Once the money spending machine is started, it's hard to stop

From December 6, all face-to-face workers will have to take the Covid-19 self-test at least twice a week. This has been approved by the government. The tests will be bought by the state for both public and private sector workers.

In response to this latest slapdash idea by the government, Roberts Fūrmanis, a well-known anesthesiologist and intensive care physician, tweeted: "Who is the author of the stupidity called 'self-testing at home 2x a week with antigen tests'? Why will 15 million euros be spent on this and 3 million euros given to a newly founded company? Is there any scientific reference for this approach? I understand that someone has a pathological desire to engage in idiocy, but surely 15 million euros of taxpayers' money should not be spent on such a thing..."

It actually does not matter so much who is, in Fūrmanis' words, the author of this stupidity - the advisor to Minister of Health Daniel Pavļuts Kaspars Bērziņš, a friend or classmate of Bērziņš, Pavļuts, or someone else who has managed to remain in the shadows unnoticed. It does not really make sense to focus all the attention and indignation on this company Ekspress Laboratorija, which was only created in the spring, because it is much more important to understand that under the cover of the "fight with Covid-19", a money-spending system has been created a long time ago. A well-oiled machine. It should be realized that this "self-testing at home" fits neatly into the Kariņš/Pavļuts matrix of behavior which has been determining the motivation behind our government's decision-making for over a year now.

This matrix has two main components - the political-electoral and the economic-financial. The core electorate of the political forces represented by Pavļuts and Kariņš demands active action to contain the pandemic. This political demand must be responded to. It is simply not acceptable to sit back and agree with the anti-vaxxers (this self-conceived category includes anyone who even remotely questions the course of Kariņš/Pavļuts). It could lose loyalist votes. So, something must be done. In the absence of any clear, unambiguous winning algorithms, they have to grope in the dark. Something has to be done for the sake of doing something. We need to imitate active hustle and bustle. The more active, the better. And at this moment of activating the imitation, we need to remember the second, but perhaps it should be the first (main) component - the overall business component of this process.

Any process, if it lasts long enough, starts to work according to its own internal logic, with one of the most important drivers being cash flows. What was important at the beginning falls to the periphery, and completely different factors come to the fore, even though the rhetoric may remain the same. The fight against Covid-19 is now in its second year, during which time this very right process that should be supported could not help but be overgrown by the myriad leeches/parasites of political business who are always swarming around the centers of power in the hope of grabbing a morsel from the rich financial distribution table. All the more so in a situation where "there is now more money than there has ever been before".

This formula, once accidentally said by Kariņš - there is now more money than there has ever been before - is the key to almost all the activities of the Kariņš/Pavļuts government, no matter how well-worded the phrases used to justify them. Money comes first, while concern for people's health acts as a decorative cover in this system.

This is not to say that the government does not care at all about people's health and they are the bad guys only concerned about money. No. They are normal people, but nobody has abolished the power of money over the processes, and this power operates in a quite autonomous mode, where Kariņš, smiling foolishly, is just strolling behind this force of nature known as the power of money. His foolish smile in this situation is a good demonstration of the clear understanding that he is in no position to restrain this force. So he just flows along with it. As they say, if you can't prevent something, then relax and try to enjoy the process. That is what we see in Kariņš' face every day.