April 15, 2020 6 min read

Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

Its a troublesome time for everyone in the business world right now, particularly for those of us who own our own businesses. My business, Student Loan Planner, launched in 2016 and grown steadily over the past four years. However, as a CFA and former bond trader, I always knew the day would come when wed need to weather a storm.

Here are sixsmart money moves Im taking for my business right nowthat I suggest you do as well. You want to set your business and employees up for the best possible success as our country navigates this health and financial crisis.

This should be No. 1on your list before doing anything else I mention in this article. Under The Paycheck Protection Program, employers with less than 500 employees can access funding to cover up to eight weeks of payroll and certain other operating expenses. That gives you more cash to motivate and retain your team. Throw your hat into the ring like everyone else. You want this lifeline.

Related:How to Submit Your SBA PPP Loan Application and Calculate the Loan Amount

The U.S. Small Business Administration is providing low-interest working capital loans of up to $2 million. These loans are designed to provide economic support for small businesses that have lost revenue caused by the coronavirus pandemic.

Check out your states programs for businesses. Many states are providing resources and support to small businesses. For example, California and Colorado have work-sharing programs that provide partial unemployment benefits as an alternative to layoffs. Lastly, for local business support, contact your local SBA office or Chamber of Commerce for additional resources specific to your area.

Most people are assuming they will be let go at this point. More than 6.6 million U.S. workers filed new claims for unemployment benefits last week, on top of 3.3 million a week earlier, which means if you can offer anything better than a layoff, your team will greatly appreciate it.

My company is trying toretain as many employees as we possibly can by cutting their hoursbut continuing to pay them something. Doing this means we can conserve cash but try to mitigate the psychological turmoil that comes from being furloughed or laid off completely.

Related:What Leaders Can Learn From Governor Cuomo About How to Communicate During a Crisis

Going this route also encourages employee loyalty your employees will always remember how you acted at this time. If you did everything you could to keep them on payroll during one of the biggest financial crises weve ever seen as a country, they'll support you too.

Your customers and clients are going to remember what you did right now for a very long time. How can you prioritizecustomer service and content at a time when they need it most,even if that means a loss in short-term revenue?

Right now, my company doesn't expect to make much money from the content we're producting in the short term, at least. From showing people how to get their seized tax refunds back if they're in default,to advice on how to cut their monthly payments, to demonstrating how to get loan forgiveness credit instead of refinancing, on which we make a commission.

Customers need guidance right now, and the best brand advertising you can do is to have them remember your company was there for them during this economic crisis.

Many businesses that were already in tenuous positions before the disease started spreading will likely not reopen. If you think about the supply-demand curve you probably learned in your Econ 101course in college, the supply curve probably shifts up and to the left after this because fewers businesses will exist to buy goods.

That means the quantity supplied of goods and services will be lower, and the price you can command will be higher. Meaning, if your company survives, having fewer businesses to compete with will mean higher profits for your company long-term. If your company is in a financial position that gives it a goodchance of surviving this crisis, implement this strategy into your long-term plan.

Related:Entrepreneurs Review the SBA PPP Loan-Application Processes

In addition, businesses have pulled back from paid advertising in a huge way thats a big opportunity if you have cash to burn. For example, say you know each of your email subscribers is worth $5 long-term because you sell a digital product. If the cost of acquiring one of these subscribers on Facebook was $2 but is now $1, you should be excited to spend that money right now. You can acquire these leads for 50 percentoff.

As a business owner particularly one who is trying to protect his or her employees from layoff youre going to take a hit to your personal finances right now. That's where an emergency cash fund comes in.In a recession, even if you have a stable job, you should have cash to cover six months of expenses on hand. If you have an economically sensitive job, it should be one year's worth. You need to include any required loan payments as part of this calculation.

As a business owner, conserving cash is everything right now. If you have to borrow money to get emergency savings, do it. You know how they say on planes that you must put your own oxygen mask on first before helping others around you? The same goes for your personal finances when you own your own business.

This is perhaps the most important tip I can give you right now. Youre not going to make the best financial decisions for your company if you dont take time to blow off steam and relieve anxiety. The worst thing you can do is sit down and stew about your business 24/7. Whether its watching Tiger King or Ozark on Netflix or taking a walk in nature, make sure to clear your head every day for the sake of your business and your own personal well-being.

Related:What the Entrepreneur Staff Is Doing to Stay Sane and Productive While Working From Home

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6 Smart Money Moves to Make Right Now as a Business Owner - Entrepreneur

Q: Im worried about whats next with this COVID-19 crisis. We dont know when the stock market will recover, when employers will rehire or when the curve will flatten. We dont even know when well be allowed to walk in our parks or spend time with family and friends. Ill have a job to go back to, but I dont know how this will affect my finances longer term. Can you offer some ideas on how to survive this financially?

A: These certainly are interesting times. But dont fight your fears and negative feelings. Instead, accept them because they are bang-on. We simply dont know what will happen, because its actually unknowable at least in the short-term.

But if you believe, like I do, that humankind will conquer the coronavirus, then it can inspire you to hope. And hope can inspire you to action. And with action, you can achieve your goals.

This isolation time has been forced upon us, but you can use it for the better. You can think, plan and act now to improve your financial future.

There are two schools of thought on how to attain financial success: spend less or save more. Its much tougher (and less pleasant) to decrease spending to create wealth. Saving to build wealth is much easier (and more enjoyable) and the easiest way to save more is to earn more and then invest to grow that money.

So, let me ask you, when the COVID-19 pandemic becomes history, what will you have done to set yourself up for financial success? Dont dare let yourself down by permitting this time to pass unproductively.

If you elect to earn (and then save) more money, how will you plan now to make that happen in the future, after the coronavirus crisis is resolved? Will you go back to the same job and the same financial situation? Or might you contemplate a career move or advancement? If so, you could study online for a diploma through Mohawk College. Or simply read a number of ebooks to develop specific skills. You could take some notes from a video course and email them to your employer on how to make his or her business more profitable. Ill promise you theyll be impressed and may even offer you a raise when you are rehired.

Maybe youll investigate additional part-time employment or a side gig to complement your earnings from your job. Or perhaps youll explore becoming self-employed and starting your own business. Regardless of the means, now is the time to learn as much as you possibly can about how to earn more money to enhance your financial future.

This current worldwide situation might feel unsettling. Just the same and in spite of it make this COVID-19 crisis a distinct financial turning point in your life, for the better. I promise you that a time will come when youll look back on this with either a sense of accomplishment ... or a sense of regret. You can choose to take control of your financial success, even during this crazy situation.

