Whatcha doin????

Tequila might be the better option.

We should hear tomorrow if we are getting an extended Spring Break.

 

If the virus isn't gone by the time we get into tick season we'll be dealing with....

(drum roll)

Corona with Lyme.

I'll get my coat.....

 

Clients running around like Chicken Little.

For pity sake, more people were killed with hammers last year in the US than by COVID-19 so far.

Ahhh....... fear, panic, and blood in the streets.

Sad to say, I smell $$$$$.

 

We spent an hour this morning in a partner meeting working through our "Corona virus response"
For spittin' in a bucket.

But, you can't imagine the number of issues it raises for our business clients: Family Medical Leave Act, Fair Labor Standards Act, HIPAA, various forms of discrimination in employment, wrongful termination, business interruption insurance, force majeure clauses, lease issues, ad infinitum ad nauseum.

And every time someone at the local, state, or federal level opens their mouth, it changes... And only the good Lord knows what Congress is putting in all the bills they are passing to "help" us...

 

People are responding out of an abundance of panic.

 

Yep.... 500 people die of a new virus and the nation goes into lockdown. Meanwhile tens of thousands die from obesity-related issues and Dunkin Donuts releases a new flavor of donut.

I'm increasingly convinced the panic will do more damage than the virus possibly could. How many people will lose their jobs (or notionally keep their job but not get a paycheck, which is practically the same thing) and lose their home as a result? How many businesses will shut down permanently?

Even in more right-here-right-now terms, how does closing schools help? If parents can't afford to take indefinite unpaid leave, how does it help matters when grandparents (who naturally tend to be older people) end up watching the kids? How does sending students home to be in close proximity to older relatives help? And for the love of all that's holy how does it do anything other than create problems when people like PA's Governor Wolf announce that liquor stores will close effective midnight tonight? Can anyone really be surprised that people rushed to stock up before the closure, causing lots of people to squash into a confined space at precisely the time we're told that's a Very Bad Thing? You know, we have to close restaurants because we can't have people too close together but it's OK to encourage people to pile into a limited space in the next couple of hours.

 

For good measure my local grocery store has disinfectant wipes available so you can wipe the cart before you touch it. But they are inside, and the carts are outside. So by the time you see them you've already touched the cart. And of course if you get something off the shelf you don't know if someone else took it off the shelf before deciding they didn't want it after all and put it back. Or maybe someone coughed in the general vicinity of the items you're picking up.

It's like every aspect of the response to this is half-baked and nothing has really been thought through. I suppose we shouldn't expect any less from anything to do with government.

 

Maybe if you hadn't been spittin' in buckets you wouldn't have the meetings. You Southerners....

Yep, 500 billion here, 800 billion there, a few of those and you're talking about some real money.

 

They've just suspended school with no definite return date. Fortunately my wife will still be paid. Probably not me, but I can probably apply for employment insurance. School will gear up to teach remotely. There are some good systems in place already to deliver coursework. I can also try and do some more home-based geo work, although the market is in such a tizzy, who knows what's going on there.

It came at a pretty bad time financially as our tenants left a month ago and it may be a bit to find someone else right now which means carrying a couple mortgages. That, and my wife's surgery which we paid out of pocket for. We were hoping for some home renos this spring, but that's now on hold. At least we can still go skiing right now as people generally don't congregate there.

As far as the whole self-quarantine, as I understand it it's nothing to do with the mortality of the virus, but managing the capacity of the medical systems as well as protect those that fall in the vulnerable population. But for all people who say they are not panicking, based on the hoarding of groceries and toilet paper, that would put the lie to that.

Anyway, I'm heading down south in a day or two with the kids and dog to see the wife and extended family.

 

It's clear some people are panicking. Unless you see what's in a shopping cart it's hard to tell the person who is just doing their regular weekly shopping from the person who is buying enough food to feed an army for six months. The person with a shopping cart piled so high with toilet paper they can barely see over the top is probably panicking. The person with a single pack of toilet paper probably isn't, but in fairness you never know if they've got a huge stockpile at home and are just making multiple trips to hide what they are doing.

I'll defer to our resident expert on the legal specifics but it seems like what's coming is going to be an apocalyptic headache for business owners. Whatever the law might say they have to pay their staff it's hard for them to do it if they are also mandated to close their doors by government decree.

I get the same impression as you about the concept of "flattening the curve". It's just a question of balancing the need to flatten the curve with the need to still have at least some form of functioning society at the end of all of this. If so many businesses close their doors that whole swathes of people effectively become more or less permanently unemployable, what does that do to everything from social cohesion, homelessness and the like?

 

The FED, Treasury, and the administration are trying to get in front of the economic downtown, but it is so hard to see past next Tuesday. I spent a good part of yesterday talking to clients about force majeure, leases, employment/payroll, etc etc etc.

Some folks are going to be OK. Some are going to get hammered. I think the administration and Congress will try to put together a decent support plan, but there are just so many variables.
And of course, politics. Never let a good crisis go to waste, nu?

Someone asked me yesterday if I had enough ammo. I told them that I didn't even understand the question. Why would you ever NOT have enough ammo?

A bit tongue in cheek, sure, but seriously, this is the mentality of those that don't either "Consider the ant" or are the foolish speculators found in chapter 4 of James or of the oppressors found in James 5.

God's plan has always worked, and will always work, and as Ronaldus Maximus I correctly stated, the most frightening words in the English language are, "I'm here from the government, and I'm here to help."

SO, stay safe. Be careful. Trust God. Love your family. Love your neighbor. Do good. Feed your faith, not your fear. Both can't eat at the same time.

 

Beem me up Scotty. There's no intelligent life down here.

 

The other day our local store was very well picked over. No bread, no milk, very little toilet roll. The next evening I was driving past and it was all but deserted, but was well stocked with milk and they had bread. Both will freeze, so I got enough to see us through a week or two. No point worrying more than that, I could have bought enough to last us six months but whether it would fit in the freezer is debatable.

 

It's not the impression, it's the actual statement from the various provincial ministries here.

I'm not sure why people would become permanently unemployable over a month or so. There is a definite drag on the economy though.

This is fairly new waters since there has not been a pandemic like this for a long time, certainly not in the age of easy worldwide travel. It may very well be a good practice run for a future, more dangerous, virus.