COVID-19 Outbreak (Update: More than 2.9M cases and 132,313 deaths in US)

Yeah, while it's hard on people, we're more resilient than you might expect. I get that we have certain expectations about the economy and jobs, it's times like this when we need to dig deep and make do with less. I've been down that road before. If there's something of a social and economic safety net, I think we can last a while in lockdown. That said, a $1200 one time payment isn't sustainable for very long. It's going to get to a point where either the government steps in with temporary monthly payments for those out of work, or we're gonna have a massive crisis on our hands.

I hope we get through this, but seeing that parts of Asia is already seeing a substantial second wave going on, we may still be in the somewhat early stages of this. We need to be prepared to make some tough decisions. The next 6 month are not gonna be a walk in the park.

Part of the problem is that most Americans spend every penny they make and have no emergency savings. A lot of this "my freedom!" crap is code for "I'm financially irresponsible and don't have any cash reserves and I'm about to lose the McMansion and BMW that I shouldn't have bought on my salary to begin with!".

Same goes for businesses. Owners milk their businesses for every ounce of liquidity to buy the aforementioned McMansions and BMWs and don't leave anything in there for disasters or business interruptions. I don't think there should be any bailouts for any business of any size. And I think the income limit for personal bailouts was way too high. We as a society continue to encourage people to live beyond their means and act financially irresponsible. Why would anyone stop doing that if they know there's a bailout every time?

And the funny part is that right now a lot of the people panicking because they've been living beyond their means and a two month interruption in pay is disastrous are the "pick yourselves up by the bootstraps!" crowd. Huh.