The fuel that powers action in the coronavirus pandemic is the daily ticker.  Of course, the Dow Jones Industrial average has had a ticker for a long time, and that of course, stimulates investment response.

             Apparently a daily ticker is the single most valuable catalyst for action, for response.  Install a ticker, and you can get people to agree to imbedded micro-chips, GPS real-time surveillance tracking, mandatory vaccinations and prohibition on acting human.  All this from a simple ticker.

             I know the anti-deficit spending crowd has tried to use a ticker to bolster concern about that issue, but clearly, unless the ticker goes on all media outlets, it doesn't work.  If a ubiquitous ticker is this powerful, I wonder what other ticker could be used to get cultural buy-in?  Obviously you can't use tickers for too much or they'll become commonplace and lose their edge.  The stock market ticker isn't as ubiquitous as the coronavirus ticker, but it's good enough.  Almost every news outlet mentions the up or down of the ticker, not just business shows.

             So what would be an effective ticker for massive societal action?  Here are some ideas:

             1.  Tons of soil lost today.  We know that annual soil loss in the U.S. is enough to fill a train from the earth to the moon.  But what if we got a daily tonnage ticker?  Would that stimulate us to buy only from farms that built soil? 

             2.  Prison population.  I view the prison population as perhaps the best barometer on societal health.  The U.S.  incarceration rate per capita is 2 and often 5 times as high as any other country on earth.  This is not a place to be number one.  Why?  Do we care?  Perhaps a daily ticker would stimulate a response to this horrible wound in our country.

             3.  Number of chickens entering factory farms.  These are individual beings entering horrendous living conditions.  Would it help our interest to see the daily ticker?

             4.  Pounds of glyphosate applied today.  As the Roundup damage suits wind their way through the courts, this is the first time a major settlement is not diminishing sales.  With some $10 billion on the table, Bayer's American acquisition, Monsanto, is still cranking out Roundup by the train car load and farmers are buying it with nary a thought.  Perhaps if we each knew how many pounds were pouring into our ecosystem every day we'd be more aware of the problem.

             5.  Gallons of high fructose carbonated beverages sold each day.  We know that excess sugar is one of the leading causes of sickness and reduced immunological function.  Last week a Pepsi truck passed me on the interstate and I thought to myself:  "How is that that with a raging pandemic wreaking havoc on compromised immune systems that such a truck can still be in business?"  But it is.  How about a daily ticker on sales so we see a reminder how much is being poured into Americans' micro-biomes?

             You get the drift.  If you could pick one ticker, what would it be?