Introduction

   The impact of the COVID-19 crisis will be immense, both in suffering with loss of life and economically. Actually, the crisis will impact any and every thing to do with daily life—impacts not only due to the virus, but also to a great extent to the knee-jerk shut-down response of our political leaders. Nothing will remain untouched by the crisis. Perhaps nothing will ever be the same again. Having fallen asleep one night comforted by a warm fuzzy blanket of normality, we awoke the next morning stripped of bedding, shivering, terrorized by stark abnormality, an abnormality that will rule our lives for the foreseeable future, likely for much longer. A cold front of dense moist air carrying a deadly virus collided with a mass of warm unexpected economic consequences to create a perfect storm reeking havoc across a broad swath of society. 

Disease Status

The status of the disease, both currently and over time, will determine to a great extent the impact of the crisis upon each of us and the world’s population. To date, some countries have conducted far more testing than others and as a result have far more information with which to understand the potential impact of the disease.   

   As of now, however, much remains unknown about the disease. We do know that it infects many people, yet not all are sickened. Even many of those sickened only develop minor symptoms, and others apparently are asymptomatic and experience no illness. We also know that those who do become ill are mostly elderly and people with serious underlying conditions: obesity (severe in 8% of our population, 32% more overweight), diabetes (10% of population, 23% more with pre-diabetes), hypertension (33% of population)—conditions found in a significant portion of America’s populace. For reasons unknown, young children for the most part escape the effects of the virus.

   How long the virus may remain present and continue to infect people is unknown: 1-2 months, 6 months, a year or longer. Will it recur regularly, returning yearly for some time? Recently, it has been discovered that some people previously infected and having recovered are once again experiencing life-threatening symptoms. The percentage of re-infection rate is unknown at present. 

   Scientists have concluded that the virus is the product of natural evolution and that there is no evidence that it was created in a laboratory or otherwise engineered. Natural or not, we have no idea of the extent of its impact to come.

Social Distancing

    The hitherto unknown disease transmission preventative measure of social distancing has enormous implications for the disruption of society and many of its major tenets. Humans are social animals, yet we are being told/commanded to no longer socialize. Instead, we must isolate ourselves physically. Technology allows for communication, yet such communication is incapable of fulfilling our real needs for close physical contact and touch with one another.The short-term frustrations of this new order are leading to anxiety, hopelessness, and depression, mental health issues that will likely become every bit as deadly as the virus itself. There is good reason to believe that suicides will outpace those of any period in our country’s history.

   A dark shadow of fear has overtaken the public as it has become engrained in our minds that proximity to one another makes us a threat and a very real danger to one another. As fear festers the assurance of safety of social distancing will become directly responsible for tumultuous economic upheavals. Employees will no longer congregate to perform their jobs, Employees will be asked, or will ask themselves, to work from their homes. A glut of office buildings will cause a collapse in the commercial real estate market. Sales of automobiles (3.5% of GDP) will plummet. Ride-sharing services will no longer be necessary. Business travel will be seen as a thing of the past and airlines will only survive as quadriplegic transportation cripples unable to survive without the life support of governments. Gathering together for education, eating out, entertainment, sports, religion, shopping, medical treatment, family not allowed. Education takes a big step backward only surviving due to recent technologic developments. Face time with a professor replaced by the likes of FaceTime. Restaurants, if such institutions survive, serve only those few allowed inside and seated far apart from one another—surely not enough customers to remain financially feasible. Entertainment venues will be shuttered, replaced by addictive screen time. Stadiums, coliseums, arenas, tracks, pools—group sports a historic anomaly no longer viable. The enormous business of professional sports evaporates overnight. The highest paid members of society no longer able to earn a living playing games for us, our vicarious victories unclaimed. Our religion, the social glue binding together of our forefathers and dozens of generations past undone. Shopping, the basis of the consumerism fueling the economy no longer exists in person, only online devoid of the social pleasure. The healthcare system resulting in major increases to life-span no longer able to treat patients. Life-span be damned, lives saved be damned, health restored be damned. Get sick from anything and everything and die without care… oh, maybe your doctor can heal you over the phone. Family, the social building block of society redefined. Grandparents warned not to expose themselves to grandchildren. Parents trying to work stuck at home with children stuck at home waiting to be educated by their teacher mommies and daddies. Holidays alone, family gatherings online, no longer a nationwide need to breed pigs and turkeys.

