Mostly Apolitical Thread for Discussing/Venting our Rational/Irrational COVID-19 Fears and Experiences in 2020

I'll admit to feeling confident enough to visit friends' backyards and sitting 10 feet apart.

My daughter wants to go spend the night at her girlfriend's apartment---they've not seen each other for two months. We're going to let her go, but I have very mixed feelings about it. On the one hand, we're in deconfinement officially now. On the other hand, I expect we'll be reconfined soon enough. Still, both of them have had no contact with anyone outside their homes (the girlfriend has been in the countryside the last two months, not in her apartment here in the city, since university's been virtual-only since then; she's coming to town for a day just to clear out her flat and go back to the countryside for the indefinite future). They won't see each other again until August at the earliest. Still, this is so hard.

My class at work had 19 people, including me and my co-facilitator.

In the ONE WEEK since it started:

*5 of the 19 will have taken time off for bereavement by week's end.
*1 was removed because she was hospitalized
*One of the aforementioned 5 also had her sister admitted to the hospital for COVID-like breathing issues.

Sad illustration of how real and wide reaching the virus is. I've never had a quarter of a class have someone die in the exact same timeframe. I don't know that they were COVID related, but considering I've never had more than one person in the same class experience a death in 10 years... I'd have to wager some of them are.

I don't care about the work aspect. But just shows you how its reach is crazy.

That is crazy, wow. Thankfully I haven't encountered that much personally just yet, hope it can stay that way.

It's also great that my insane workload, which only continues to increase, has been keeping me from spending the time I want to be spending with my son on his home learning. 4-6 hours of meetings a day make that nearly impossible. I feel like an absolute failure on so many levels.

what do you teach neanderthal?

I virtual teach introductory courses lasting anywhere from 5 to 19 days on Health and welfare, 401(k), Pension to customer care representatives.

(Congress made that fun by passing laws changing Minimum Distribution age in Dec and giving us no time to update materials)

now seems like a challenging time for that subject!
(also all my retirement funds are liquid, am i going to hell?)

That'd be more something a Schwab type could answer (I'm more a Government regulations, unit accounting, transaction and procedures guy, but not licensed for financial advice), but you'll probably be alright long-term based on my own 401k.

Lots of our clients are implementing the new COVID withdrawal. That'll be another fun thing I have to learn on the fly

just kidding, any savings i have is likely to be wiped out by COVID

Hahaha "savings", "retirement". One thing about finishing grad school in 2000 and watching 9/11, endless wars, a major recession and a likely depression in the years since is knowing that "retirement" is a useless pipe dream. I'm kinda glad I have absolutely no expectations of that being a reality. I simply think of my retirement funds as future emergency savings.

Related:
https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/04/coronavirus-inequality-america.html
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/05/style/the-rich-are-preparing-for-coronavirus-differently.html

"retirement" is a useless pipe dream

Just try to figure out a way to own the roof over your head and the patch of land it sits on, even if it's just a double-wide trailer. Then pay the mortgage off in full by age 60 or so. After that your biggest problem is reduced to paying for food, heat, water and electricity. It may not be much, but you can live that way and not be homeless.

Honestly it's kind of nuts that if you are 18.5 years old, in your lifetime, you've experienced 9/11, the Great Recession less than ten years later, and another major recession a little over a decade later, caused by the worst pandemic to arrive in the US in over 100 years. Plus a startling uptick in school spree shootings.

I had nothing at that level my first 19 years of life.

Yeah, that's absolutely insane.

Point taken, but if 9/11 happened when you were a few months old it's a stretch to say you "experienced" it. It makes more sense to say, if you're 25 years old you experienced all that.

Honestly it's kind of nuts that if you are 18.5 years old, in your lifetime, you've experienced 9/11, the Great Recession less than ten years later, and another major recession a little over a decade later, caused by the worst pandemic to arrive in the US in over 100 years. Plus a startling uptick in school spree shootings.

whereas my generation can offer boxers vs briefs, Ken Starr, and Roxette's meteoric rise.

Xpost point taken

I sometimes forget there are folks who have never known pre-TSA flying. I flew several times as a kid and young adult and barely remember what it was like

Except for the time i told that stewardess i had a gun, jumped out the plane, and then rejoined society under a new name

I flew once in 1996, every single other flight I've taken in my life has been 2004 and after.

