KEEPING YOUR FINANCES AFLOAT ABOVE COVID

Options to Protect Your Assets During Uncertain Times

- Dennis Santiago

Americans face challenging financial times as the coronavirus pandemic continues to wreak havoc on the economy. The definition of how society and the economy works is changing as companies shift to increased reliance on telecommuting. A significant fraction of the American workforce may never see an office again. Migrations out of cities to communities offering better lifestyle options for remote workforces is resulting in an active real estate market in suburban and rural areas of the country even as urban centers atrophy. This, in turn, is causing a crisis for commercial real estate and banks as companies begin to take advantage of less need for office space. The middle tier of the consumer economy, small businesses, is cratering under the combined weight of COVID-19 operating restrictions and fewer customers even when those restrictions are relaxed.

Historically, major pandemics take two to three years to work their way through the world population. The record shows multiple waves of the disease rising and falling. It goes on until the sickness works through all of humanity. With a virulent R-Zero transmission factor of 2.3, there’s no reason to believe the epidemiological process isn’t playing out the same way this time. At the time of writing this article, a mere six months of the first wave of COVID-19 have impacted planet Earth.

At the mid-year point of 2020, the world’s nations are once again beginning to see surges of the SARS-CoV-2 virus, prompting a second wave of economic shutdowns across the planet.