   Social animals devoid of socialization, a clarion bell calling the brave to crawl out from caves of fear into the daylight of human existence, danger by damned.

Business

    Businesses of just about all kinds, from mom and pops to major corporations have been shuttered, employees furloughed, and production halted. The mighty, robust engine driving the economy has been detached from the train and ordered to be shunted off onto a spur, to sit idle, unused by the new fascist-like conductors exercising questionable authority from our counties, states, and national government. 

   While large corporations with their often massive cash reserves are able to weather the loss of revenue in the short-term, perhaps a few months, no business can do so forever. Even the largest corporations will face financial failure without revenue to cover ongoing fixed expenses. Economists predict this “shock-triggered” recession will last no more than 9 months… we’ll see.

   Most small businesses have very limited cash reserves. Research by J.P. Morgan Chase concludes: “The median small business holds 27 cash buffer days in reserve. The median small restaurant holds 16 cash buffer days in reserve. The median small business in the real estate industry holds 47 cash buffer days in reserve.” Countless small businesses have far less cash reserves. The result: catastrophic small business failures and a stifling of our economy. J.P. Morgan Chase: “Over 99% of America’s 28.7 million firms are small businesses. The vast majority (88%) of employer firms have fewer than 20 employees, and nearly 40% of all enterprises have under $100,000 revenue. Should the general business lock-down continue for more than a few weeks it is likely that most small businesses will fail leading to unemployment of most of their 60 million employees, fully half of the country’s workforce.

   Business lock-downs resulting in business failures will result in massive unemployment, which already exceeds 17,000,000 workers. The St. Louis Fed predicts unemployment of 47 million workers should the shut-down last two months. Suddenly unemployed few will have the financial resources necessary to continue life as usual, even the funding of emergency needs for food and necessary services. According to CNBC, the median American household has only $11,700 in savings. That’s the median. Millions of families have virtually no savings. And, the nation will experience a generalized inability of families to fund real estate mortgages ($10 trillion of debt). Can the banks withstand the collapse of this revenue source? Can government printing presses print money fast enough? The numbers are so large, the potential results so terrifying that public discussion (disclosure) has been suspended. There is a reckoning, the likes of which no modern economy has faced, about to occur.

   And there is commercial real estate. Will workers be asked to come back to work in office buildings? Will they comply? What will become of the glut of office space valued at $16 trillion?

Social Unrest

    Fear of the virus, regardless of how real it should be, has resulted in the establishment and enforcement of draconian measures, the likes of which our freedom-based country has never experienced. People are being arrested for spending too much time outdoors, for taking a leisurely drive to avert the boredom of continued confinement, for for hiking alone, for surfing. Pastors are being arrested for holding church services. A child’s birthday party is raided by police. A parade of school teachers and administrators driving through neighborhoods to wave at the children displaced from their school is halted by police because such activities are “nonessential.” Hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions of Americans are being denied needed medical services, even for life-threatening needs. Businesses are being forcibly padlocked, owners arrested for refusing to shut down. Farmers are being incentivized to stop producing food and dairy supplies. Citizens are being encouraged by Big Brother to report their neighbors for non-essential activities.

   Do the numbers of people being affected by the virus justify such blatant authoritarian controls? Why, for how long, will the populace continue to comply seemingly without questioning this end play on our constitutionally-mandated freedoms? Will lemmings wake up, protest, take up arms, refuse subjugation, and demand the restoration of freedom? When, not if, will civil disobedience begin? How long will it last? How many cities will burn to the ground? Will our liberties ever be restored? 

