OK, a few caveats for the sticklers before I begin:

(1) I know there are many coronaviruses. When I say "the coronavirus," however, everyone today knows what I mean.

(2) And yes, it's "the coronavirus," with the definite article. It contains the word "virus," which takes the definite article, so I say this compound word does likewise. So please do not say to me, "I am very concerned about coronavirus" or I am likely to commit an atrocity.

Now with that out of the way:

This is, to me anyway, a nice and heartwarming story in the midst of this difficult time.

My favorite metal band (did you realize ol' Woods had one of those?) is Insomnium, based in Finland.

From what I've listened to in the genre so far, they are the best and most underrated such band in the world.

They're in a rather niche subgenre of metal, and like most such bands they're barely able to make the books balance even under ideal conditions. They're not millionaires, that's for sure.

They arrived in the United States barely over a week ago to begin their North American tour. After just one performance they had to cancel the entire tour because of the logistical impossibilities stemming from the coronavirus.

For a band like this, such a cancellation is an unimaginable catastrophe.

They wrote to their fan base (this is just an excerpt):

This is very sad and frustrating for us but also a huge financial disaster for Insomnium.... Right now we don't know how we can continue....

Once we get home we will think about how we can salvage [our] financial situation.... We will try to come up with some sort of fundraising campaign or something. We are going to need the help of our fans. If we can get past these difficult times we will try to make this same tour happen again in the future.

Someone urged them to start a GoFundMe. They did. They needed to raise 50,000 euros.

Not even 24 hours later, they've raised over 43,000.

Why am I telling you this story?

Yes, I could generate a libertarian moral out of it. That's almost too obvious.

But more to the point:

It makes me happy.

(And yes, I chipped in myself.)

Now, before I leave you for the weekend:

Plenty of us will be spending extra time at home in the coming days. We can either obsess over the virus, or we can devote ourselves to improving the lives we will get back when all of this passes.

On episode 1601 of the Tom Woods Show I talked to Ryan Levesque, whose "Ask Method" has helped so many businesses avoid becoming so much roadkill along the information superhighway.

We know from Ludwig von Mises that it's the job of the entrepreneur to anticipate consumer demand and to arrange the means of production in order to provide it for them.

But how does the entrepreneur do this, exactly?

Ryan's Ask Method helps you entrepreneurs out there figure out exactly what your market wants.

(Good luck straight up asking them, by the way. That doesn't work. Ryan's method is more subtle, and man does it work.)

This is the difference between holding steady and having a major breakthrough in your business.

Until his free Ask Method workshop ends tomorrow, he's giving away a PDF blueprint of the entire method. I recommend you download it even if you don't need it right away. It doesn't cost anything, and you won't have another chance to get it again until next year when he repeats the workshop.

This isn't just one or two pieces of the puzzle. This is his whole approach, in one document.

Get it before it's gone:

http://www.tomwoods.com/askmethodpdf

Tom Woods