I would never have wished this global health calamity upon you, me, or the world, but we have it. We dont know when companies around the globe will recover; but we know that they will. We dont know when jobs will return; but we know that they will. We dont know when the coronavirus curve will flatten; but we know that it will. And we know that well be allowed to walk in our parks and spend time with our family and friends. But I also know that it will be up to you, and how you use your time today, to determine if you will survive or thrive financially.

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Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban delivers his annual state of the nation speech in front of Fidesz party members in Budapest, Hungary, on Feb. 16. Attila Kisbenedek/AFP/Getty Images

Lets go back to 1989, said Christopher DeMuth, a former official in the Reagan administration, as he introduced Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, the guest of honor at the National Conservatism conference held in Rome on Feb. 3-4 before the coronavirus ravaged Italy. It was a way to invite Orban to recount his remarkable political career, but it could have been the subtitle of the whole conference, underlining the official title: God, Honor, Country: President Ronald Reagan, Pope John Paul II, and the Freedom of Nations. Never mind that the guest of honor has been rolling back the freedom of Hungarians in recent yearsand since the conference has secured the authority to rule by decree.

The two-day summitwhich gathered some of the most prominent conservative intellectuals and political leaders of the nationalist persuasionwas replete with nostalgia. Heartfelt appeals for the restoration of a supposedly golden age before the end of the Cold War rang out in the baroquely frescoed hotel hall, where speakers alternated on stage to articulate their slightly diverging brands of conservatism.

The era they were evoking predated the most aggressive phase of globalization: George H.W. Bushs new world order, the European Unions Maastricht Treaty, NATOs expansion into Eastern Europe, the introduction of the euro, and other elements of a 30-year process of rapid globalization that the nationalists loathe.

Social conservatives and traditionalists were represented by speakers like Rod Dreher, a writer for the American Conservative, and the Italian historian Roberto de Mattei, a traditionalist Catholic. De Mattei spoke about the dictatorship of relativism, a phrase made famous by Pope Benedict XVI before being elected to the papacy that is described as a system that doesnt recognize anything as definitive and whose ultimate goal consists solely of ones own ego and desires.

National conservatives gravitate around these types of moral absolutes. Even the French politician Marion Marchal could be included in that loosely defined category. The 30-year-old distanced herself at the conference from her aunt Marine Le Pen, the leader of the French far-right party National Rally, striving to represent a smarter, more intellectually inclined branch of conservatism, one that chastises transhumanism while hailing integral ecology as a quintessentially conservative cause. The notion of integral ecology claims that climate change and unfair economic and social practicessocietal problems more often associated with the leftare seen not as distinct problems but as a dimension of a single crisis affecting our age.

DeMuth, the former Reagan speechwriter Clarke Judge, the former U.S. diplomat G. Philip Hughes, and John OSullivan, currently the head of the Danube Institute in Budapesta think tank with ties to Orbans governmentwere the Cold War warriors representing the old Reagan consensus. Leaders of far-right parties from across Europe such as Spains Vox, Alternative for Germany, the Netherlandss Forum for Democracy, Polands Law and Justice, the Sweden Democrats, and Brothers of Italy expressed the European right-wing element.

The presence of younger speakers of the generation, such as Marchal, the Dutch politician Thierry Baudet, and the British author Douglas Murray, could hardly overcome the sense that the leaders convened were mostly envisioning the future by looking in the rearview mirror.

The United Kingdoms formal departure from the European Union in January was widely hailed as the latest step toward the resurrection of a pre-1990s world order organized around the principle of national sovereignty and rooted in the loyalty of local communities. The first step was the election of Donald Trump as U.S. president, and although some of the speakers would be uncomfortable wearing Make America Great Again hats in public, the implicit belief they share is that Trump is the long-awaited dismantler of the liberal internationalist orthodoxy and embodies the resurgence of what they call national conservatism.

The national conservative crowd gathered for the first time in the summer of 2019 in Washington, D.C., in a conference organized by the Israeli philosopher and political theorist Yoram Hazony, whose widely criticized book The Virtue of Nationalism became the manifesto of the national conservative movement. Fox News host Tucker Carlson and then-U.S. National Security Advisor John Bolton were among the main speakers at that event.

The Rome conference was the second step in Hazonys effort to mobilize the somewheres against the anywheres, to use the British journalist David Goodharts terminology, referring to the perception that nationalists are rooted in a single homeland (somewhere), whereas the elite are more cosmopolitan with no spatial allegiances (anywhere). This is indicative of the movements wider effort to shift conservatism away from its internationalist tilt and to recentralize the importance of the nation-state.

To accomplish this, the movement aims to redefine an older brand of conservatism that was ostensibly corrupted by the rules-based liberal order in the 1970s and steered away from its original purpose of preserving a traditional version of national sovereignty. That change in direction produced, among other things, a U.S. expansionist foreign policy, increasing reliance on international organizations, cultural homogeneity, misplaced faith in the free market ideology, and an aggressively individualistic outlook captured in Margaret Thatchers famous adage There is no such thing as society. National conservatives, in contrast, want to return to a world order in which nation-states are the primary actors and based on the belief that human beings are mutually dependent on national communities that are ultimately bound by shared values, culture, and history.

But this broad set of objectives makes it difficult to understand why the Rome conference was themed around former U.S. President Ronald Reagan and St. John Paul II, two late Cold War-era leaders who generally articulated the kinds of universalistic, global visions that nationalists wish to break from.

Indeed, Reagan spoke throughout his entire political life of the United States as the shining city upon a hill, a beacon of freedom for all mankind whose values could and should be exported globally. He reinvigorated the tradition of American exceptionalism, described the struggle against the Soviet Union in moralistic terms, praised international institutions like the United Nations as forces for good, and emphasized individualism and free market capitalism. No one doubts that Reagan was a nationalist, but his version of nationalism was colored with a decidedly internationalist outlook.

John Paul is a source of pride in Polish nationalist circles due in part to the close association between Catholicism and Polish national identity but also because of the lead role he played in helping the country regain a more genuine form of independence in the 1980s. But the institution John Paul led was defined by its international scope and universal valuesthe Catholic Churchs institutions disregard national borders, and the values it champions are thought to apply to every community, nation, society, and culture. After all, the kingdom of God has no national borders, and historically the Catholic Church mostly expressed its earthly power politically in the form of empire. The relatively few attempts to marry Catholicism and nationalism often resulted in heresies, violence, or some combination of the two.

