Thought experiment

[thyme4change]

Right now there are two incorrect factions - one who is saying that everyone who isn't vaccinated will deservedly die. And the other who is saying that the vaccine is so dangerous that anyone who has taken it will suffer and die in the next 10 years. Neither of those things are going to happen, nor do I want to discuss that. But, let's do a thought experiment on what our country would really be like if 25% of the population - spread out over all demographics - died within 5-10 years. The ramifications are frightening.

We already see global supply chain problems, and corpse disposal problems, and that is only losing about a quarter of one percent of people, who skew elderly.

My biggest concern would obviously be the food chain. We need farmers and manufacturers and truckers and distribution centers to feed everyone now. How would the food supply change?

Another biggie is utilities. How many people does it take to keep the power supply up and running, or clean water in our pipes? Watching how desperate things got in Texas is a pretty big eye opener.

My next thought is wealth management. At what point does the stock market just become worthless? The housing market would tumble. Would everyone just stop paying mortgages?

Any thoughts?

[MJ2.0]

If anything, less people would mean less strain on our food and water supplies. The people living in more congested areas would be more likely to die from these types of communicable diseases, and the people living in less populated areas, - i.e. farmland areas - may not feel the impact that badly. There would be more land for people to spread out on, and with less people fighting over land and housing, perhaps housing and land prices would decrease over time.

I’m trying really hard to think of a downside, LOL….

[haapai]

I can only make myself consider the wealth management issue, what would happen with food and utilities is just too scary to contemplate.  I'm not sure whether stocks would become useless or that people would just stop paying their mortgages.  If wee don't fall into complete anarchy, there would probably be some major inflation.  That sorta points to continuing to pay your fixed-rate mortgage for as long as you possibly can.  Your mortgage note may become a pittance.  Property taxes will probably go up, but those tend to be delayed a bit compared to everything else and are usually dependent on homes selling, which nobody will be doing if they can possibly avoid it.  If what's taking us out isn't infectious, you might see a lot of people closing up their houses and moving in with other people to split utility bills, but continuing to pay the mortgage on the closed-up house. 

ETA:  I probably should have been a bit more specific about the kind of houses that people would close up but continue to pay the mortgage on.  They'd probably consider energy costs when making that decision.  Energy-efficient houses would be less likely to be abandoned as would homes with shorter energy-consuming commutes.  Slapped-together McMansions on tiny treeless lots in the burbs and ex-urbs would probably be abandoned unless the owners had invested heavily in renewable energy and could therefore avoid soaring utility and transportation costs.  

[Tiny]

Is the death rate more or less the same around the world?   Because if it's not that might change the balance of power for many countries.  

I'm gonna do the thought experiment with the idea that all countries have a lot of deaths from Covid19 that are in line with the death numbers in America.   So, everyone around the world is struggling with it. 


That said: 
I live in a densely populated area -  going from 6 million to 4,750,000 million people probably isn't going to change the availability of Utilities for example.   I doubt there are many jobs where only 1 or 2 people hold ALL the knowledge for a particular "job" or "task"   for an area that is hundreds of square miles with a population in the millions.   

I can see shortages in some food products  - I think we'd lose the weird "out of season" foods we've grown accustom to having.    I have a feeling that if enough Farmers die off in America - immigrants (who eke out a living farming in their home country) will opt to to take a chance and go for a better life and possibly more wealth by buying the farms/equipment OR will get hired into those "corporate farm  jobs"  that the dead Americans have left unfilled.     Immigrants will come here to do this - because America has a better infrastructure (I'm guesseing) than their home country -  remember they are "coming to America to build a better life".     Think the 1850's thru the 1920's in America - when immigrants were coming here for a better life (even if it was farming).     Remember - this is why there were lots of immigrants coming to America Around the turn of the 20th century (1900's) - my Grandparents came here to work because jobs in farming/manufacturing back the in MotherLand were few and far between OR were available - but felt "dead end" - you could build a better life (have more) if you came to America and did the same jobs (this would be my Grandparents on both sides).  

I think people might actually start becoming appropriate sized again!  There will be sufficient food in lots of varieties - there will no longer be "4 servings per person sized serving for 1 person.     Think about all the food we currently throw away or that rots before it gets eaten.    Producing less food might not be a bad idea.     

I can see a slow down in the rate of change -  in fashion and durable products but the products will still appear for sale.  Basically, the models aren't going to change every year. 
So, in 2024 -- the brand new 2024 washers/dryers rolling off the assembly line will be almost exactly like the 2020 or 2021 models.   Same will go for anything that gets built - R& and redesigns will stop or slow down dramatically.       And really - if anything the being home for 18 months has shown me that I have plenty of stuff and that I don't really need more stuff... I'm still trying to use up the stuff I have from before  March of 2020....     I think Americans can get by without having to buy new stuff every few months to replace perfectly good stuff they already have (but are "tired" of or "its out of style" or "ooooo new stuff!!! I want that!!!) 


