TGIF

For Wall Street Investors the adage "Thank God It's Friday" may be an understatement.  As I write this blog at 3:06 EST the DJIA has dropped 16% for the week, 33% for the month.  The market drop is better defined now as contagion - the combination of emotional fear from the economic impact of lockdowns with the Saudi/Russia Oil fight, and a sprinkle of political uncertainty. 

In this environment - cash is king, physical supplies is queen.  This is my second day locked down at the house.  Taking a walk in the neighborhood, it felt like grand central station - cars, people walking, children playing outside, even an Indian Hill Ranger patrolling and stopping to say hello.  Of course it helps that it was a sunny day with temperatures in the 50's.

Ellen cooked some brownies, Jenna was outside playing fetch with her dog Wally, Paul was working making client phone calls, and Susan attempting to collect receivables for her clients.  I sat transfixed on the red and green ups and downs of individual stocks while listening to the gloom and doom of CNBC.

Will the pressure cooker of this week's activity continue to build over the weekend?  With little routine outlets available for weekend decompression, everyone will be trying to find new activities and ways to fill their time.  What a great opportunity to re-evaluate how we spend our time together and what we can do to be emotionally supportive of each other. Like the feeling of being snowed in during a winter storm, we can practice ways to create calm and peace.  Here are some ideas:

(1) Turn off the media
(2) Read a book
(3) How about a puzzle; or art; or a family game
(4) Take a walk outside in the neighborhood
(5) Do one of those home organization projects you have put off indefinitely

Take the time to appreciate your home and feeling safe at home.

Call to Action

Decided to stay at home today and due to various circumstances everyone else was here at home also -  Susan, Ellen, Jenna and Paul. It felt like Thanksgiving or Christmas holiday. Also today was the celebration of  32 years of marriage - with anniversary gifts of Bird Scooters - but unfortunately a rainy day -  so no ability to ride in tandem.

There was  relative calm in the stock market (even with a 1200 point range on the DJIA).  Everyone is figuring out how to live socially with virtual connections.   Friday Morning Men's Fellowship will be via ZOOM web conferencing tomorrow morning.

With continuous updates of news it is hard to concentrate on anything except the future unknown of this virus.  The opportunity for cooperation domestically and internationally is yet another test for all of us.   I enjoyed seeing the Brazil way of promoting this:

Instead of searching for blame and shame, we need to use this crisis for world-wide cooperation in preventing future pandemics.  It demonstrates how futile nationalism is and our interconnectedness is comes with both risks and rewards. 

As boredom sets into the isolation of cocooning, courage to risk face to face relationships will again emerge.  There are countless times Christians "run toward the plagues", stay in the cities to help the suffering, and put their own lives at risk to help others.   Jenna faces this as she returns to work after to cancelled vacation plans. So many Doctors and Nurses will be called upon in this crisis to help others.  They are the front lines - now we are called to back them up.  How will you help?

PANIC or NAP

The stock market seems to be in free-fall and the word PANIC seems appropriate.  The fourth circuit breaker (7% down) in two weeks and the S&P graph appears to mirror the wall chart that I face in my office for the 2008 recession (1.6 years and a drop of 57%).  My personal capitulation day back then was Dec. 3, 2008 just before the market bottom of March 9, 2009.  I have great memory of this because of my personal financial logs that recorded my feelings and trades.

For the past four days, I have watched the market continuously aided by the recommendation to physically distance from others.  I suspect that has exacerbated the panic and created more nervous energy of people liquidating accounts.

The fluid nature, next to zero transaction costs, and real time ability to move large sums of money has contributed to the volatility and steep intraday movements.  Even the ability to watch global markets - CNBC Asia allows a person to remain glued on minute by minute futures market.

Temptation and regret slips in when the market vaults up as the "market timers" try to optimize the bottom.  I also get tempted to play in this game but have avoided making any trades or timing decisions.