The democratic government in Poland that John Pauls activities helped establish spent little time in nationalist isolation at the end of the Cold War, and it moved almost immediately into the U.S.-dominated liberal internationalist order. It began pushing to join the European Union as early as February 1991, and it expressed interest in joining NATO shortly thereafter.

This nostalgic impulse hardly fits in with the nationalist vision, though Hazony tries to justify the behavior of the 1980s generation of nationalists by arguing that their forays into internationalism were always brief and undertaken purely for practical reasons. The only military operation Reagan ordered during his presidency was the invasion of Grenada, which lasted for less than a week, Hazony told Foreign Policy, adding that he considered Reagan the last U.S. president for whom a world organized around nation-states was the default setting. In his view, it was Bushs new world order that changed the game for nationalists.

But Hazony conceded that Reagans vision contained a lot of Aynrandism, a nod to the philosophy of Ayn Rand, who argued that individuals were heroic beings solely preoccupied with their own happiness and with reason as the only absolute. That claim got harsh treatment on a stage filled with critics of free market excesses and neoliberal atomization. On John Paul, Hazony brushed it off, conceding that hes not an expert on popes.

The political alliance that Reagan cobbled together consisted of a fusion of social conservative, traditionalist, and a variety of libertarian inclinations. Of course, Reagan and his generation of nationalists serve only as a base for national conservatives. Hazonys goal is to develop a more modern fusionism that would remove the excesses of purist libertarianism while retaining the elements of the Reagan alliance that promote national sovereignty; at the same time, it would build alliances with populist European forces specialized in lambasting the EU and demonizing immigrants from Muslim-majority countries while standing in stark opposition to political theories grounded in race. Thus, in addition to formulating their political theses around ideas of nationality and values, the national conservatives also include ideas about race, culture, and religion to define their outlooks.

During last years conference in Washington, nods to white supremacism sparked furious reactions. Notably, the University of Pennsylvania law professor Amy Wax said the United States is better off if we are dominated numerically by people from the First World, from the West, than by people who are from less advanced countries. Among Europeans, the connections of at least some of the political partners with the darker chapters of far-right history have generated heavy criticism.

Certainly some of those who were present are from parties which have far-Right pasts and other new parties who may well be a cause for concern in the present, Murray, the British author, wrote after speaking at the most recent conference.

Murray singled out some outright neo-fascist groups like Jobbik in Hungary, Golden Dawn in Greece, and CasaPound in Italy, which are not necessarily part of the national conservatism network but whose presence still poses a larger question: Where is the threshold between acceptable nationalist parties and post-fascist groups?

Brothers of Italy, for instance, is the heir of the post-fascist party Italian Social Movement, which emerged after World War II. Although todays party is the result of several waves of reform and rebrandingand is now a significant challenge to Matteo Salvinis control of the populist voting basesome of its darker features sometimes become public. Last year, the party circulated a poster criticizing George Soros, who made a donation to a liberal, pro-EU party in Italy. It said, Keep the money of the usurers, a reference to an old anti-Semitic trope.

I am very glad this initiative is led by an Orthodox Jew, as I hope this would preserve its focus and keep away the unsavory people who may be attracted to it, one of the speakers at the Rome conference told Foreign Policy, referring to Hazony and asking not to be named to speak freely.

Although national conservatism isnt inherently xenophobic, it offers a useful paradigm for far-right groups who define their conception of the nation-state based on race, religion, and identity. As conservatives begin to reincorporate a strong nationalist element into their own political philosophies, this gives space to far-right groups to project their identitarian tendencies to a broader and more receptive audience. Because those groups tend to be more rigid and uncompromising, an authoritarian tendency seeps into the broader national conservative framework.

Critics, however, see no difference between the far-right and national conservatism, considering the latter to be a thin scholarly veneer of respectability to a fundamentally xenophobic, bigoted, and fascist reactionary movementan intellectual facade that claims Reagan and John Paul but appeals to leaders like Orban and Trump. According to this line of critique, national conservatism is not just disingenuous; its little more than an attempt to connect and organize right-wing populists across the West, similar to what former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon tried to do with his populist group, the Movement, in Europe.

Liberals and nationalists believe they are trapped in mirroring dystopias. For liberals, this new generation of nationalists is working toward a closed, authoritarian society akin to that which exists in George Orwells 1984; nationalists are convinced that liberals have already created Aldous Huxleys Brave New World. But for national conservatives, gaining legitimacy is the next crucial step in their quest to reshape contemporary conservatism.

In theory, national conservatism could offer a framework that appeals to the disparate network of right-wing elements that are disenchanted with the liberal world order that has come into being since the 1960s. As has happened in many parts of the world, the resulting groupings could eventually form well-organized political units that threaten liberal democracy from the inside. But if all this new vision has to offer is what was displayed in Romea vague sense of nostalgia, dubious affiliations, ideological confusion, Corinthian columnsthen its future prospects are poor.

More:
Nationalists Claim They Want to Redefine Conservatism, but They're Not Sure What It Is - Foreign Policy

Author Mark OConnell talks about his uncannily topical new book, Notes from an Apocalypse

The ironies are so uncomfortable we can hardly bear to acknowledge them. Mark OConnell and I meet to talk about his second book, Notes From An Apocalypse: A Personal Journey to the End of the World and Back, the day after the Government has issued a directive to shut down all public gatherings of more than 100 people in order to prevent the spread of coronavirus.

Its mid-March, a Friday the 13th in Dublin city centre, but Grafton Street already looks like a Sunday in 1990.

OConnell is that rare breed of Irish writer, a committed essayist and nonfiction adherent who circumnavigated all domestic routes to make a name for himself as a contributor to the New York Times magazine, The Millions and the Guardian. His preoccupations tend toward classic late Gen X: technology, future shock, pop culture riffs, a quirky sense of the domestic.

Born in Kilkenny and now 41, he is by anybodys barometer something of a local literary star, but youd never know it: many people are shocked to find hes a Dublin resident. OConnells first book, To Be A Machine, a journey into the strange new worlds of AI and transhumanist evangelists, further segregated him from the pack in terms of subject matter and scope. As well as scoring a blurb from Margaret Atwood, it won him the Rooney Prize and the Wellcome Prize and was shortlisted for the Baillie Gifford Prize.

