Poster, digital image for non-commercial use granted by Boston Athenaeum