Time To Open Up the Wallets America!

The first order of business for the world is to contain COVID-19 to the greatest extent possible.  The second is to find a vaccine or significant treatment regimen that will curtail or eliminate the threat. The world must be united in these quests.

In parallel, we must be energetic and radically generous in our efforts to support those whose livelihoods and lives have been dramatically damaged by this pandemic.  It will not be enough to provide unemployment pay and loans.  By the time this is over, there will be widespread poverty, hunger, despair and chaos.

There are vast resources of funds that could be used to keep people safe and secure during the pandemic and rebuild the economy once it has ended.  Let’s start with the wealthy and even the well-to-do.  It is time for all of us to extend our hands and open our pocketbooks. 

But there are many institutional pots of gold that could be re-directed to resuscitate a desperate world.  Public and private universities have absurdly large endowments that could be used to stimulate the economy and lessen the suffering.  Private universities have over $339B in endowment funds and public universities have over $153B.  I know these endowments augment the universities’ programs, but there is a new set of priorities in this world and having bigger and better athletic centers at universities is way down on the list.

There are legions of private foundations that also have rich endowments and use the income to support their programs.  There are untold billions of dollars in these foundations (just the top 40 listed in Wikipedia total more than $300B).  Now is the time for these foundations to dig deep into their funds to keep this world from disintegrating.

Make no mistake.  This pandemic will not be over in a few weeks and may not be over in 6 months.  I am sure we cannot yet comprehend the damage it will wreak.  Human beings are resilient creatures and we will survive and eventually prosper again.  But it will require some new thinking in terms of the way we share resources.  It is time to open the wallet.