The author has just concluded a meeting with his editor about how to reframe the press angle on the new book. Notes from an Apocalypse is a book about survivalists and end-times obsessives, a global tour of doomsday hotspots and hideouts, from the Black Hills of South Dakota and the pasturelands of New Zealand to the wind-blown desolation of the Scottish Highlands and the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone.

OConnell is, understandably, queasy about making capital out of a scary situation. We live in a time when speculative and dystopian fictions are overtaken by news reports in the lag between draft and publication. Since Brexit and Trump, since Black Mirror and Hypernormalisation, since the inception of non-linear warfare and the corrosion of the notion of objective truth, the future has become not just too dark, but too real to mention. Even as we speak, were still adjusting to the protocol of what will soon be termed social distancing, the eschewing of the handshake for the nod or salute, the polite but measured distance we keep between us as we chat.

But and its a big but despite the new books eschatological obsessions, despite its cast of would-be Martian land-grabbers and bunker monkeys, its a very personal work as well as a very timely one.

I could stand for it to be slightly less topical, to be honest, OConnell admits with a near-grimace. Id take 50 per cent less. Or 100 per cent, actually. Obviously its coming out at an interesting time, but I dont even know that Id want to read a book about apocalyptic anxiety right now. I was talking to my neighbour across the street, cause Id given him a copy of the book, and he was like, I cant read your book, I cant even look at the cover, Ive turned it over on the table. But people are different: some want to read into a situation and some people want to read out of it.

I put it to the author that its actually a book about the anxiety of new fatherhood masquerading as a tract about end-times preppers.

Thats exactly it, he replies. I mean, its not that its masquerading, but the apocalypse cannot be the subject for a book, because its not a thing, its an idea. This book is kind of a way for me to organise my obsessions, a sense of the fragility of everything, and a questioning as to how youre supposed to live with a sense of meaning and purpose at a time when everything seems so uncertain, and the climate that weve brought these children into, were murdering it. Thats a hard thing to face when youve already had kids.

So yeah, I was already thinking about these things, and I wanted to write about these anxieties, but I didnt have an organising principle. Then I started to read about people preparing for the end of the world, preppers and super-rich people buying land in New Zealand. Both my books are about capitalism, and that was a way for me to mediate those themes, through this central idea the Freudian thing of sublimating your terrors or anxieties or desires into a work.

I dont know that I would have gone headlong into it if I wasnt a writer, he continues. My unhealthy obsessions are the same thing as my work. There was a long period, before I knew I was writing a book about this, where I was spending a lot of time watching YouTube videos about preppers, I must have watched Children of Men I dont know how many times, I think it is the most prophetic film, it puts its finger on so many things that were already visible back then, but have become so current.

Not that it was like a therapeutic exercise, just this sense that Im already obsessed with this stuff, and its not healthy, but Im stuck with this particular source of anxiety. People are talking about the apocalypse now a lot, but what does the apocalypse mean? It just means our way of life, in our fairly privileged case, is under threat.

And apokalypsos, translated from the Greek, also means to uncover or reveal. Where theres catastrophic change theres also accelerated growth.

Whats happening at the moment is like a blacklight or something that reveals stuff that is not ordinarily visible, it absolutely shows up the fault lines in our society, but it shows up some of the good things as well. Like, people are talking more, because everyone is going through the same thing. The thing I find really extraordinary about what is happening right now is that everyone in the world is experiencing this thing in different ways, everyones life is falling apart to some greater or lesser degree.

Notes from an Apocalypse is a swift and accessible read, but despite OConnells inherent gift for the comedy of the incongruous, it is often angry. Reading about people such as Peter Thiel or Elon Musk, obscenely rich men sinking bunkers in Auckland, or making plans to colonise Mars, one thinks of privileged slobs who have trashed their own homes and now want to move, leaving the serfs to clean up their mess. The kind of men who would rather face unimaginably hostile alien territory than invest in saving their own polluted planet.

Among other things, Notes From An Apocalypse highlights the infantile aspects of the American frontier mindset, the Last Man survivalist pose. Several times while reading I was reminded of Martin Amiss 1987 essay Thinkability from Einsteins Monsters, the fear he experienced as a new parent in the midst of Cold War nuclear paranoia. Would OConnell characterise the anxiety that fuelled his new book as a sort of male equivalent of post-natal depression?

Hmm. Yes, but I dont know if its explicitly male. One question that is unresolved for me is, how much of this anxiety would I have experienced if I wasnt writing a book about the topic? Theres an emotional trajectory to the book, where at the end theres a sense of, not stoic acceptance, but tentative optimism. And thats true, thats real, I did go through that to some extent.

It was such a hard book to write, and so many of the interludes of, I wont say depression, because its not a clinical thing, but just feeling shit about things that went on for a long time. The writing of it was difficult because the topic was so heavy, but I did come through it, that note of optimism at the end was real, it wasnt something that I had to force.

The key line in the book for me is towards the end: my son is looking at the sunset and he says, Its interesting. Thats the first time I heard him say that. Its not what the book is about, but it is what drove me in a way, because as anxious as I was about the stuff that was happening, its interesting. Its very cold and arguably psychopathic to think in that way, but the fundamental human connection is there. I think if youre a writer you cant stop finding things interesting. The whole psychological dynamic of the book was wanting to be reassured or to have some belief, because when youre parenting really young kids, the big thing is to inculcate the sense in them that the world is beautiful, a good place, and its an interesting place, its not a dark and threatening place. And to hear him say that was really powerful.

As with To Be A Machine, theres a wry humour at the heart of the new book. The tone is somewhere between Louis Theroux or Jon Ronson and Dr Strangelove. This is largely because OConnell is not afraid of looking like an idiot if it means asking the reader-proxy questions.

I dont know how long I spent as a journalist for want of a better term being afraid of coming across as stupid, he says, and I learned eventually that the most valuable thing you can do as a reporter is ask a stupid question. The one thing that youre afraid of asking, because it makes you seem like a f***ing moron, thats the most important question you can ask.

Definitely with To Be A Machine, when I started writing it, I was so fascinated by the topic, I knew I had a good thing, I knew I had this milieu that was fascinating and full of crazy ideas and really eccentric people dealing with things that were of philosophical importance or whatever, but I went through a long period of feeling inadequate to the task, and I did spend time trying to get to grips with the complexity of these ideas, and reading serious books that were in various ways beyond my grasp. And I eventually realised that the stupid ignoramus position not in a comic playing-it-for-laughs way, but a person who knows nothing is actually a better point from which to grasp whats important about a topic, and a better point from which to communicate with people. As a reader I value experts in a broader sense, in the political sense or whatever, but I wouldnt want to read a book about transhumanism by a person who is an expert.