"retirement" is a useless pipe dream

Just try to figure out a way to own the roof over your head and the patch of land it sits on

lmfao

it is unclear whether I am going to be able to afford rent a year from now, how the hell am I going to purchase property (even if owning property was not one of the things that will get you condemned)

As an added bonus, if you are 25 years old, you've lived during two out of the three total presidential impeachment trials in US history.

it's kind of nuts that if you are 18.5 years old, in your lifetime

looking forward to the great locust swarm of 2023

{NB: could be much worse of course}

that is already happening

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/2020/05/gigantic-locust-swarms-hit-east-africa/

I heard some guy got killed in New York City and they never solved the case. But you wouldn't know anything about that now, would you, Ulysses?

lmfao

There's still relatively cheap housing in rural America. People do live out there. This one is within walking distance of groceries:

https://www.trulia.com/p/or/prairie-city/130-e-6th-st-prairie-city-or-97869--1037111660

lol

i used to ask my parents to bring me the amenity kits they would get when they traveled and i kept some of them because i am a weirdo i.guess. one of them had a razor in it and i kept it as a reminder of what pre-9/11 flying was like.

Who would want to own property ]now?

I own my apartment, and at least four times a day I wonder what was the point.

and this was before COVID and Trump.

I own my apartment, and at least four times a day I wonder what was the point.

Is it still mortgaged or do you own it outright?

It's still mortgaged, hence the worrying. The only people I know in South Florida who've bought the last decade are families. I don't see the point in a single man like moi owning a condo. It's done, though, and if we're lucky the Atlantic will reclaim it in 20 years!

I rent because it only takes me an average of 4 months to realize that I hate the new place I moved into, so me committing to one house for 20 years when recessions will occur every 2 years from here until the world ends in 2047...is futile

xp -- $99,000 is a lot more money than I have to my name, let alone the amount of money than I can just spend for shits and giggles, let alone during a pandemic where I'd have to get to Prairie City how in the first place, let alone whether there'd be any jobs for me there, or any people who would like me

Buying def not an option for many people.

Most Americans of my age can vividly remember where we were the first time we heard Roxette.

I wasn't suggesting anyone move to Prairie City this year or even this decade. I was addressing the idea that retirement was an impossibility for people now in their early-middle years, by outlining a minimalist strategy that reduces the need for saving formidable amounts of cash to live on in one's later years. If you are retired, then the lack of jobs in Bumfuck, Nebraska is not the central problem, but rather the need for basic services. If you live in walking distance of basic shopping you don't need a lot of public transportation, etc. Retirement is a tricky logistical problem. More money makes it easier to solve, less money makes it harder, but a problem-solving approach is better than throwing up your hands and saying "can't be done".

I mean it seems like another central problem of being old is exponentially increasing health care costs, not all of which Medicare and Social Security cover from what I understand (and of course, who's to say there'll even be Medicare or Social Security by the time I'm old enough for them?)

Aimless, with all due respect, "a problem-solving approach" sounds like GOP boilerplate: another version of up-by-the-bootstraps. For many people under 50, the last 20 years have seen an erosion in the kinds of jobs that would make boilerplates and bootstraps unaffordable. Maybe I read you wrong?

"a problem-solving approach" sounds like GOP boilerplate... Maybe I read you wrong?

Clearly, a political and societal-level solution would be far preferable to an individual one. If you can figure out how to implement a political solution, I will give you a gold medal, dinner and drinks.

a problem-solving approach is better than throwing up your hands and saying "can't be done".

I know it would be reading you wrong to think you are suggesting people under 50 make no attempt to deal with their very real problems within the scope of what they might be able to control, which is their own actions.

I'm not sure how that's possible when their paychecks barely cover food and shelter.

well, then, it's either political change or back to a life expectancy of 66 and old people eating from dumpsters behind the fast food outlets. I choose political change, who's with me?

just tbc telling katherine of all ppl that she can buy a cheap house in nowhere oregon and thereby solve her anxiety about her future and retirement is either trolling or poor judgement

good lord. I respond to jon, she posts 'lmfao' and this becomes "telling katherine of all ppl that she can buy a cheap house in nowhere oregon and thereby solve her anxiety about her future and retirement"?

she posts 'lmfao' and this becomes hmmm may be missing a step in between here iirc

https://static.trulia-cdn.com/pictures/thumbs_6/zillowstatic/ISrxiil6gz9xwp0000000000.jpg