Author Archives: Money Reasons

About Money Reasons

A offbeat personal finance blogger that comes from the tech world.

Ways Life Will Change after the Coronavirus

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We were all unprepared for anything as serious as the Coronavirus! While it punched us hard in the gut, I’m pretty sure it won’t come close to the impact that the Spanish Flu had back in 1918.

I’m going cut to the chase and list the ways that I think life will change as an aftereffect of the Coronavirus, both good and bad!

Ways the Coronavirus will change Society

  1. Companies will embrace automation more quickly and as a side-effect, jobs will become more scarce and competition will become tighter. Companies will find that automation using intelligent AI systems and robotics to be quicker and cheaper after an initially steep “cost and learning” curve.
  2. People will need to be more creative in generating money than they have in the past, include working 2 or more jobs, sometimes at the same time, and side hustles. The days of just one job linear thinking will not continue to be a viable option to make a living except for the lucky few.
  3. Small companies will find it harder to compete with large companies because doing business with small companies will be envisioned as a potential risk of future closures, at least short term. Long term there will be a lot more online businesses and the like.
  4. People will be slow to socialize physically with one another out in densely populated public places (stadiums, theaters). Social media, which already has had a huge increase in usage, will not see a decrease in usage quickly. Restaurants will see more of an increase in clients than Bars, but still, both will have lower attendance than prior to the Coronavirus, at least until we all get complacent again.
  5. Companies that can afford it will let their employees work from home more often for jobs than can be done remotely. Duh, right… They will also do rotating shifts with scattered groups intelligently distributed at work (especially call centers), also longer hours and fewer days.
  6. Since working from home will be more common, automated monitoring and worker usage metrics will become more prevalent and invasive in the workplace. This is way beyond big brother, but might be a necessary evil since employees are working from home. Employers might even require a monitoring device (both audio and visual) in worker’s homes that would need to be on during working hours. Most of us would put up with it…
  7. People will try to be more independent than they have in recent decades. Personally, I’m planning to try and grow some vegetables. I’m even thinking of trying canning. People will also create a monthly, rotating supply of food and essentials. I’m also going to improve my tech skills.
  8. Short term, I can see a small increase in both hunting and home protective guns. Obviously, they won’t really be needed but will be purchased all the same.
  9. I’m hoping people become more involved in local, state and possibly the federal government. The government is supposed to represent us, but oftentimes they don’t and instead they have a team mentality and all collude together on the party leader’s ideology instead of asking American what is needed.
  10. People will have a new appreciation for other people and cultures, especially those states that were in a lockdown.

There will be other changes too. I think people will try to help people out for a year or two, especially those most affected. Rest homes will change for the better in reducing the spread of viruses in their facilities, maybe using ultraviolet, germ-killing equipment (maybe even robotics). For some lucky elderly, robotics and other AI systems will enable them to reside at home longer than in the past. Already home automation, and devices like Alexa and Google Home dramatically improve the life of the elderly.

Hygiene awareness and practice will go ballistic! Door handles, elevator buttons and many other potential virus-contaminated surfaces will not be touched with bare hands. People will wash their hands with soap more often. Purell will be amazingly popular in all locations (at desks, in cars, in backpacks, you get the point). Suddenly adaptation and usage of Smartphones that use NFC and credit cards that have NFC chips will become very popular and preferred. Every possible surface that could pose as a risk will be taken into consideration! Shoot, I might even start to use gloves when I use the ATM machines in my area.

Oh, one big change too, will be a new department that will be crisis-related (I don’t know what they will call it, so I guess at naming it). One of the primary concerns the agency will focus on is virus prevention and treatment. I expect innovation on all fronts of viral outbreaks but mostly preventative and treatment.

Preventative developments will include vaccinations, but since vaccines usually take a year or longer to develop, it won’t initially be the primary area of development. Preventative tools will include proven society processes and equipment like testing, masks, and gloves (many parts of Asian used such processes and equipment to avoid both deaths and shutdowns during the coronavirus pandemic). Preventative work will also include new innovations that we aren’t even thinking of yet. Treatment will have similar innovations, include things like antibody injections to folks infected.

Finally, I believe that people will live more fully too. Having a scare like the pandemic should make everybody live life craving more experiences.

Hoping for the best,

Don

Flash from the past – my fourth financial comic strip

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Okay, as you can see below, this strip was done around Christmas with Mr. Penny waiting in line to communicate to Santa his present list for Christmas. Mr Penny’s look is starting to evolve a little, I think the drawing of him below might be one of my best versions. The initial thought was to make the reader wonder what he is doing, with the reveal at the last strip box.

As I’ve said before, it was fun to do, but took too much time to draw. Probably if I kept with it, I would have eventually mastered the speed aspect and today it would be quickly done.

To see the actual comic strip, click on this -> Mr. Penny is making a list!

Memories… lol

Have a great week!