But talking about humour, certainly in my books, I hope theyre funny, but its very unknowable to me what is funny in what I write and what isnt, because for me humour in writing is just like being... accurate. A lot of situations are inherently humorous, so its just about faithfully describing things a lot of the time. I actually think if a writer isnt funny at times, doesnt use humour, or evoke it, I kind of feel like theyre not fully serious. Theres something un-serious about someone whos not funny.

Notes From An Apocalypse is published by Granta

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'Everyone in the worlds life is falling apart to some greater or lesser degree' - The Irish Times

LOS ANGELES - "What lies at the end of every journey? The goal. The desire. The cheese. But there are many things that stand in our way before we reach that goal."

The voice is a powdery baritone now, but still immediately recognizable as having evolved from the pendulous, dusted yawp that once so memorably hollered to "bring the motherf---in' ruckus."

He continues:"A shrouded valley of doubt, procrastination, excuses. What do you need to build a bridge, cross the valley and attain what you seek? But everything you need already exists in your own universe. You just have to activate it."

These teachings come courtesy of the RZA - aka Prince Rakeem, aka Bobby Digital, aka Zig-Zag-Zig Allah, aka the Rzarector in your sector from Shaolin to the holy city of Mecca. The mastermind of the Wu-Tang Clan shares his wisdom on the album "Guided Explorations," where you'll hear him offering Proustian rhapsody of the sights and smells of Shaolin, nee Staten Island, and how it stacks up to the personal atoll floating amid your chakras. Its cover depicts the RZA in a saffron robe, backed by an incandescent Laserium-style map of the heavens, proffering a glowing orb that reads "RZA" and "Tazo" (the tea company sponsoring the affair).

Bong, bong.

"I thought about meditation for the first time at 13 or 14. A viewing of (the 1978 kung fu film 'The 36th Chamber of Shaolin') sent me on a mission," the RZA intones. "I'd seen it before, but that time it sparked my quest to look for books, learn kung fu styles and meditate. Another film, 'Fists of the White Lotus,' inspired me, too. In it, there's a quote where the villain says, 'Today is the Dragon Boat Festival. This is the day where I meditate all day to regain my chi.' And the hero came and disturbed him. When he said it, I was like, 'You gotta take a day to sit down and regain your chi.' "

The RZA does not give interviews; he grants you an audience. His answers should be brushed onto scrolls of papyrus. On this pre-pandemic afternoon in mid-February, he receives me in a lavishly appointed hotel suite at the Ace Hotel in downtown Los Angeles - roughly an hour away from his placid mountain aerie in a gated community just east of Calabasas. He's wearing all black: jeans, high-laced combat boots, designer Wu baseball cap and a jacket with just a slash of killer bee yellow. Amber-tinted sunglasses conceal unusually alert eyes. His full beard lacks even a speck of gray, which helps him look a decade younger than his 50 years.

The nominal purpose of the conversation is to discuss "Guided Explorations," but it's really an entree into the constantly swirling galaxy of the RZA. At the moment, that includes "Wu-Tang: An American Saga," the fictionalized drama about the rise of Clan, which Hulu just renewed for its second season; a mini-documentary about Ol' Dirty Bastard that recently premiered on Amazon Music; and the Bayou heist "Cut Throat City," the third feature film that he's directed. Starring Terrence Howard, Wesley Snipes, T.I. and Ethan Hawke, it was scheduled for an April release until covid-19 forced an indefinite postponement.

A tete-a-tete with the RZA is a psychedelic experience. The tangents can be oblique or occasionally perplexing, but the effect is what matters. His mind is a choose-your-own adventure, where every outcome is a matryoshka doll of infinite metaphysics. Regardless of what he's promoting or what his latest album sounds like (or even if it's not exactly an album), the multi-hyphenate legend is one of the rare subjects worth speaking with anytime you get the chance to hear him talk.

This encounter starts off with an explanation about how original Wu-Mansion was actually in Warren Beatty's old house. Ask a simple question about his dalliances with meditation and you amble down a path that includes whistle stops in the Wudang Mountains; the original Shaolin temple; the sacred texts of the "Diamond Sutra" and the "8 Pieces of Brocade"; Shi Yan Ming (the 34th generation Shaolin warrior monk, of course), and the reason for why when you see drawings of the Bodhidharma it's just one shoe on a stick. There's also a side lesson of 5 Percenter numerology crossed with mystic Eastern wisdom.

"I thought Shaolin had 36 chambers, but Shi Yan Ming explained that it's actually 36 times two," he says, describing his edification and travels in the wake of 1997's "Wu-Tang Forever.""Because it's 36 external and 36 internal. Shaolin starts with the external, Wu-Tang starts with the internal, but they're part of the same school! I'm hearing this and all the folklore that I thought was all just literature. It's like reading Shakespeare. Stories that's so old that by the time we get to the modern day some of them are believable. Like somebody might believe Romeo and Juliet were real, but it was fiction. I was finally getting the pure facts. I began to understand that meditation is moving and still."

As hyperbolic as it sounds in this postmodern, cynical, plague-riddled world, the RZA is one of the most valuable prophets of the past quarter-century. We take it for granted now, but what he has accomplished with Wu-Tang remains one of the most monumental achievements in modern cultural history.

After growing up in the infamously poverty-stricken and violent projects of Staten Island, the bodhisattva-born Robert Diggs scored a record deal in the early '90s and promptly flamed out. After getting dropped by his label, he fled to Ohio and became involved in a web of illicit activity, culminating in an attempted murder charge. Testifying in his own defense, the RZA won an acquittal from a nearly all-white jury.

Returning to Staten Island, he formed a Voltron that featured the neighborhood's best rappers and a pair of his cousins (the GZA and the Ol' Dirty Bastard). But this wasn't just hip-hop; the RZA transliterated a supernatural creole of comic books and 5 Percent Islam, criminology rap and creaky Memphis soul samples, kung fu flicks and street hustler slang. He was something out of Joseph Campbell; a mystic brew of Occidental and Asiatic influences like Gary Snyder, but from a different Beat Generation. The influence he wields and the respect for his work has maintained.