This might be different in less dense more rural areas...   I don't have any experience NOT living in close contact with hundreds of thousands other people (my 2 sq mile suburb has 50K residence and the suburbs across the street from my suburb are almost as densely populated. )  

 but, I can see where the lure of jobs  to drive the trucks,etc  might solve the problems.   I saw an article about how more and more males do NOT go to college/university -  females have bypassed the number of males going to college/university.     What I think this means - college/university generally implies that  "white collar" workers are being churned out.   If fewer men are getting an education for white collar jobs - that means there will be plenty of them to take over the blue collar jobs (this is NOT a put down or me being snarking or bad) that all the dead people use to do.       

If young urban men can't (or don't want) to take urban white collar jobs then maybe we will see a new "great migration" of urban dwellers to more rural areas to fill the open "blue collar" jobs that have opened up (with all the deaths).   

I may be out of date with "white" and "blue" collar jobs.... I don't mean/intend anything bad - both are valuable!  

I think the world (and America) will be just fine with fewer people.   I don't think it will fall into a dystopian world.   there's always an opportunity to thrive/make money/build wealth/get ahead.    

I am reminded of a quote from Margaret Mitchell's  book  "Gone with the Wind": 
“I told you once before that there were two times for making big money, one in the up-building of a country and the other in its destruction. Slow money on the up-building, fast money in the crack-up. Remember my words. Perhaps they may be of use to you some day. (Rhett Butler)” 



 

[thyme4change]

Sept 30, 2021 11:13:45 GMT -5 haapai said:

I can only make myself consider the wealth management issue, what would happen with food and utilities is just too scary to contemplate.  I'm not sure whether stocks would become useless or that people would just stop paying their mortgages.  If wee don't fall into complete anarchy, there would probably be some major inflation.  That sorta points to continuing to pay your fixed-rate mortgage for as long as you possibly can.  Your mortgage note may become a pittance.  Property taxes will probably go up, but those tend to be delayed a bit compared to everything else and are usually dependent on homes selling, which nobody will be doing if they can possibly avoid it.  If what's taking us out isn't infectious, you might see a lot of people closing up their houses and moving in with other people to split utility bills, but continuing to pay the mortgage on the closed-up house. 

ETA:  I probably should have been a bit more specific about the kind of houses that people would close up but continue to pay the mortgage on.  They'd probably consider energy costs when making that decision.  Energy-efficient houses would be less likely to be abandoned as would homes with shorter energy-consuming commutes.  Slapped-together McMansions on tiny treeless lots in the burbs and ex-urbs would probably be abandoned unless the owners had invested heavily in renewable energy and could therefore avoid soaring utility and transportation costs.  

In 2008 a whole bunch of people stopped paying their mortgage because the value of their house dipped below what they owed - sometimes by a lot. If the housing market tumbles because a quarter of houses are now unoccupied and there is less competition to get (more) houses - by 25% - maybe prices would drop by 25%. I wonder how many people owe more than 75% of the value of their house.

[haapai]

I think that you are being obstinant in assuming that the value of every home would drop by an even 25%.  I think that the way that houses are valued would change fundamentally.  Utility and transportation costs would become much more important than the previous price of the house.   

I'm old enough to remember the double-digit interest rates and inflation of the late seventies.  Folks with 30-year fixed-rate mortgages came out of that quite well if they could hold onto their houses.  The memories of pink Owens-Corning fiberglass insulation being displayed in hardware stores are still there.  (I stroked the fiberglass and hid underneath it.)  I remember the wood-burning and pellet-burning stoves.  I remember the keyed gas caps. 

[nidena]

It would be interesting to see how it would effect the soy and corn crops that appear to dominate across the Midwest.  Fewer people driving, less demand for that ethanol crap, less demand for corn to make it.

As for food, there may be an increase in the farm-to-table food items since there would be fewer truck drivers to transport imports and domestic crops from one coast to another.  Less seafood inland, too.

[MJ2.0]

Sept 30, 2021 18:07:23 GMT -5 nidena said:

It would be interesting to see how it would effect the soy and corn crops that appear to dominate across the Midwest.  Fewer people driving, less demand for that ethanol crap, less demand for corn to make it.

As for food, there may be an increase in the farm-to-table food items since there would be fewer truck drivers to transport imports and domestic crops from one coast to another.  Less seafood inland, too.

We would have to do what a lot of other countries do - eat what’s seasonal and local.

[Tiny]

Sept 30, 2021 12:43:56 GMT -5 thyme4change said:

Sept 30, 2021 11:13:45 GMT -5 haapai said:

I can only make myself consider the wealth management issue, what would happen with food and utilities is just too scary to contemplate.  I'm not sure whether stocks would become useless or that people would just stop paying their mortgages.  If wee don't fall into complete anarchy, there would probably be some major inflation.  That sorta points to continuing to pay your fixed-rate mortgage for as long as you possibly can.  Your mortgage note may become a pittance.  Property taxes will probably go up, but those tend to be delayed a bit compared to everything else and are usually dependent on homes selling, which nobody will be doing if they can possibly avoid it.  If what's taking us out isn't infectious, you might see a lot of people closing up their houses and moving in with other people to split utility bills, but continuing to pay the mortgage on the closed-up house. 