  The blood of our forefathers fought tyranny and willingly paid the price for the freedoms the citizens of our democracy have rightfully enjoyed for hundreds of years. Freedoms that are being stripped away, one after another as each day of this crisis unfolds. Tyranny continued will guarantee social unrest. Social unrest to a degree that few have ever considered possible. “Give me liberty or give me death.” Patrick Henry is rolling over in his grave!

   These restrictions, hitherto unknown, may very well soon reach a tipping point when citizens reach a point that they lean out a window and shout, “I don’t give a damn! I can’t take it anymore!” Worse yet, a Rodney King like flashpoint may occur in which the injustice done to some person becomes viral and ignites a movement of civil disobedience. 

Food

    Restrictions put in place because of the pandemic are already putting the global food supply chain at risk. A recent report from the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition estimates an impact of $1.3 billion from March to May. The factors below will contribute to likely disruptions in food supply. Even now, these factors are creating inflation at the retail level, with the expectation that food costs will soon rise in price 10-30% or more.

   Factors responsible for this include:

    - consumers hoarding food out of fear of a major disruption and consequent food shortage

• ships, which transport much of the food supply around the world, are being denied access to ports  

• air cargo has been drastically reduced as commercial aviation grounds entire fleets of planes

• restricted border crossings

• grocery stores are placing unneeded limitations on the purchase of fresh produce and dairy products

• farmers are finding it difficult to get fresh produce and dairy products to market

• decreased demand due to the shut down of restaurants, schools, stadiums, theme parks, cruise ships

• farmers needing to destroy food stocks due to transportation problems and lessened demand

• virus stricken employees growing, manufacturing, transporting, and selling food

   Should a major disruption to the supply of food take place, or if shutdowns continue over a longer period and legions of families can no longer afford to buy food, there is every reason to believe that a hungry nation will rise up in revolt

Healthcare

    The gold-standard healthcare system in the world has been brought to its knees by the restrictions placed on medical personnel and institutions to provide just about any care other than that of COVID-19 patients. No routine preventative care is available today. Elective procedures comprising all degrees of medical need are being denied patients. Non-elective surgeries and care for life-threatening conditions are currently unavailable. Sending medical professionals home and barring entrance to our medical facilities will have a far, far greater impact on the populace than will COVID-19. Such chaos has ensued that insurance companies providing medical insurance are actually offering to reimburse policyholders for the cost of their insurance… now that is a sea change!

   The isolating of people and suspension of their life’s meaningful pursuits, as well as their social interactions, may very have a much greater impact than will the virus. It is fully expected that anxiety and depression will overcome people at a rate never before seen, with an accompanying record number of suicides in coming months.

   Even if/when medical facilities reopen, the pent up demand/need for service will be such that procuring service will take a very long time. We will look back wishing that we could return to the time when we complained it took a month or two to see the doctor. It will take many, many months for the backlog to be eased. Many people will suffer and die awaiting medical service. Telemedicine? What a joke!

   The healthcare system as we knew it before may never return. 

Personal Financial Impact

   The financial impact upon the personal finances of our populace will be harmful in the short-term, devastating over the long-term. Poor people will become poorer, their only hope that the operators of our government’s dollar bill printing presses don’t all become sick, thereby stopping the seemingly endless supply of welfare payments. Meanwhile, there are many that believe that shutting down the economy is but the latest ruse to reduce the net worth of the country’s middle class. What little savings they still hold may very well evaporate, probably far more quickly than they could imagine. The wealthy will weather the storm, some may even benefit financially.

   Where is “your” money? Can you withdraw what you want, what you need? There is already a run on small regional banks and they are limiting how much of “your” money you can have. Can the big banks underwrite and survive the devaluation of the stock market, the failure nationwide of mortgages? Can they continue to provide the foundation of credit (almost $1 trillion) underpinning the U.S. economy. Can banks continue to fund another trillion dollars of college loans? Will banks limit, perhaps shut off access to credit to the populace—game over?

