For What It's Worth

It's been pretty wild, hasn't it? So between running the business and doing my best to make sure our family's in decent shape, who has time to post? With that said, here's something we just sent to our clients. For what it's worth, you might find something of value:

As you all know, we’re in the thick of this COVID-19 assault. The term “assault” includes not only the effects of the virus, but also the relentless media reports. The situation remains fluid. But we can anticipate increasing numbers of infections and, sadly, deaths. 

The practice (and now, in some places, enforcement of) restriction of movement and contact with other people should slow the rate of increase down. We’re al feeling this, albeit iin different ways, depending on where you live. The objective of slowing down the rate of increase: to spread out the number of cases that hospitals will have to handle. There aren’t enough beds to go around if too many cases develop in too short a time.

It seems that hoarding of food and other items has not lessened. While we can argue that it’s all irrational, it’s to be expected. It’s how people react. Human nature doesn’t change.

IMPORTANT:

While the enforced closing of businesses is part of the effort to slow the increase of the disease, it will negatively impact the economy. We can anticipate that the impact will increase in the coming weeks, perhaps months. If you haven’t already heard the “D” word yet, you will. While some still speak of an unfolding Recession, more sources now use the term “Depression.” Rather than discuss or debate which term is most appropriate, I suggest we take measures now in anticipation of this economic slowdown, whatever you choose to call it.

On a broad level, those measures should include: keeping a reserve of cash available for immediate needs and emergencies. This should include actual physical cash. It’s not likely electronic payment systems will cease functioning because of the current crisis, buy you never know. We always have a sufficient amount of cash to meet our needs for at least a month. 

Check your food and other supplies, including soap, sanitizers, paper goods, etc. You may have had enough two weeks ago. Do you now? You’ll need sufficient supplies for some unknown extended period. Err on the conservative side. A month? Maybe more?

We’ve found that the local grocery delivery services - in our case Fresh Direct and Peapod - are overwhelmed. However, with some constant checking of available delivery dates (early each morning), we did secure a spot last week for delivery on Thursday April 2nd. We’ll see how much is delivered relative to our order. But we also found that some of the smaller stores we patronize have delivery available - something we weren’t aware of before this crisis hit. If you keep at it, you may be able to find some reliable sources. This, of course, in lieu of actually going to the stores themselves. Frankly, we’ve done a bit of that, but would prefer avoiding it. And if you do go, wear at least gloves, preferably also a mask. 

As for accepting deliveries, here’s what we do: When it arrives outside our door, we take the items out of the (typically) cardboard box. (We’re wearing gloves when we do this.) We spray the items with alcohol (a spray bottle is by the door along with and sanitizer and Clorox disinfectant wipes). For extra measure, we rub the items with our gloved hands to assure the alcohol covers all surfaces. We then take the items in, having been sprayed. We throw the cardbox out, before it ever enters our home. 

While we haven’t yet received orders of produce, our plan (if that April 2nd delivery ever shows up) is: Spray the bags the items come in. Take out the lose produce and spray it with alcohol. Then wash it in our sink with fresh water into which we’ve poured some white vinegar. The alcohol is intended to kill any virus. The water and white vinegar is simply a good hygienic practice to kill normal, potentially harmful, bacteria that can accompany fresh produce. (It’s something we did before this C-virus plague hit.)

(By the way, if you have any other suggestions/enhancements here, please feel free to let us know and we’ll share them next time.)

In addition to these general measures, each of us has our own situation to consider. To that end, we’ll be contacting everyone to for a “crisis” review, starting today. We all need to be aware of the potential shortfalls and pitfalls that such threats as unemployment, reduced employment, super-slowdown in the economy, etc. might pose in your individual situation. We likely won’t have any pat answers or solutions, but if we put our heads together we might come up with a useful “Plan B” to address anticipated contingencies.

Finally, on the money/economic front:

- The Fed announced that they will essentially utilize stimulus “without limit” now. We expected this. It might prove some temporary relief, but will inevitably cause future challenges (to put it mildly) that we’ll have to deal with at some point.

- But none of the Fed monetary measures will work unless the government comes up with some sort of fiscal package. And as of this writing, they’re stuck in political bickering. (Surprised?) Based on that, the stock market, which had anticipated an agreement to be announced with yesterday or this morning, turned down and had another bad day - although not as bad as some recent days. In any case, be on the lookout for some government spending package to boost the economy - not that it will prevent the already developing downturn. Maybe it will minimize the damage. We’ll have to wait and see.

With this message now getting a bit long, I’ll sing off for now. We’ll be in touch soon.

Rick