One of the main reasons why I’ve turned more cautious on stocks is due to a growing number of extended lockdowns around the country. Logically, we can conclude that most lockdowns should end by July 31 given that is when enhanced unemployment benefits are set to expire.

However, investing is all about beating expectations. I had been secretly hoping most of the country would reopen by June 15, after roughly three months of staying at home. The economic destruction so far has been immense. Keeping the economy closed for much longer than three months feels like an extreme overreach by our politicians.

We’ve slowly gone from locking down in order to flatten the curve to locking down indefinitely until there is a vaccine for COVID-19. What happened to locking down until there is enough hospital bed and ventilator capacity? The healthcare system is no longer overwhelmed. Tens of millions of lives are being ruined.

If Congress successfully passes another massive stimulus package with enhanced unemployment benefits extending through the end of the year, we know that lockdowns around the country will be extended. Be mentally prepared for what’s to come.

In an effort to provide different perspectives, I reached out to folks who support indefinite lockdowns to fight the coronavirus. Their stories will also help explain why the stock market has held up so well, in spite of so much economic disaster we hear in the news on a daily basis.

If you’ve been on the fence to support keeping the economy shut for longer than three months, perhaps these stories will persuade you to help minimize the risk to our essential workers. Or, maybe these stories will have an opposite effect and piss you off. Perhaps we’ll find a middle ground.

Thanks to the additional $600/week in enhanced unemployment benefits, there are now some people who are making more in unemployment benefits than they did while they were working. Although the enhanced benefits are only temporary, this is still great news! Free government money is hard to turn down.

The never-ending pressure in America to hustle has taken its toll. Our bodies are breaking down, mental illnesses are ubiquitous, and our children are being neglected all by the desire to make money.

As someone who stepped off the treadmill in 2012, although I’m sad millions have lost their jobs, I’m also excited that millions will get to experience what it’s like to finally be able to stand still in adulthood. May we all experience a period of meditative calmness until the worst of the coronavirus is behind us.

With trillions of dollars of government assistance going to individuals and companies, there will inevitably be some who will take advantage of the system. So long as they are doing so legally, like millionaires receiving health care subsidies or millionaires receiving stimulus checks, people don’t seem to mind. There’s so much money to go around.

But when mega-millionaires and fake small businesses owned by very wealthy individuals take advantage of government assistance despite knowing the money was not really meant for them, that’s where I see many seem to draw the line. Let’s have a look at what’s going on.

Every time there is a government rescue package, I’m left scratching my head wondering where all the money really goes. During the 2008 – 2009 financial crisis, Congress approved a $787 billion economic stimulus package that basically went to three things:

1. $288 billion in tax cuts
2. $224 billion in unemployment benefits
3. $275 billion for public works

Getting up to 99-weeks of unemployment was pretty huge for those who lost their jobs. This was the time when the term “funemployment” emerged since so many Americans lost hope in finding work and decided to purposefully take an extended break while collecting a paycheck during this difficult time.

But the money that went to tax cuts and public works seemed like it just disappeared into thin air. When the federal government announced years later that the bailout money for many of the largest financial institutions had provided huge returns, I’m not sure any one of us saw a penny. At least the economy recovered.

With the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) part of the $2 trillion CARES Act, however, I truly believe this will be one of the most impactful rescue packages the government has ever implemented. The other one was FDR’s New Deal between 1933 and 1939.

The PPP promises to lend out and forgive $349 billion $659 billion (due to another round that passed on April 24) to small businesses with under 500 employees if these small businesses keep their payroll.

If you’re not a small business owner, you might be thinking who cares about small businesses. However, I assure you that providing direct relief to small business owners is paramount for our economy.

According to the Small Business Association, over 99 percent of America’s ~30 million firms are small businesses that employ roughly 59 million Americans or 47.5% of the employees. The vast majority (88 percent) of employer firms have fewer than 20 employees, and nearly 40 percent of all enterprises have under $100k in revenue.

In other words, small businesses are our country’s heart and soul! Companies like Apple, Coke, and Clorox get all the headlines, but it is the small business we must do our best to protect.

* On April 8, 2020, Bernie Sanders dropped out of the presidential race, paving way for Joe Biden to be the Democratic presidential candidate. Bernie’s views were too extreme, even though proposals such as UBI and healthcare for all is needed now more than ever during the pandemic.

Sooner or later investors will stop freaking out about the coronavirus. We will become inured to the word and to the daily death toll numbers just like how we’ve become inured whenever we hear about something tragic has happened on the news.

In the long run, I’m hopeful that a lot of positives will come out of this coronavirus-induced market panic. I’m hopeful that as early as this summer, we’ll be able to look back on this time period and wish we had bought more equities.

Unfortunately, for a capitalist, there is no time to rest. As capitalists, we must always be aware of the next variable that may benefit or hurt our wealth creation goals and adjust accordingly. Thus, after the panic surrounding the coronavirus starts to fade, I’m certain investors will turn their focus on the Presidential race.

Democratic Socialist, Bernie Sanders has a decent chance of becoming the Democratic nominee for the President of the United States. It’s basically a two-man race between Bernie and Joe. As Bernie’s popularity grows, given his anti-capitalistic policies, so will volatility in the stock market.

After publishing my post, Here’s How Much Money You Need To Retire Early And Live In Poverty, several readers were offended because the definition of poverty was too high. They commented that my premise was absurd and that they live quite comfortably or think they can live quite well on the income levels I highlighted.

I simply used the Federal Poverty Level guidelines and worked backwards to figure out how much capital was needed to earn government-determined poverty-level incomes.

I also wanted to demonstrate, thanks to a decline in interest rates, how difficult it is to accumulate enough capital to earn a reasonable amount of retirement income. I’m certainly feeling the strain.

Don’t shoot the messenger folks!

The negative feedback made me question whether the current government’s definition of poverty was appropriate. Perhaps it is simply too high and encapsulates too many people?

Perhaps if we lowered the poverty income levels for various-sized households, we’d not only save the government a lot of money, but we’d also insult fewer people who make poverty-level or near-poverty-level incomes.

Let’s review the official government definition of poverty and debate whether their levels are truly too high or actually too low.