ETA:  I probably should have been a bit more specific about the kind of houses that people would close up but continue to pay the mortgage on.  They'd probably consider energy costs when making that decision.  Energy-efficient houses would be less likely to be abandoned as would homes with shorter energy-consuming commutes.  Slapped-together McMansions on tiny treeless lots in the burbs and ex-urbs would probably be abandoned unless the owners had invested heavily in renewable energy and could therefore avoid soaring utility and transportation costs.  

In 2008 a whole bunch of people stopped paying their mortgage because the value of their house dipped below what they owed - sometimes by a lot. If the housing market tumbles because a quarter of houses are now unoccupied and there is less competition to get (more) houses - by 25% - maybe prices would drop by 25%. I wonder how many people owe more than 75% of the value of their house.

In 2008 a whole bunch of people didn't stop paying their mortgage because the value of their house dipped below what they owed.    They quit paying because they could no longer afford the mortgage.     Either because of job loss  OR because they had an 80/20  (80% conventional fixed rate mortgage with 20% VARIABLE RATE HELOC and no money down) or a 80/10/10  (80% conventional, 10% variable rate, 10% cash downpayment).   At some point all those HELOC's interest rates went UP  making their monthly payment bigger.   I have a feeling lots of people stretched really long and hard when they did those 80/20 mortgage/heloc deals (they didn't have any cash on hand to do a down payment.)  - they were thinking they'd have to pay Big Bucks only for a year or less - and then they would refi into a conventional mortgage with a lower payment (and no PMI)- because they assumed the value of the house would go up! up! up! and they would quickly have 20% or more in equity  - and they wouldn't need the HELOC (which was costing them big bucks.)    The other thing that happened was banks stopped making mortgages.   So, if you could no long afford your house - you couldn't sell it - even at a loss.  The bank would write a mortgage on it and potential buyers got spooked by the dropping values. 

The majority of people quit paying their mortgage because they didn't have the money to keep paying it AND they couldn't sell the property (even at a loss).        
 

FWIW:  I've got a house that I bought with 20% down and a conventional mortgage.   Even if the house drops 30% in value (it's worth less than I owe) I'm not selling it that would be more costly to me than keeping it  - as long as I can afford to make the mortgage payments (ie  -  I stay employed  and my tenants stay employed)  I'll hold the house with the hope that property values will eventually go up.   

If this was my primary home - I'd keep paying even if the house was worth less than the amount I owe  - Provided I still had a job and could afford to stay in the house.  I need some place to live.  And odds are my "mortgage payment" would drop some - lower property tax and lower insurance cost....   I need some place to live. 

[Tiny]

Sept 30, 2021 18:07:23 GMT -5 nidena said:

It would be interesting to see how it would effect the soy and corn crops that appear to dominate across the Midwest.  Fewer people driving, less demand for that ethanol crap, less demand for corn to make it.

As for food, there may be an increase in the farm-to-table food items since there would be fewer truck drivers to transport imports and domestic crops from one coast to another.  Less seafood inland, too.

I would think the farmers might switch over to other cash producing crops - I would think all the foods we import from foreign countries might drop off (they've got their own issues at home with all the deaths) OR just a supply chain issue (not enough cargo ships moving). If we can't get the "trade deal" food stuffs from other countries - perhaps farmers here will opt to raise those food stuffs (or animals).

I think the VARIETY of products available would drop (do we really need 40 different breakfast cearals? do we really need 100 different varieties of "chips") But I suspect we will all be eating 3 meals a day.

[resolution]

Right now COVID is killing people in rural areas at twice the rate as people in urban areas. So if the depopulation is due to disease, its quite possible it would hit the rural areas much harder than urban. Totally nonintuitive, but it's where we are at right now.

If that were to happen, I could see small farms being bought up even faster by the big conglomerates until we have all farming in a handful of companies; similar to how meat production is today.  I would expect food prices to skyrocket and become a much larger part of peoples' budgets. 

Towns that were already struggling might go under as they lose the people that support local stores.  If telecommuting becomes more entrenched, that may be a way to keep them populated.

[Rukh O'Rorke]

Sept 30, 2021 12:43:56 GMT -5 thyme4change said:

Sept 30, 2021 11:13:45 GMT -5 haapai said:

I can only make myself consider the wealth management issue, what would happen with food and utilities is just too scary to contemplate.  I'm not sure whether stocks would become useless or that people would just stop paying their mortgages.  If wee don't fall into complete anarchy, there would probably be some major inflation.  That sorta points to continuing to pay your fixed-rate mortgage for as long as you possibly can.  Your mortgage note may become a pittance.  Property taxes will probably go up, but those tend to be delayed a bit compared to everything else and are usually dependent on homes selling, which nobody will be doing if they can possibly avoid it.  If what's taking us out isn't infectious, you might see a lot of people closing up their houses and moving in with other people to split utility bills, but continuing to pay the mortgage on the closed-up house. 

ETA:  I probably should have been a bit more specific about the kind of houses that people would close up but continue to pay the mortgage on.  They'd probably consider energy costs when making that decision.  Energy-efficient houses would be less likely to be abandoned as would homes with shorter energy-consuming commutes.  Slapped-together McMansions on tiny treeless lots in the burbs and ex-urbs would probably be abandoned unless the owners had invested heavily in renewable energy and could therefore avoid soaring utility and transportation costs.  