That's why earlier this month, on a Saturday night in the middle of mandated isolation, an Instagram Live beat battle between the RZA and DJ Premier became the hottest topic on social media, attracting a staggering peak audience of nearly 200,000 people. A rare silver lining about the crisis has been the unexpected shift in pop cultural fixations. A cynical TikTok-baiting single from Drake was roundly mocked online, but the RZA, wearing a sleeveless shirt and fingerless gloves, looking like a mechanic from the Paradise Garage, owned the timeline.

"The intention of Wu-Tang has always been the same," he says, taking a sip from a cup of "Zen" green tea. "Our goal is to spread hip-hop culture, our culture, art culture. It's a form of knowledge and cultural fusion. And a lot of the songs I played contain pieces of other songs that were manipulated to create new ones. The Ol' Dirty said that 'Wu-Tang is for the children.' What I think he meant by that is when a child comes to a certain age and learns of the Wu-Tang catalogue, it'll help him navigate life. So many people are trying to find a map, and Wu-Tang provides a map."

The RZA's beat-battle selections underscored the 25th anniversary of one of the most immortal years in hip-hop history. Fresh off the platinum success of the Wu's entirely RZA-helmed debut, "Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers)," he rented an apartment with the Ghostface Killah in Staten Island, and promptly sequestered himself in a stank 300-square-foot basement studio, subsisting on nothing but turkey burgers. A flood - the first of two biblical deluges to waterlog the RZA's archives - had destroyed all pre-existing beats. So forced to fulfill contractual and fraternal obligations, the RZA hastily produced all of Chef Raekwon's "Only Built 4 Cuban Linx," the near-entirety of the Ol' Dirty Bastard's "Return to the 36 Chambers," and all but one beat on the GZA's "Liquid Swords." All three are unimpeachable classics, full of flawless mistakes and chaotic originality. Regularly and deservedly ranked among the top 50 hip-hop albums ever made, they fundamentally define what it means to describe music as "cinematic."

Just in time for the summer of 1995, Method Man and Mary J. Blige dropped their single for "I'll Be There for You/You're All I Need to Get By," which won a Grammy and instant canonization as one of hip-hop's greatest love songs. It amounts to the greatest year that any producer ever had, a trick of crossroads divination that scarcely seems real in retrospect. The hip-hop equivalent of Wilt Chamberlain averaging 50 points a game in a single season. It could never happen again.

"ODB would come over with his seeds and wife, and they argued a lot," the RZA remembers, reflecting on the basement sessions from that March. "So I had her come down and curse him out and told him to sing 'Somewhere Over the Rainbow,' because he always used to sing that anyway. That was one of his jokes. That and 'The Love Boat' theme. Busting them out was part of his personality."

There was no furniture in the living room. Just a lot of chess and "Samurai Showdown" played on the forgotten video-game console, the 3DO. Once ODB was finished, Raekwon and Ghost descended. After scooping up the RZA's best beats, they decamped to Barbados to compose their Mafioso rap-opus. All season long, the lab was the center of the universe, attracting all the Wu members, plus the likes of Nas, Big Daddy Kane and Cypress Hill.

So what was it about that hermitic basement summer of 1995 that produced such stainless cult magic, a clutch of generational spells that continue to rings bells and inspire a multigenerational obsession? The RZA offers a parable. "When some things are kept closed in, the vibrations are kept tighter. That basement was the cave. Bodhidharma, the master of Zen, he had to go meditate in the cave for nine years to figure out his solution on how to make a better world and to help the Shaolin. That's his legend. That cave is always important. You gotta have a cave."

It's only natural that over the past decade and a half, the RZA has increasingly harnessed his creative energies toward film and television. As Prince once said when asked why he didn't write another "Purple Rain": "I've been to the top of the mountain. There's nothing there." The RZA freely acknowledges that much of the early Wu-Tang music was mired in negativity, a reflection of their upbringing and environment, but not the head space you want to be in after a half-century of striving for perfection.

Our conversation is sprawling, a wild syncretistic display of the RZA's curiosities. He is both seeker and Shakyamuni. He waxes philosophical on the following subjects: the Ottoman Empire being composed of people of pigmentation; the origins of Mongolian democracy; the need to celebrate the economic contributions of black Americans; the numerological breakthroughs of ancient India; why he went vegan; how American has different Kit Kats than Europe; the accomplishments of the First Council of Nicaea; how freedom must operate under a law of justice; and a brief digression about how goat curry contributed to the aggression of early Wu-Tang.

Finally, we return to meditation.

"I'm doing this project to help unlock the energy of other people, other creative energy. Zen is important to me," he says. "It means enlightenment and awareness. That's where my spirit has been for a long time."

And like anything destined to stand the test of time, Wu-Tang encompassed more than just a sound, attitude or moment in history. They are an idea and ontology destined to both evolve but remain immutable. So it is both remarkable and inevitable that a man once so committed to the concept of his superhero alter ego, Bobby Digital - to where he made an unreleased movie and purchased an armored Digi-Mobile for him - has become wizened and maybe even spiritually enlightened. This is the same RZA, but now set off on a different path.

"Life is accumulation of those 12 jewels. It's joy. It's bliss. It's love," he says. " My goal at this point is to inspire, leave footprints, and show the younger dudes that this is all possible. And if I'm blessed to be able do that, bong, bong."

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The RZA wants to help you nd enlightenment - San Antonio Express-News

This post was contributed by a community member. The views expressed here are the author's own.

THIS IS A LIVESTREAMED EVENT

April 15th marks the anniversary of Buddha Shakyamuni demonstrating the attainment of enlightenment in 589 B.C.E. As part of Buddhas Enlightenment Day celebrations, a special evening talk will be given, exploring the symbolism behind the life story of Buddha Shakyamuni. We will look at Buddhas life story and how it conveys practical and profound teachings on how to enter, make progress and complete the spiritual path to enlightenment.

For support with our online classes, prayers & events: support@meditation-dc.org

Gen Kelsang Demo is the Resident Teacher at Kadampa Meditation Center Washington DC and the Midwest National Spiritual Director. She is a long time student of Venerable Geshe Kelsang Gyatso Rinpoche and has been teaching for over 20 years. Gen Demo has a wealth of practical knowledge and provides clear and inspiring teachings for people of all levels of interest.

Continued here:
The Life and Liberation Story of Buddha Shakyamuni - Patch.com

During one of my daily walks with my toddler, when we passed his favorite playground, I noticed a new sign warning that the coronavirus survives on all kinds of surfaces and that we should no longer use the playground. Since then, Ive taken great pains to prevent him from touching things.

