When Corona Ends I Wanna See 3 Simple Things

I'm a little ahead of most of the world in these COVID Times. My family and I live in Shanghai. And while we have been remarkably unscathed (so far) by this "silent killer" despite our proximity within 1,000 kilometers of the Wuhan epicenter, its effect on our lives has been tremendous. I spent 6 weeks separated from m wife and kid as they hid out in the countryside during an extended Chinese New Year holiday. My daughter hasn't really been to school since we took her out for the Christmas holidays. For a 3-year-old, these 4 months without her teachers and her playmates will almost certainly have a profound effect.

But from our perspective here in this critical Chinese megacity, we are almost through this terrible epoch! To celebrate, my daughter and I went to the park yesterday, where some sense of normalcy is trying desperately to return. We hadn’t let her play on the playground recently. We told her, “The equipment is dirty and needs to be cleaned,” which she believed when no other kids were playing on them. However, in recent days it seems that many parents have relented.

So, I guess you could say we were peer pressured into letting our kid back on the playground. You'll note, however, that all of these kids are dutifully wearing their masks, even while breaking every social distancing rule known to mankind. It had to happen sometime, though. Today my daughter was shy, almost like she had forgotten how to play with other kids during these past 3 and a half months in isolation.

She’ll come around, I think. So I think that is first and foremost on my "When Corona Ends" wish list. I want to take my daughter to the park and have her run around with the reckless abandon that she used to display during that 30 minutes of playtime after school, just laughing and spinning her top like crazy with the other kids without shyness and without worry. For now, she prefers to be a whole lot more introspective:

Perhaps the most tragic aspect of this crisis in my mind is that we will have a whole generation of kids that grew up where THIS ONE THING will dominate their childhood memories. I mean sure, hopefully, they all get over it and it becomes a distant memory. The masked pictures of everyone in our family cloud will serve as the only reminder. But, honestly, no kid should have to endure this. That's a real tragedy.

My second wish that I would like to see happen when corona ends revolves around the simple stuff in life. I want to go out with my friends and shoot the shit over burgers and beer. It sounds petty, I know. But thinking back to My Pre-COVID Life, I spent countless hours just hashing things out over some beers at the local pub. Now I can't even do that because who knows if my buddies are asymptomatically spewing coronavirus into my suds. That's no way to live!

My third wish is also a bit selfish, but I think it will be great for the economy. While President Trump has given all federal student loans a 0% interest rate for 6 months, I think that even When Corona Ends, this policy should be made permanent. Let me repeat that in big, bold letters so that everyone can easily see it:

MAKE ZERO PERCENT STUDENT LOANS PERMANENT

I will do what I can to make this happen. But imagine the spending it would unlock on the post-COVID economy if you, for instance, gave a whole generation of previously constrained consumers an 18-month holiday on student loan payments and the guarantee that they would never have to pay any interest on those loans again ever. Many borrowers get fed up with forever paying on their mountain of student debt and only seeing the principal get reduced very little each year. It's maddeningly frustrating and almost impossible for most non-finance majors to properly navigate. While the Fed money printer is brrrrrrrr'ing away, it is paramount that we allocate some of that "free money" to bail-in our students in some kind of meaningful way. This policy would do it without incurring the awful "moral hazard" that an outright forgiveness would.

In short, I have three simple things I would like to do When Corona Ends:

1. Watch my daughter play with the reckless abandon befitting a 3-year-old.
2. Grab some brewskies with my buds.
3. Fight like hell to see that at least some of this QE Madness goes towards helping the lower and middle class this time around.

What is on your agenda for When Corona Ends?

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PEACE ✌🏼