How do you control PANIC -  I C NAP :)

Educational Pandemic

Even though schools may be closed, there is much learning going on - at least for those interested in learning more about this global crisis.

(1) Exponential growth and various statistics about calculating mortality rates
(2) Country and Culture comparisons in approach to dampening the virus progress
(3) Biology of animal to human transmission of virus (yes I had to look up  pangolins and civets).

(4) Generational respect -  Asking the youth to stop partying and transmitting the COVID-19 to us old folks.
(5) Political laws about cancelling primaries or elections.
(6) Powers of Executive Branches (Federal, State and Local) in declared emergencies
(7) Charts depicting the damping and slowing down process
(8) Social customs of greeting and how to perform social distancing
(9) Specific instructions on hygiene and how to wash your hands
(10) Statistics on how often you touch your face (about 3000 times a day)
(11) How to amuse yourself without Sports, Bars, Parades, Restaurant, Gym, ....  you name it.
(12) Maybe seek some additional spiritual growth and education
(13) How to work from home
(14) Learning how to use technology (e.g. Amazon order; Echo Show communication; Overdrive for library books)

I even liked the creativity and actions this virus is drawing out of businesses:
 
(1) Restaurants now considering the delivery business
(2) Specific store hours by age distribution  (maybe to help in the normal flu season)
(3) Work Conferencing
(4) Communicating with customers and suppliers
(5) Expediting supply chains in critical industries
(6) Accelerate the vaccine development and delivery process
(7) Business interruption plans and contingency


Yes - a crisis like this can create new ways of thinking and doing business.   Additionally it can create a sense and need for global cooperation and problem solving.  Yes - there will be plenty of suffering, but maybe it is the very suffering that will point us to the single source of joy.

In spite of all the recommendations to manage social distancing physically, a crisis like this can only be managed by socially interconnecting virtually and spiritually.

Cocooning

The effect of globalization is front and center during this perfect storm of Corona Virus Pandemic, Oil fights, and globally fluid capital markets.  The only industry benefiting from this panic is likely the 24 hour news.  

The S&P is down 30% in a matter of days.  Travel and Entertainment is locked down in a matter of days also.  It demonstrates how fragile the feeling of security can be - emotionally, financially, physically, and …. for some spiritually.  As Warren Buffet says - "You never know who is swimming naked until the tide goes out".   

I'm amazed at the distribution of attitudes about the rapid response by our Federal and State leaders.  The challenge of absorbing the various media bias (including social media) and the lack of understanding of statistics and numbers has contributed to both extremes of fear and indifference.  

Personally this has affected me in the cancellation of my trip to visit Dad in the Nursing home.  Susan and the girls also cancelled their spring break vacation to Arizona.  On the financial side - like others net worth (on paper) drops at least 20%.  Aside from the personal social distancing, this feels eerily like the great recession of 2007 and 2008.  Since my blogging only started in August 2009, only my manual journals (Spiritual and Financial) have any measure of my emotions and actions at that time.

Over the weekend, I decided to create my own forecast using the numbers from the World Health Organization situation reports.  In our data hungry world the numbers are suspect from even this source.  The two most important numbers are the daily rate of growth in new cases and the rate of growth in recoveries (and by default deaths).  Once again the human mind just has difficulty understanding the power of growth (April 16, 2012 Growth and Patience) and patience.  T.A. in our Vistage meeting talked about the dangers of nervous energy - on health, finances and relationships.  This time is no exception -  it is a time for patience and careful reflection. 

If this virus is growing at 30% daily (doubles about every 3 days) in USA (which is about what the W.H.O. shows since 3/1/2020) and the hospitalization rate is 20% of cases then we run out of hospital bed in the USA by about 4/13/2020 (assuming a discharge rate of prior admissions every 7 days).  The CNBC news states the doubling rate is every 6 days (about a 12% growth rate) and using that assumption my cryptic spreadsheet models a run out of beds by 5/21/2020.  That's not much to be encouraged about.  