Don

The Morality Rate of the Coronavirus (covid-19) is much less than you Think

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Update 3/27/2020, US just now confirmed they have more cases than China, but probably because the US has done more testing than China… People freak out because of “new” cases, but really it’s just that we’ve tested more, so more people are detected. Still, I wish the US would do more like suggesting to citizens that they wear masks and test and approve meds more quickly for usage.

I’ve heard people say that the mortality rate of the coronavirus (covid-19 virus) is somewhere between 3 and 4%. They say that the mortality rate of coronavirus is much worse than the 1918 influenza Pandemic (also called the Spanish Flu). This claim is incorrect, sort of. I’ll explain why I believe that the impact will be well less than 1% and while concerning, not as bad as the media will have you believe.

Let me start by saying that the dataset from the Spanish Flu is weak. I’ve seen worldwide mortality rates anywhere from .6% to 3%. The CDC put the worldwide mortality rate at 1% (50m out of 500m), and estimate the US mortality rate was .5% to .65% of the entire us population.

First, the true mortality rate of the coronavirus vs US entire population should be less than .5% (1 in 200)

The United States is still developing its coronavirus datasets, but we missed the first cases so we are not starting from the beginning. I’m sure there were thousands of people that had the virus and beat it before anyone had any idea what it was. I’m sure most people that had it just thought it was the flu. I know a paramedic that has talked to healthcare people (mainly nurses and few doctors) and they said that they had a high number of people come into the hospital last year, believing they had the flu, but they tested negative (meaning they didn’t have the flu) after testing was applied. So the US and the entire world is not starting at square one with this virus.

I believe the Chinese statistics that they have provided the world (literally, thank China for the data)! Looking at the Chinese datasets, and making postulations from their data metrics versus their entire population, the Chinese mortality rate could be significantly less than .1% for their 2020 year! To be totally honest, when I number crunch their data, I’m getting a mortality ratio that is between .001% and .002% for the Chinese entire population in 2020, but that’s pretty optimistic… but possible. This number is a far cry from the mortality rate of the Spanish Flu.

So the US could have numbers even better than China, but it will be close. China today is not China of 20 years ago (or even 10 years ago). They have made incredible progress in all areas. So, the US mortality rate versus the entire US population could be less than .1% too, and maybe much less. So we will not have a mortality rate higher than the Spanish Flu, and most likely will have a mortality rate much, much lower!

Well see, it’s too early to bet the bank that this virus is not as impactful statistically as the media claims.

Things we are doing are still worthwhile because this is a new virus that we don’t have antibodies for it and it could mutate into something either more benign or lethal. If we are smart about this and handle it with care, and keep hammering at it, the end impact could be minimal from an entire US population mortality rate measurement.

So, please don’t think 3% of the entire US (or world) population is going to die at the end of 2020. That prediction just doesn’t add up versus the known datasets from China!

A lot of the virus mortality impact in the US depends on using hotels, malls, gyms, any large areas for patient areas with beds that can be used for larger cities in California and New York. We need all folks to step and help our larger city citizens in any way possible. We also need the elderly and those Americans with existing at heath conditions to be quarantined or separated as much as possible from the bulk of society for the next few weeks (or month). Such a separation will enable help them to get service from the medical community if they get the virus later (hopefully they don’t get it at all). I suggested an approach called “phased reducing” (or phased diminishing) the virus that I think had merit earlier and still might be of value.

Thanks, be careful,

Don

Can we beat Coronavirus by Phase Reducing the viral spread?

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Okay, this is an approach that I have not heard before, but what if we take a “Phase Reducing” approach to reduce the coronavirus spread? I like to call it “Phase Diminishing” the spread.

You are probably thinking… “What the hell is Phase Reducing the coronavirus?”

Concept of Phase Reducing – All US locations (or anywhere in the world), get a voluntary group of the population (ideally the most healthy), isolate them in hotels, large gyms or large isolated fully functional buildings (hell, even malls), intelligently infect this voluntary group all at once simultaneously across the entire country. Then provide and monitor this group with medicine and healthcare workers to treat them when needed to minimize fatalities. As the group recovers and the virus aren’t detected via testing, release them and send them back to work. Repeat, doing the same with the next phase of volunteers.

Exceptions to the Phase Dimishing idea

For the most “in risk” groups (people with preexisting issues, and the elderly), don’t even try the phase reducing process, it’s too risky to try, instead wait for better medical medicines or vaccines or hope the virus fizzles out. There are flaws with this approach, like uniformity, training and the like, but it’s better than nothing and we don’t go into a deep recession or depression.

Another issue might be the scale of the process, this might be easier to implement in smaller communities versus huge cities like New York City. Still, even at a smaller level, there might be value in this process because these smaller locations will become strong virus-resistant areas that could prevent spread elsewhere. Kind of like gaps that the virus can’t spread through easily if at all.

Peace and take care,

Don