This hasnt been easy. He loves to squeeze bike racks and graze tree trunks, jostle bushes and knock on picnic tables. He likes to run his fingers against bars around a swimming pool and pet the chickens at the neighborhood coop.

Whenever I bat his hand away or try to distract him from potentially absorbing these dreaded, invisible germs, I wonder: Whats being lost? How can he possibly indulge his curiosity and learn about the world without his sense of touch?

I find myself thinking about Johann Gottfried Herder, an 18th-century German philosopher who published a treatise on the sense of touch in 1778.

Go into a nursery and see how the young child who is constantly gathering experience reaches out, grasping, lifting, weighing, touching and measuring things, he wrote. In doing so, the child acquires the most primary and necessary concepts, such as body, shape, size, space and distance.

During the European Enlightenment, sight was considered by many to be the most important sense because it could perceive light, and light also symbolized scientific fact and philosophical truth. However, some thinkers, such as Herder and Denis Diderot, questioned sights predominance. Herder writes that sight reveals merely shapes, but touch alone reveals bodies: that everything that has form is known only through the sense of touch and that sight reveals only surfaces exposed to light.

To Herder, our knowledge of the world our relentless curiosity is fundamentally transmitted and satiated through our skin. Herder argues that blind people are, in fact, privileged; theyre able to explore via touch without distraction and are able to develop concepts of the properties of bodies that are far more complete than those acquired by the sighted.

For Herder, touch was the only way to understand the form of things and grasp the shape of bodies. Herder changes Ren Descartes statement I think, therefore I am and claims: We touch, therefore we know. We touch, therefore we are.

Herder was onto something. Centuries later, neuroscientists like David Linden have been able to map out the power of touch the first sense, he notes in his book Touch: The Science of Hand, Heart, and Mind, to develop in utero.

Linden writes that our skin is a social organ that cultivates cooperation, improves health and enhances development. He points to research showing that celebratory hugging among professional basketball players improves team performance, that premature babies are more likely to survive if theyre regularly held by their parents instead of being kept solely in incubators and that children severely deprived of touch end up with more developmental problems.

During this period of social distancing, what sort of void has been created? In our social lives, touches are often subtle and brief a quick handshake or hug. Yet it seems as though these brief encounters contribute mightily to our emotional well-being.

As a professor, I know its been a huge advantage to have digital technology that enables remote learning. But my students are missing out on the little touches, intentional or accidental, from their friends and classmates, whether its in the classroom, in dining halls or in their dorms.

Perhaps not surprisingly, touch plays a bigger role in some cultures than in others. Psychologist Sidney Jourard observed the behavior of Puerto Ricans in a San Juan coffee shop and found that they touched one another an average of 180 times per hour. I wonder how theyre handling social distancing. Residents of Gainesville, Florida, are probably having an easier time; Jourard found they only touched twice per hour in a coffee shop.

Social distancing is crucial. But Im already pining for the day when we can all engage with the world unimpeded, touching without anxiety or hesitation.

Were more impoverished without it.

[Insight, in your inbox each day. You can get it with The Conversations email newsletter.]

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What's lost when we're too afraid to touch the world around us? - The Conversation US

Former Van Halen vocalist Sammy Hagars daughter, Kama Hagar, has shared a new post on her official Instagram account and showed off her body while writing an important tip to her followers.

In the caption of the post, Kama revealed her experiences in Los Angeles and shared untold tips to find a real guru/teacher.

Afterward, Sammy Hagar stated in the comment section that he is so proud of her daughter because she is putting so much effort to give information for people who are seeking enlightenment and the truth.

In the picture, Kama Hagar was laying down on the yoga mat and holding still with the fetal position. She was wearing white tops and tights that suits her body.

Here is what Kama Hagar wrote:

Every guru I had when I first moved to LA turned out to be a cult leader, my friend said to me over juice and aai bowls.

This might be the most LA moment Ive ever had not because of the cold-pressed juice, but because of the realization that we had both accidentally joined like, eight cults at one point.

She continued:

The abundance of spirituality and healing in the world (namely places like: LA, NYC, SF) seems to be a blessing and a curse.

To keep things in the line of blessing, I wrote a blog on 9 signs your teacher may be a cult leader. If we know the signs, we can really sort through whats real and what feels right

Kama shared a list for the signs:

1. First, it feels like a mecca of peace and love, but then it feels like youre being taken over.

2. Your teacher/guru speaks objectively vs. subjectively.

3. Your teacher/guru tells you the way.

Sammy Hagar added this comment:

This is so cool, that you are putting this out there for people that are seeking enlightenment and the truth. Like every other business including religion, charity music you name it. not everyone is 100% honest.

You have to be careful every step you take in life. Its unfortunate. You cant let it stop you from seeking truth and enlightenment. but you can be careful.

You can check out the post below.

View this post on Instagram

"Every guru I had when I first moved to LA turned out to be a cult leader," my friend said to me over juice and aai bowls. This might be the most LA moment I've ever had not because of the cold-pressed juice, but because of the realization that we had both accidentally joined like, eight cults at one point. The abundance of "spirituality" and "healing" in the world (namely places like: LA, NYC, SF) seems to be a blessing and a curse. To keep things in the line of blessing, I wrote a blog on 9 signs your teacher may be a cult leader. If we know the signs, we can really sort through whats real and what feels right. 1. First, it feels like a mecca of peace and love, but then it feels like you're being taken over (mentally, spiritually, emotionally or all of the above) 2. Your teacher/guru speaks objectively vs. subjectively 3. Your teacher/guru tells you the way Read the other 7 signs on the blog link in bio

A post shared by Kama Hagar (@kamahagar) on Apr 15, 2020 at 11:13am PDT

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Van Halen Star's Daughter Flaunts Flawless Body And Curves In A Fetal Position - Metalheadzone

Have you been wishing lately that youd actually taken up meditation instead of just thinking about it all those years?

Were feeling it tooas well as the anxious tension in our chests, the funky sleep patterns, and, yes, the sheer boredom of staring at the same four walls for yet another day. When you also remember that all the art you so dearly love is stowed away inside shuttered art museums, galleries, and studios, it makes you just want to cry.

But despair not! The Rubin Museum of Art is here to help you stay centered (even while its closed) with a recently launched series titled theDaily Offering. An informative, 10-minute episode is posted on the museums Instagram page every Thursday through Monday (the days the museum would have been open).

