When panic hits?

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Both were dominated by laissez-faire capitalists, arrogant, super-rich people who squandered money with reckless abandon, simply because they could. One thing Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk have in common is that they’ve accumulated more money than they can spend wisely, so they spend it foolishly — undermining Twitter or running a taxi service to space for other rich folks. Add nonsense like crypto currency speculators, corrupt foreign oligarchs and rampant, homegrown fraud, and you have a system rigged for disaster.

The financial community recently spawned a new word, “polycrisis.” It was a major topic of discussion at the recent World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. Economic historian Adam Tooze writes that a polycrisis “challenges our ability to cope…the shocks are disparate, but they interact so that the whole is even more overwhelming than the sum of the parts.” Climate change aggravated the COVID pandemic, which helped ignite the war in Ukraine, which interfered with the global economic system to disrupt trading networks and supply chains, which triggered high inflation and food shortages, all of which resulted in the first global population decline since 1945.

Faced with such threats, one of our major political parties, and about a third of our citizens, already have abandoned their faith in our government, threatening to overthrow it violently. Meanwhile, the world remains as chaotic as it was in the 1930s, and exponentially more dangerous because of nuclear weapons. This is neither a time for optimism nor pessimism. They’re just magical thinking — false hope or unfounded despair. Rather, we need realism.

Realists deal with life as it is. Historical precedent suggests we’re on the verge of another panic in America, which could begin as soon as the next few months. If the insurrectionists, who now control the House of Representatives, should send our economic system careening into unprecedented financial default, things will get really bad, really fast, even faster than they did after 1929.

Writing in Esquire, Jack Holmes says, “We’re in dangerous territory when sticking it to Those People is a greater virtue for a big chunk of the body politic than maintaining the full faith and credit of the United States government, which just happens to undergird the world financial system.”

So, my friends, what are you planning to do when the panic hits?

Rev. Robert Plaisted is a retired United Methodist clergyman, formerly of Bridgton, now residing in Bath.

This week’s puzzle theme: U.S. PreSidentS

ACROSS

1. Biased perspective

6. Male sibs

10. Monday Night Football audience

14. Tapiridae representative

15. Rock opera version of “La BohËme”

16. Object of worship

17. Opposite of alpha

18. ____ Spumante

19. Novice

20. *Unanimously elected

President

22. Gusto 23. Eggy drink 24. Jig music, pl.

26. Stashed in a hold

30. Penniless

32. Wood turning device 33. Toll payment, e.g. 34. Not slouching 38. Like nay-sayers

39. Of many years

40. Malaria symptom

41. Instagram post 43. River, in Spanish

44. Bell-bottoms bottom

45. Dodge

47. Unexpected

48. The Cat in the Hat’s headgear (2 words)

51. Campbell’s container

52. International Civil Aviation Organization

53. *President Hayes’ first name the data broken down to both state and county levels, first responders on the frontlines of the overdose epidemic will be better able to target life-saving interventions such as the overdose-reversal medication naloxone. The dashboard will also help inform state and local service providers as they connect people to life-saving treatment for substance use disorders.

60. “Through” in a text?

Reducing the number of overdoses requires an all-ofthe-above approach. The 2023 government funding law provides $4.9 billion — a nearly $300 million increase over last year — to respond to the opioid epidemic. Funds will be used to improve treatment and prevention efforts; find alternative pain medications; address workforce needs, especially in rural communities; and promote research.

Another key provision included in the government funding law is the Medication Access and Training Expansion Act. This legislation that I co-authored with Senator Michael Bennet (D-CO) will improve provider training to ensure prescribers of controlled substances, such as opioids, have foundational knowledge of addiction