In 2008 a whole bunch of people stopped paying their mortgage because the value of their house dipped below what they owed - sometimes by a lot. If the housing market tumbles because a quarter of houses are now unoccupied and there is less competition to get (more) houses - by 25% - maybe prices would drop by 25%. I wonder how many people owe more than 75% of the value of their house.

if 25% died, I think housing would fall much more dramatically, 50%, 75%?

[alabamagal]

It is an interesting question. I think the biggest thing would be disruption due to supply chain issues, which would greatly disrupt every day lives. Not catastrophic food shortages, but less options.

I am sometimes amazed at the American consumer society. Just walk into one of the nice gas stations or grocery stores and look at how many types of soda there are. And if I can’t find my exact brand, I am annoyed. When I was on vacation I was at a major grocery chain and they did not carry a grocery item, they had small grocery section, yet they had on full aisle of hundreds of varieties of wine (you can tell I am not a wine connoisseur).

We already are having issues with supply chains. My DH needed a car to replace a totaled car. He needs car to do his job. He is in a large metropolitan area. He wanted a Camry. There were none. He bought a RAV4 (good upscale by the salesman).

I work in drug manufacturing, not vaccines, but we use the same supplies. We have suppliers telling us items that are normally available in 1-2 months could take as long as 2 years to get. It has made my job 10 times harder and we are short staffed. It is a huge disruption. We manufacture drugs for clinical trials. All non-Covid drugs are being delayed.

Personally I don’t think the population decline will be as drastic as noted. We may continue to go through surges, but soon m as my will have vaccine protection or immunity from the virus. Death rates are still a low percentage of infected population and skewed to older population.

[nidena]

I think urban sprawl will contract.  If small towns get hit the hardest, they'll have less commerce available so people will have to choose between commuting to the grocery store or moving nearer to what is available.

More food deserts because fewer grocery stores.

To continue off what Tiny said about using things for longer...thrift stores will have fewer donations.

[Tiny]

TLDR;
I think for this thought experiment it might matter what age groups are experiencing the most deaths. And, unfortunately, if it's older Americans - how does that change things for younger (say under 50 Americans)?



A couple of weeks ago I bumped into a term "Boomer Remover" which I had not seen before (mostly used in articles from March/April of 2020). Which kind of made sense since most of the Covid19 deaths back then seemed to be older people in nursing homes or assisted living.

I looked for some stats on the Covid deaths by age from Covid19 and, yes the  majority of deaths are in the   60yo and older age groups.   So there are something like 500,000 plus fewer "boomers" 

I'm thinking the effect of more older people dying will simply be a bigger transfer of wealth... I know lots of boomers have little wealth - but a lot of them have lots of wealth.  I'm guessing even for the boomers with little wealth - their untimely deaths may still be a financial boon to their adult children who will not have to support them in the future. 
 

[Tiny]

I'm not sure telecommunting is the answer for rural America.

I'm thinking mega corps don't want to have to deal with the security issues of having their back office accounting, payroll, law, whatever other sensitive data or reports splashed across laptops in cafes or in home offices across America. If you only look at work data/info and talk to work related people at work - your employer doesn't have to worry about the people in your house (or your neighbors) seeing or overhearing confidential or info that should be secured.

There's "disaster recovery" as well... if your scattered around your local area workers experience some sort of "disaster" - no electricity for example - the employer has to shut down. If the employer was previously serious about "disaster recovery" the employer MIGHT have generators to keep their office (or part of the office) going... it's hard to get power to employees working outside the office. I'm sure there are other disaster recovery issues...

In other words I think lower paying jobs (with less access to important business stuff) will be outsourced to "tele communting" type work. Not sure that would bring a lot of money into rural America.

I also wonder how many people would like to leave their "urban-ish" areas to live someplace more rural - the quality of healthcare, schools, entertainment options, and maybe additional costs to keep a house/property in shape might not appeal to most middle and high income workers who can tele commute.

[thyme4change]

Oct 1, 2021 8:01:27 GMT -5 Tiny said:

In other words I think lower paying jobs (with less access to important business stuff) will be outsourced to "tele communting" type work. Not sure that would bring a lot of money into rural America.

Now that many companies have been forced to deal with telecommuting, I see them doing some math. It may be cheaper for them. But it may be especially cheaper for them if India, Kenya, Russia or China makes an educational push to provide the US with remote office staff - cheap. Sure, they won't give you a C-level executive, as that is sensitive. But why not telesales or customer service (already done for many companies) or your marketing coordinator/administrator. Your AP or AR people don't have super sensitive information, etc.

20 years ago my entire department was outsourced to India - and that was before telecommuting was an option. They had significant costs - they hired 5 people to replace 4 of us. They had office space in India. They had people travel for extended periods of time for training, etc. Today - send them a laptop and have some kind of monitoring system, and that might be it.