With soothing intro music and calming rhythmic voices, the videos are just what we didnt know we needed, with all variety of chilling out, from musical performances to guided meditation.Heres a quick guide to the tips weve learned so farbut make sure to tune in for new episodes, too!

Shakyamuni Buddha (16th century). Courtesy of the Rubin Museum of Art.

Each Daily Offering starts with an up-close look at an artwork in the Rubin Museum collection. Whether its through a formal analysis uncovering the magic of the Buddhas seated posture, or an eye-opening examination of Tibetan medical thangkas, Rubin Museum curatorElena Pakhoutova and director of digital experiences Jamie Lawyerlead us in an exercise in focused, calming observation.And its not just about visual art, either: the series also features hypnotic musical performances from the Brooklyn Raga Massive collective that will quiet racing minds.

Green Tara (13th Century). Courtesy of the Rubin Museum.

Are you a meditation school drop-out? Fear not. The Rubin makes meditation easy with guided bite-size lessons that ease listeners into the practice through artworks. In the first Daily Offering, the museums head of programs, Dawn Eshelman, teaches us about Tara, the most important female figure in Buddhism, a bodhisattva who reached enlightenment but chose to stay on earth and help her fellow human beings achieve their own mental freedom.

Meditation teacher and author Sharon Salzberg then leads a brief meditation while participants gaze at a 13th-century sculpture of Tara. Salzberg reminds listeners simply to take the time to remember to breathe. Sometimes we get frozen, she says while encouraging us to take time to reflect. (In week three of the series, meditation teacher Kate Johnson leads a new set of sessions.)

If youd like to take your fledgling practice further, the museums Buddhist Shrine is accessible at all times. Interested virtual visitors can choose between atwo-hour video recording,accompanied by Buddhist chants and flickering candlelight, or aself-guided virtual tourof the space, where you can take time to learn about the individual objects on the altar.

Buddhist Thangka. Courtesy of Rubin Museum of Art.

If youre anything like us, youre digging into your quarantine treatsall the time. No need to worry. Dr. Tawni Tidwell is here to help you get back on track with ancient Tibetan wisdom about healthy habits that can also help you fight opportunistic infections and strengthen your natural immunity.

Trying to keep mindless, chaotic thoughts at bay? Time to up your intake ofbitter greens: kale, broccoli, endives, and the like. Tidwell even shares tips on preparation. She especially emphasizesthe mind-body connection and how environmental conditions and emotional responses can affect our health (and vice versa). And with a sudden clip of cold weather upon us, were especially looking forward to just sipping a mug of hot water. Its the first Eastern medicine, and certainly the simplest one.

Stay tuned for more episodes here.

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Need a Moment of Zen? The Rubin Museum Is Using Its Buddhist Art Collection to Offer Daily Mindfulness Tips and Guided Meditation Sessions - artnet...

By Debola Osibogun

As the COVID -19 pandemic continues to spread across the globe with devastating effects on the global economy, the world must now than ever before unite to fight the unseen enemy. The COVID-19 virus has more than any other disease in recent history affected humanity with millions of people losing jobs and billions confined to their homes. The Virus has isolated man and indeed created cities without people. In Nigeria, the government needs to treat the pandemic very seriously and ensure it leaves no stone unturned in finding a lasting solution.

A lot of attention has been placed on social distancing and good hygiene as immediate solutions to curbing the spread of the COVID-19 Virus. Though these solutions seem to be preventing a drastic spike in the infection curve, embarking on social distancing and maintaining good personal hygiene as strategies cannot totally eradicate the Virus. Recent studies show the COVID-19 Virus can survive 48 hours on surfaces which implies that even if you keep a social distance and maintain good personal hygiene by merely coming in contact with a surface touched by an infected person you are likely to be exposed to the virus. This write-up pays special attention on how to curb the spread of the COVID-19 virus while transacting with a focus on how the virus can be spread through the exchange of banknotes. A recent study by (F.Vriesekoop et al 2010 Dirty Money: an investigation into the hygiene status of some of the worlds currencies as obtained from food outlets) shows that a lot of banknotes worldwide are filthy and ridden with bacteria.

The study which looks at banknotes from countries like United States of America, Burkina Faso and United Kingdom and Nigeria suggests a correlation between the number of bacteria present on a banknote and the economic prosperity of the country. It confirmed that the bacteria found present on the Nigerian Naira was much more than that present on the United States dollar. The study also emphasised that bacteria was more prevalent on lower denomination notes because they are more widely used. In addition, a connection was made between the volume of bacteria present on banknotes and the material used to make the currency. i.e. banknotes made of polymer had less presence of bacteria than cotton made banknotes.

If the COVID-19 virus which spreads via droplets of an infected individual can survive upward of 72 hours outside the human body then it risks being spread through banknotes while transacting business. Considering that Nigeria is a predominantly cash based economy this is something that needs to be taken very seriously by the government. The Chinese in suspecting the spread of COVID-19 by banknotes have began sterilising banknotes from COVID-19 prone areas with ultraviolet heat treatment. Given the volume of cash transactions in Nigeria one can only conclude that the country runs a greater risk of the virus spreading via banknotes if the infection rate in the country is not curbed. The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) should pay attention to the banknotes in the days ahead if we are to win the battle against the COVID-19 virus.

As at the 10th of April 2020 the number of cases reported by the Nigerian Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) states that the country has recorded 310 cases majority of them in Lagos state. If this situation escalates further the CBN might want to refresh banknotes and do a more aggressive promotion of its cashless policy. The current situation presents a perfect opportunity for the CBN to get a further buy in from the populace into its cashless policy thereby increasing financial inclusion. Payment modes that limit direct contact with physical cash (online banking and mobile banking) should be promoted more aggressively during this period.

Consumer Awareness and Financial Enlightenment Initiative (CAFEi), a non for profit organization focused on Research, Enlightenment, Advocacy for Consumer Protection with primary objectives to aid consumers in making safe, accurate and informed decisions on goods and services in all facets, including the Banking and Finance industry on previous occasions had called upon the CBN to commence the mopping up of dirty banknotes in circulation because of the impact it has on inflation, trade and the image of the country.

The advent of COVID-19 is yet another reason that CAFEi is calling on the CBN to revisit the matter again. This call is even more critical as it is a call to save humanity. CBN the call to action is now.

*Otunba Debola Osibogun is President, Consumer Awareness and Financial Enlightenment Initiative (CAFEi)

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Dirty Naira Notes and Covid-19 - THISDAY Newspapers