O.K. it’s late June here in the Northeast U.S. and we older folks have been sequestered since February when the coronavirus stuff hit the fan.
It’s really impacted peoples’ retirements in ways they never thought of before. What will now become of the ‘golden years’? Here are a few of our thoughts…
The Unknown Unknowns
The biggest concern is that we live in a country that prizes its liberties. ‘Hell no, we won’t wear a mask’. But there’s a massive tradeoff in exercising those liberties and public safety to contain a deadly virus.
On the opposite spectrum, China with far less liberty was able to lock down the entire country and contain the virus. This is also extreme, the solution lies somewhere in the middle.
Those U.S. states who faced the brutal reality and shut everything down in a hurry are faring a lot better than those states who were willing to allow business as usual (and let the body count rise).
It seems everyone believes we’ll have an effective vaccine within a year. Do we have our ‘happy ears’ on? In the past it’s taken multiple years, HIV been around since the early eighties and there’s still no vaccine. Hopefully it could be possible that advanced biotech and relaxing some regulations could allow us to fast track an early cure and/or vaccine. It remains to be seen.
As Winston Churchill would advise, we all have to stay positive and “keep buggering on”.
Nest Egg Risk
What will be the economic risks to your retirement nest egg?
Astonishingly the S&P 500 is only off 10% of its December 2019 all-time high. In fact the NASDAQ is at an all-time high. What is Wall Street thinking? A near term viable vaccine and a return to the old normal seems to be baked into the cake.
But the government has printed an awful lot of money. Unlike FDR’s new deal where he printed money to pay people but he put them to work to build dams and bridges. Today we’re printing money and paying people to stay home and do nothing. We just don’t know the consequences of that. It’s new ground.
The fact remains there’s a boatload of unemployment out there. In some cases those jobs are lost forever. Think mom & pop retail and local restaurants. The unemployment checks are sucking the states dry. There could be a federal bailout of some states – thus printing more money.
What if the stock market Tanks?
Retired people without a government pension and financing their retirement from social security and their IRA could be in a perilous position. Historically it has taken on average 4 years after a calamitous event like the years 2000 and 2008 for the market to resume its previous valuation. To a seventy-year-old, that cuts into precious few years left on earth.
Hopefully, their savings are properly allocated.
See:
Don’t Outlive your money in Retirement
Health Risks for Older Folks
The coronavirus is the biggest threat to all persons over the age of 65. 80% of all deaths from Covid-19 are within this group. So, naturally, it’s foremost on their minds.
It appears it would be best to stay away from medical facilities for non-urgent procedures.
What about elective medical procedures? Fuhgeddaboudit.
What about colonoscopy? Fuhgeddaboudit.
What about dental cleanings? Fuhgeddaboudit
Your home and yard are the safest places from coronavirus provided you didn’t hold a big drinking bash at your house recently. But it’s ironic that this same yard that is safe from coronavirus, may have other threats like Lyme disease, or worse, EEE. In Connecticut in 2019, there were 4 reported cases of Eastern Equine Encephalitis, not bad, but of those 4, three died, needs to be taken very seriously – pass the bug spray.
Travel
Since the deregulation of the airline industry way back in 1978, the cost to fly kept plummeting to where everyone was traveling by air in planes with full loads.
So, if you were thinking about a trip to Europe this summer, better think agai
n. As of this writing, Europe doesn’t even want us because the U.S. is coronavirus hot spot.
Air travel will most likely be sharply curtailed. It’s not just the plane ride, it’s also the car rental on the other side and the hotel room or Airbnb. A lot of risk of virus exposure.
Staycations may take precedent at least in the short run. There will be a lot of visitations to our beautiful national and state parks. May be time to invest in a Winnebago and put your frequent flier miles on hold.
Visiting the Family
We love our adult children and our grandchildren. But, seniors are still high risk population and young grandchildren are natural carriers of every cold or virus running around. Sorry, we can no longer babysit.
Visitations will have to be either facetime, zooming, or summer outdoor gatherings on the back lawn with lots of social distancing. No kissing and hugging please.
Rethink Assisted Living
Were you planning one day to move into a senior community?
Regardless of when we finally develop a vaccine against coronavirus, the experiment of confining the elderly into retirement community has to be revisited.
Does it really make sense to place that many high risk individuals within close proximity of one another? The death rate in these facilities by coronavirus has been staggering.
There needs to be an emphasis one of two trends: (a) aging in place or (b) living with extended families.
As to aging in place, we’ve amassed a wealth of knowledge as to how the
elderly can still function at home, even alone. With home deliveries, prescriptions by mail, visiting nurses, and best of all, new technologies to manage a home with a cell phone, we can push out the timeline for living independently at home.
In situations where consistent monitoring is required, we can revert back to a well-appointed in-law apartment in the basement, attic, over the garage, or wherever. The money that would be spent on assisted living can be spent refurbishing one of the adult children’s homes. Something to think about.
New Fitness
There will have to be shift in exercise modalities.
We know the virus loves a bunch of people in close quarters indoors. Add to that a high humidity of sweat and it’s ripe for transmission.
In deference to gyms and health clubs, they served their purpose in getting a lot of older people off the couch and moving. But it’s questionable if that model of fitness has a future. Several gym chains have already gone out of business.
Witness the surge in Peloton, a fun high-tech way to get an intense cardio workout in the safety of your own home. Now there is also Mirror, and soon more innovative home workout technologies will appear in this time of need.
There are a zillion YouTube videos on how to best exercise at home. Dig out those dumbbells and kettlebells you promised you would someday use and put them to good use. Yoga with Adrian on YouTube has scores of yoga workouts for every level.
See:
Are the kids Alright?
Our biggest worry is about the financial condition of our adult children. Will they remain gainfully employed? Are they in a job like restaurant service that may never bounce back? If they go totally broke they may have to move in with us, do we have the room for all those grandkids?
Then, if they are employed what about their retirement? The golden ticket has always been that beautiful employer match of 401(k)’s, and now there is talk by many corporations to suspend such. I guess they’ll just have to cut back on their lifestyle to assure they’re making sufficient deposits for the future.
Future Outlook
Can Homo Sapiens save themselves? Can they do what it takes to defeat something that’s so small it’s invisible.
It’s amazing, the boomer generation was the one that was instructed by their elementary teachers to crawl under their desks in the event of a nuclear attack. Why did we bother going to school that week in October of 1962, we were all going to be blown up by missiles from Cuba.
But alas, we dodged annihilation by nuclear bomb, but can we defeat this microscopic contagion? Can we do what it takes to stop the spread? What if it mutates faster than we can create a credible vaccine?
Our species survived 1918, it remains to be see if we can outlive this one. Be smart, stay safe and keep buggering on.