[thyme4change]

Sept 30, 2021 22:00:30 GMT -5 Tiny said:

Sept 30, 2021 12:43:56 GMT -5 thyme4change said:

In 2008 a whole bunch of people stopped paying their mortgage because the value of their house dipped below what they owed - sometimes by a lot. If the housing market tumbles because a quarter of houses are now unoccupied and there is less competition to get (more) houses - by 25% - maybe prices would drop by 25%. I wonder how many people owe more than 75% of the value of their house.

In 2008 a whole bunch of people didn't stop paying their mortgage because the value of their house dipped below what they owed.    They quit paying because they could no longer afford the mortgage.     Either because of job loss  OR because they had an 80/20  (80% conventional fixed rate mortgage with 20% VARIABLE RATE HELOC and no money down) or a 80/10/10  (80% conventional, 10% variable rate, 10% cash downpayment).   At some point all those HELOC's interest rates went UP  making their monthly payment bigger.   I have a feeling lots of people stretched really long and hard when they did those 80/20 mortgage/heloc deals (they didn't have any cash on hand to do a down payment.)  - they were thinking they'd have to pay Big Bucks only for a year or less - and then they would refi into a conventional mortgage with a lower payment (and no PMI)- because they assumed the value of the house would go up! up! up! and they would quickly have 20% or more in equity  - and they wouldn't need the HELOC (which was costing them big bucks.)    The other thing that happened was banks stopped making mortgages.   So, if you could no long afford your house - you couldn't sell it - even at a loss.  The bank would write a mortgage on it and potential buyers got spooked by the dropping values. 

The majority of people quit paying their mortgage because they didn't have the money to keep paying it AND they couldn't sell the property (even at a loss).        
 

FWIW:  I've got a house that I bought with 20% down and a conventional mortgage.   Even if the house drops 30% in value (it's worth less than I owe) I'm not selling it that would be more costly to me than keeping it  - as long as I can afford to make the mortgage payments (ie  -  I stay employed  and my tenants stay employed)  I'll hold the house with the hope that property values will eventually go up.   

If this was my primary home - I'd keep paying even if the house was worth less than the amount I owe  - Provided I still had a job and could afford to stay in the house.  I need some place to live.  And odds are my "mortgage payment" would drop some - lower property tax and lower insurance cost....   I need some place to live. 

Your and my understanding of 2008 is different. My husband is a bankruptcy attorney. Plenty of people who did not lose a job walked from their house because they would have to pay for a mortgage for 10 years just to get to where they owed less than they could sell it for. The number of foreclosures tripled, and banks were negotiating to short sell houses just so they wouldn't own them. I am sure there were plenty of people who lost jobs and couldn't afford their house anymore, but it wasn't the only reason people gave up houses.

I also know that houses own by investment groups were big time abandoned. The group folded because their asset portfolio did not have a positive ROI because they owed a lot of money on houses. I am sure there are stats out there. Didnt you see The Big Short? Scariest fucking movie I have ever seen. The housing market has skewed even more towards corporate ownership.

[Bonny]

Oct 1, 2021 9:11:33 GMT -5 thyme4change said:

Sept 30, 2021 22:00:30 GMT -5 Tiny said:

In 2008 a whole bunch of people didn't stop paying their mortgage because the value of their house dipped below what they owed.    They quit paying because they could no longer afford the mortgage.     Either because of job loss  OR because they had an 80/20  (80% conventional fixed rate mortgage with 20% VARIABLE RATE HELOC and no money down) or a 80/10/10  (80% conventional, 10% variable rate, 10% cash downpayment).   At some point all those HELOC's interest rates went UP  making their monthly payment bigger.   I have a feeling lots of people stretched really long and hard when they did those 80/20 mortgage/heloc deals (they didn't have any cash on hand to do a down payment.)  - they were thinking they'd have to pay Big Bucks only for a year or less - and then they would refi into a conventional mortgage with a lower payment (and no PMI)- because they assumed the value of the house would go up! up! up! and they would quickly have 20% or more in equity  - and they wouldn't need the HELOC (which was costing them big bucks.)    The other thing that happened was banks stopped making mortgages.   So, if you could no long afford your house - you couldn't sell it - even at a loss.  The bank would write a mortgage on it and potential buyers got spooked by the dropping values. 

The majority of people quit paying their mortgage because they didn't have the money to keep paying it AND they couldn't sell the property (even at a loss).        
 

FWIW:  I've got a house that I bought with 20% down and a conventional mortgage.   Even if the house drops 30% in value (it's worth less than I owe) I'm not selling it that would be more costly to me than keeping it  - as long as I can afford to make the mortgage payments (ie  -  I stay employed  and my tenants stay employed)  I'll hold the house with the hope that property values will eventually go up.   

If this was my primary home - I'd keep paying even if the house was worth less than the amount I owe  - Provided I still had a job and could afford to stay in the house.  I need some place to live.  And odds are my "mortgage payment" would drop some - lower property tax and lower insurance cost....   I need some place to live. 

Your and my understanding of 2008 is different. My husband is a bankruptcy attorney. Plenty of people who did not lose a job walked from their house because they would have to pay for a mortgage for 10 years just to get to where they owed less than they could sell it for. The number of foreclosures tripled, and banks were negotiating to short sell houses just so they wouldn't own them. I am sure there were plenty of people who lost jobs and couldn't afford their house anymore, but it wasn't the only reason people gave up houses.