   The printing presses are running day and night, spinning out fresh, crisp dollar bills… quietly heralding a not so distant tsunami of inflation which will drown our children and grandchildren. Its approaching roar can be heard today; its effects can already be felt. Sit on the beach mesmerized by the gentle waves of devaluation washing up upon your assets. Waves wash in, the tide gently pulling the value of your money out into the deep. The roar grows louder.

   Safeguard your wealth, invest in????? What do you invest in today that may protect your wealth, possibly even grow it? Uncertainty, the bane of investors, along with so many unanswered questions regarding the virus, keep even the most savvy among us incapacitated, with no idea of how to invest. Shovels, yet another hoarded item, are your friend. Dig a hole in the backyard… sit in a lawn chair guarding it… revel in the knowledge that your hidden savings are declining in value.

Education

    There has never been a time in which all of our students, regardless of age or location, have been sent home en masse, their education delegated to omniscient educators online and overseen by parents unequipped for the task. A dangerous precedent—the wholesale shuttering of our educational facilities, from pre-schools to post-graduate studies. Only time will tell the extent of the impact upon our children, our country’s place in the world. It will be real, and it won’t be positive. So many are concerned about the difficulty business faces in restarting the economy. What about the difficulty restarting our education machine, the power behind so much of what is so good in this country?

Activities

    Many activities people pursued in the past and took for granted will be relegated to “we used to do that.” Exercise: workouts at the gym, golf, tennis, swimming, strolls along the beach, hikes in the mountains… dig out the yoga tapes. Entertainment: sporting events, movies, concerts, bars, festivals, theatre… dig out the crossword puzzles, find all of the pieces to the Monopoly game. Hobbies: at home, indoors. Social gatherings: bridge with friends, birthday parties, anniversary celebrations, holidays with family, block parties, visiting grandma in the nursing home… Zoom is your new best friend. Home projects: honey-do’s are on the rise!

Travel

   Travel is yet another freedom significantly impacted by the virus. By and large we as a freedom-expecting people have taken for granted the opportunities we have to travel. Crossing international borders is suddenly very difficult. Crossing our own state borders may soon become difficult. Just traveling around town has been prohibited in many cities, some of which have enacted laws to fine us for doing so for all but “essential”—the new norm for so much of what we do—reasons. 

Self-Protection

   The safety of the citizenry is a foremost responsibility of government, both local and national. The virus  pandemic and governments’ response are impacting people’s safety and well-being. The military is not immune, with rates of infection every bit as high as found in the general population. Some in the military are already questioning whether their preparedness is sufficient to meet possible threats from rogue nations taking advantage of our weakened state. Our police are facing new roles for new times, roles that unfortunately may play to their authoritarian natures, asked to enforce new rules and laws that previously may have been thought impossible to impose. Police are being required to protect us from ourselves, fearing that we will not adhere to guidelines in and of ourselves. Is their enforcement of such today a precursor for continuing enforcement of arguably unconstitutional provisions in the future?

   Several of the potential impacts discussed herein may place individuals in great danger: should the food supply be disrupted… should people run out of money… should general healthcare remain unavailable… should social isolation drive people to do things they had never before considered… should large scale social unrest result in violence and lawlessness, perhaps even marauding gangs… should police forces become overwhelmed unable to keep the peace. Circumstances could very well require that self-protection, a responsibility we have largely given over to the state, may become a responsibility we must individual ensure. Will well-behaved citizens be able to fend for themselves and stave off their not so well-behaved neighbors? Can we protect hard earned assets? Will others attempt to steal our emergency provisions? Can we stop them? If members of our families are put at risk can we protect them?    

   The potential impacts affecting life and limb may become very real. Can we fend for ourselves? No doubt a small percentage of our citizens are far better equipped and mentally prepared to do so than most.