Quote (ofthevoid @ Mar 12 2020 08:44am)
trillions of wealth wiped out all over the world
People talk about how the virus is super dangerous and we should do everything to stop it. Closures, travel bans, etc. But do people care or understand the long term economic ramifications of doing so?
You have millions of people with pensions close to retirement or are retired that just got a significant shave. Even if you're holding bonds, yields have plummeted. If i was 55+ i'd be really concerned with this more so than the virus imo. A normal middle class family in their 50s or 60s probably just got a 200-300k shave in their portfolio over the span of two months.
So now if you were expecting a fixed draw down of lets say 5k a month from your portfolio, you now have to revise that down to like 4 k and hope it works.
these issues are the types of sparks that can set off fires. putting together sickness, with market's crashing (and the inevitable slow recovery as it takes the stairs over a few years on the way back up), paired with worker unhappiness from lack of pair or even unpaid leave, and the ever increasing pressures of automation ("we know we know"). shits getting scary fast.
i pray that anyone over 60 was already only 20-30% into stocks or less pre-fall. but given the market was regularly hitting historic highs...... i doubt it. many managers im sure told them to avoid shifting to bonds to eek out some extra security. not that they could predict C-19, but markets fall. old people need security for a reason.
Tom Hanks and the NBA are the least of our worries. im curious to see if we get populations uprising in the 2nd world, runs on health supplies in the 3rd world, and major shortages in the first world. the toilet paper industry will do good, everything else is gonna crumble.