I also know that houses own by investment groups were big time abandoned. The group folded because their asset portfolio did not have a positive ROI because they owed a lot of money on houses. I am sure there are stats out there. Didnt you see The Big Short? Scariest fucking movie I have ever seen. The housing market has skewed even more towards corporate ownership.

It also might have been different regionally. Since I was in AZ at the time (actually left for Germany in 2009) I saw plenty of Buy and Bail; people buying a new cheaper house and letting the bank foreclose on the old over-leveraged house. Their credit would recover faster than it took for the old house price to recover. And AZ had a lot of speculative purchasing going on especially with the NINJA loans.

Of course I was also living part of the disaster by dealing with my mother's upside down condo. So much fraud and so many people who didn't know what they were doing. I made good money on it but I'm glad that chapter of my life is over with! 

[The Walk of the Penguin Mich]

Oct 1, 2021 11:33:50 GMT -5 Bonny said:

Oct 1, 2021 9:11:33 GMT -5 thyme4change said:

Your and my understanding of 2008 is different. My husband is a bankruptcy attorney. Plenty of people who did not lose a job walked from their house because they would have to pay for a mortgage for 10 years just to get to where they owed less than they could sell it for. The number of foreclosures tripled, and banks were negotiating to short sell houses just so they wouldn't own them. I am sure there were plenty of people who lost jobs and couldn't afford their house anymore, but it wasn't the only reason people gave up houses.

I also know that houses own by investment groups were big time abandoned. The group folded because their asset portfolio did not have a positive ROI because they owed a lot of money on houses. I am sure there are stats out there. Didnt you see The Big Short? Scariest fucking movie I have ever seen. The housing market has skewed even more towards corporate ownership.

It also might have been different regionally. Since I was in AZ at the time (actually left for Germany in 2009) I saw plenty of Buy and Bail; people buying a new cheaper house and letting the bank foreclose on the old over-leveraged house. Their credit would recover faster than it took for the old house price to recover. And AZ had a lot of speculative purchasing going on especially with the NINJA loans.

Of course I was also living part of the disaster by dealing with my mother's upside down condo. So much fraud and so many people who didn't know what they were doing. I made good money on it but I'm glad that chapter of my life is over with! 

Yep.  This was back on the old YM and I clearly remember a few people buying a second house for a lot less money and walking away from their current house and have it go into foreclosure.  I remember one guy laughing about how he was 'sticking it to the man'.  

[resolution]

Oct 1, 2021 8:01:27 GMT -5 Tiny said:

I'm not sure telecommunting is the answer for rural America.

I'm thinking mega corps don't want to have to deal with the security issues of having their back office accounting, payroll, law, whatever other sensitive data or reports splashed across laptops in cafes or in home offices across America. If you only look at work data/info and talk to work related people at work - your employer doesn't have to worry about the people in your house (or your neighbors) seeing or overhearing confidential or info that should be secured.

There's "disaster recovery" as well... if your scattered around your local area workers experience some sort of "disaster" - no electricity for example - the employer has to shut down. If the employer was previously serious about "disaster recovery" the employer MIGHT have generators to keep their office (or part of the office) going... it's hard to get power to employees working outside the office. I'm sure there are other disaster recovery issues...

In other words I think lower paying jobs (with less access to important business stuff) will be outsourced to "tele communting" type work. Not sure that would bring a lot of money into rural America.

I also wonder how many people would like to leave their "urban-ish" areas to live someplace more rural - the quality of healthcare, schools, entertainment options, and maybe additional costs to keep a house/property in shape might not appeal to most middle and high income workers who can tele commute.

My employer has transitioned a lot of the higher level functions to telecommute, and I think they are more concerned about hacking and network issues rather than friends and family peeking over their employees shoulders. So far it's working well enough that they let a lot of our leased buildings go and are making it permanent.

I agree that moving to a more rural area is not for everyone. I have been away from the city for over 10 years now, and I am still being taken by surprise with some of the lifestyle differences. For example 2 out of the 3 grocery stores in our new town are closed on Sundays, and the overwhelming majority of restaurants are closed Sun/Mon. 

[jerseygirl]

Price Waterhouse Cooper allows all employees to permanently WFH
My experience with them as consultants was most worked at customer sites majority of time anyway
But interesting move

www.reuters.com/business/exclusive-pwc-tells-us-employees-they-need-never-return-office-2021-09-30/

[nidena]

Something else that came to mind during an eight hour road trip today:

Drive-throughs may become more serpentine to accommodate longer lines and parking lots may become smaller.