Now the good news - if we can trust the Chinese Data -  the exponential curve of new cases peaks at about 16 - 24 days (but very dependent of population diligence in distancing).

This data seems to be consistent with the South Korean numbers (about 26 days) as it potentially is peaking.  The next few days will be critical to watch.

In Ohio there are 37 cases identified and 350 in testing.  The real answer about the risk of the virus is a local issue and community response.  For me - I'm cocooning.

Big Brother Watching

In 2019 I traveled 19,398 miles (equivalent to 78% around the world) and stopped in 6 Countries/Regions, 139 Cities and 521 places.  So says Google Maps Timeline.

Data gathered from my Google Fi Phone, my privacy is non existent as it applies to Google watching my movements  (at least as long as my phone is on and on me).  How Google defines a Region/City and Place is a question but the overall map shows the real picture.

Clearly I could turn off the location history on my phone - so it is my choice that Google can use my location to market data and news to me phone.  Also there are data analytics analysts trying to correlate this location data with consumer preferences.  

Personally, the only benefit I see in having this data is the ability to jog one's memory about where you were on a specific day or time in 2019.   

I guess Big Brother is not the government - it is Google.

Christmas ecard 2019

   Wisner Family (et al) December 2019

"May His Blessings light your way and bring joy to your hearts this Christmas"

Blue Mountain e-card

It was a year of medical matters – major malaise, mishap, Medicare mystery and DM- Diabetes mellitus.  Yet, even with physical and spiritual attacks, we relied on faith, family and friends to emerge Brave, Bravely, Bold and Fearless this year.   Read on:

Ellen (BRAVE) – The i-fly flight didn’t cause shortness of breath but convinced Ellen she would ignore Dad’s advice and become parachute “worthy”.  Luckily she will stay in the plane when she drops into see D’Lane and Ann in Scottsdale.  Crossfit groupies felt a partial identity loss when Ellen accepted an internship at the Sports Mall. Just three semesters from early graduation at U.C. the key question is will her Finance degree stabilize or will she Master something else?

Jenna and Paul Robinson (BRAVELY) – “I see you” is not a juvenile game when blood sugars are high.  Jenna is now attached to the medical device industry in addition to her excellent patient care at Christ Hospital.  Paul steadies the Robinson/Wisner roots by intertwining Emmaus Walk #103 with a USI promotion.  BRAVELY this pair takes on the challenge of T1D management even with auction accidents, Dexcom outages, and healthcare enrollment math.

Susan – (BOLD) – Nothing this year was easy – not even Emmaus Walk #123.  Drains, phones and falls, oh brother it was a challenge!  She reluctantly accepts no more Lipp and remained silent at the Abbey using her spiritual backup to fight Screwtape’s attacks.  Even the Tahoe’s have blind spots.  Her BOLD motherly protection instincts have combated the obstacles that medicine can’t solve. 

Garen – (FEARLESS) – A man without fear, Garen needed to re-subscribe in several areas.  He hit the oil jackpot only to tie for second place (in a field of three) for the Jefferson Award.  Testing his own blood for three months made him wonder How God Makes Men.  Sixty-five years forced him back into medical money mania – code named IRMAA.  Needing time to research Medicare, he dropped Miami Mock Recruiting to sign up for the ILR (Miami Institute of Learning in Retirement). Garen chose Lord Byron’s Drug Plan Z – “Always laugh when you can – its cheap medicine.”

The family zipped down to Austin for Dayna and Sam’s wedding and travel this year was exclusively concentrated on family affairs (Naples, Akron, Derby, Scottsdale, Chautauqua).  May we know that “family first” is an important prescription..

The Grinch of 2019 has not dried up our spirit.   We are so grateful for our family and friends support.

Love is the antidote to suffering. We pray that the medicine of Christ will heal your spirit and put joy in your heart also.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year

“A joyful heart is good medicine, but a crushed spirit dries up the bones”.   Proverbs 17:22