As more and more people shop online than ever before, it further reduces the number of people filling up the shopping malls.  There may be a few exceptions but the malls that are hanging on by threads will definitely shutter as more and more retails brands constrict their bricks and mortar presence.  The various articles I've seen show there will be half as many malls by 2025 as there was 15 years prior in 2010.  Yet, warehouses are going up like gangbusters.  I just drove passed a sign on I65 that boats "1,057,000 sq ft available May 2022"

[laterbloomer]

Sept 30, 2021 10:50:09 GMT -5 thyme4change said:

Right now there are two incorrect factions - one who is saying that everyone who isn't vaccinated will deservedly die. And the other who is saying that the vaccine is so dangerous that anyone who has taken it will suffer and die in the next 10 years. Neither of those things are going to happen, nor do I want to discuss that. But, let's do a thought experiment on what our country would really be like if 25% of the population - spread out over all demographics - died within 5-10 years. The ramifications are frightening.

We already see global supply chain problems, and corpse disposal problems, and that is only losing about a quarter of one percent of people, who skew elderly.

My biggest concern would obviously be the food chain. We need farmers and manufacturers and truckers and distribution centers to feed everyone now. How would the food supply change?

Another biggie is utilities. How many people does it take to keep the power supply up and running, or clean water in our pipes? Watching how desperate things got in Texas is a pretty big eye opener.

My next thought is wealth management. At what point does the stock market just become worthless? The housing market would tumble. Would everyone just stop paying mortgages?

Any thoughts?

I don't have the same concerns about not having enough labour as you do. The fact is that at least 25% of our potential labour force is currently unemployed. Then there are all the people that have jobs like "social influencer" We are more than capable of supplying for all our needs. That kind of thinning of the herd would be good for the lower classes from an economic standpoint as they would be more in demand. Like after WWII up unti the 70's.

[finnime]

It's fair to say that a catastrophic death rate would not be evenly distributed. Some are more vulnerable than others, and some are much less likely to be in areas where vaccinations are expected and precautions such as masking taken. Given that, the impact will be disproportionate in locations such as Idaho and Florida, and (much) less severe in places like New England and California. So the economic fallout would also vary. Some states may find themselves to be totally different in 2 or 3 years. Big companies would tend to leave if they can't summon a work force. Economic stability would wobble. The economic inequity among the states would increase dramatically.

I wonder if we'll see another state-to-state migration take place from areas hardest hit to those prospering. It will be interesting.

[Deleted]

Oct 1, 2021 21:12:49 GMT -5 laterbloomer said:

I don't have the same concerns about not having enough labour as you do. The fact is that at least 25% of our potential labour force is currently unemployed. Then there are all the people that have jobs like "social influencer" We are more than capable of supplying for all our needs. That kind of thinning of the herd would be good for the lower classes from an economic standpoint as they would be more in demand. Like after WWII up until the 70's.

A few years ago I watched a Great Courses lecture series on the Black Death, which occurred in the middle of the 14th century and killed between 75 million and 200 million in Africa and Eurasia. So many of the people who did manual labor, especially farming, were killed that the ones who survived were able to get much higher wages after the plague passed. We're seeing some of that with minimum-wage jobs, especially in food service.

I think that more work will be automated- a lot of farming is on industrial-sized farms where one guy in an air-conditioned cab operates some machine that does the work of dozens of humans. Restaurants will continue on-line ordering, ordering at a kiosk, etc. Hotels will continue with "touchless" on-line check-in and housekeeping only on request.

Malls? They were dying already. Maybe a little savings for SS due to all the 65+ who died prematurely. I wouldn't invest in commercial real estate till this passes and we see how the demand ends up. Residential- maybe some of the people who can now command higher wages can afford to buy a house. People may even want slightly bigger homes so they have a work-from-home space.

Interesting times.

ETA:  I hope that companies will start looking at their supply chains and maybe move more manufacturing to the USA or at least spread it around.  COVID and the recent Suez Canal blockage have shown how utterly dependent we were on one country for so many vital things and how some of them (personal protection equipment) were hoarded by that country when we really needed them.

Oct 1, 2021 11:46:31 GMT -5 The Walk of the Penguin Mich said:

Oct 1, 2021 11:33:50 GMT -5 Bonny said:

It also might have been different regionally. Since I was in AZ at the time (actually left for Germany in 2009) I saw plenty of Buy and Bail; people buying a new cheaper house and letting the bank foreclose on the old over-leveraged house. <snip>

Yep.  This was back on the old YM and I clearly remember a few people buying a second house for a lot less money and walking away from their current house and have it go into foreclosure.  I remember one guy laughing about how he was 'sticking it to the man'.  

I saw that on creditboards_dot_com as well. The wording of the standard mortgage pledges the house as security for the loan and some people just said it was "a business decision" that they chose to abandon the house and walk away from the loan. I never was in that position (we'd put $100K down on a $250K house) but it didn't seem right even though it was legal.

[happyhoix]

Oct 1, 2021 21:12:49 GMT -5 laterbloomer said:

Sept 30, 2021 10:50:09 GMT -5 thyme4change said:

Right now there are two incorrect factions - one who is saying that everyone who isn't vaccinated will deservedly die. And the other who is saying that the vaccine is so dangerous that anyone who has taken it will suffer and die in the next 10 years. Neither of those things are going to happen, nor do I want to discuss that. But, let's do a thought experiment on what our country would really be like if 25% of the population - spread out over all demographics - died within 5-10 years. The ramifications are frightening.

We already see global supply chain problems, and corpse disposal problems, and that is only losing about a quarter of one percent of people, who skew elderly.

My biggest concern would obviously be the food chain. We need farmers and manufacturers and truckers and distribution centers to feed everyone now. How would the food supply change?

Another biggie is utilities. How many people does it take to keep the power supply up and running, or clean water in our pipes? Watching how desperate things got in Texas is a pretty big eye opener.

My next thought is wealth management. At what point does the stock market just become worthless? The housing market would tumble. Would everyone just stop paying mortgages?

Any thoughts?

I don't have the same concerns about not having enough labour as you do. The fact is that at least 25% of our potential labour force is currently unemployed. Then there are all the people that have jobs like "social influencer" We are more than capable of supplying for all our needs. That kind of thinning of the herd would be good for the lower classes from an economic standpoint as they would be more in demand. Like after WWII up unti the 70's.

I was thinking the same thing. There is a large chunk of our population that (to be crass about it) don’t provide essential services work like being farmers, fire fighters, truck drivers, etc. Retirees, children, the idle rich, students, these people may provide intangible value and would be greatly missed, but their loss wouldn’t cripple the economy the same way losing 25% of the farmers or fire fighters would. At the same time, you would have retirees, SAHMs, and other people who were out of the workforce before who could step up to assist if we had such a significant labor shortage. 

The method of how these people died also matters - a disease like covid, but more lethal? That would cause a great deal of food hoarding and isolationism. People would flee the cities for more remote areas. There would be a lot of riots and civil unrest. If it was something that you couldn’t catch - say a disease like mad cow disease that the whole world was unknowingly exposed to from a new pathogen in the water supply, but once it was discovered they were able to instantly fix the problem, and now only those people who had actually consumed the tainted water are going to die over the next 5 - 10 years - then it would be more a problem of providing healthcare for such a large number of people, and having enough people to keep production running. 

Looking way back to the Middle Ages, after one of the Black Plague events when the population was reduced by a third, the shortage of warm bodies to work in the fields forced the nobility to start paying their serfs more for their work, which ultimately led to the creation of the tradesmen middle class. Maybe a similar shortage of manpower would be what it finally took for the top 10 percent that own 70% of the wealth in this country to start spreading that around a bit. 

[thyme4change]

Oct 2, 2021 7:28:39 GMT -5 @athena53 said:

Oct 1, 2021 21:12:49 GMT -5 laterbloomer said:

I don't have the same concerns about not having enough labour as you do. The fact is that at least 25% of our potential labour force is currently unemployed. Then there are all the people that have jobs like "social influencer" We are more than capable of supplying for all our needs. That kind of thinning of the herd would be good for the lower classes from an economic standpoint as they would be more in demand. Like after WWII up until the 70's.

A few years ago I watched a Great Courses lecture series on the Black Death, which occurred in the middle of the 14th century and killed between 75 million and 200 million in Africa and Eurasia. So many of the people who did manual labor, especially farming, were killed that the ones who survived were able to get much higher wages after the plague passed. We're seeing some of that with minimum-wage jobs, especially in food service.

I think that more work will be automated- a lot of farming is on industrial-sized farms where one guy in an air-conditioned cab operates some machine that does the work of dozens of humans. Restaurants will continue on-line ordering, ordering at a kiosk, etc. Hotels will continue with "touchless" on-line check-in and housekeeping only on request.

Malls? They were dying already. Maybe a little savings for SS due to all the 65+ who died prematurely. I wouldn't invest in commercial real estate till this passes and we see how the demand ends up. Residential- maybe some of the people who can now command higher wages can afford to buy a house. People may even want slightly bigger homes so they have a work-from-home space.

Interesting times.

ETA:  I hope that companies will start looking at their supply chains and maybe move more manufacturing to the USA or at least spread it around.  COVID and the recent Suez Canal blockage have shown how utterly dependent we were on one country for so many vital things and how some of them (personal protection equipment) were hoarded by that country when we really needed them.

Oct 1, 2021 11:46:31 GMT -5 The Walk of the Penguin Mich said:

Yep.  This was back on the old YM and I clearly remember a few people buying a second house for a lot less money and walking away from their current house and have it go into foreclosure.  I remember one guy laughing about how he was 'sticking it to the man'.  

I saw that on creditboards_dot_com as well. The wording of the standard mortgage pledges the house as security for the loan and some people just said it was "a business decision" that they chose to abandon the house and walk away from the loan. I never was in that position (we'd put $100K down on a $250K house) but it didn't seem right even though it was legal.

I watched that same thing! Grave diggers made a fortune and after being in the lowest caste forever - they became somewhat middle class!

[Tiny]

Not sure the Black Plague is a good comparison.. I thought it kind of "rolled" thru various populations over the course of many years/decades killing people.

Which would seem to imply that when it hit locally - if it killed enough people there would be food shortages (because the local people couldn't easily import food from hundreds of miles away - where people weren't dying in droves from the plague (well they would be - eventually - but it might not be for year or two).

The world did have quite a bit of trade and "routes" and what not...back then but not like today. People can travel anywhere in the world (in 24 hour time frame) and products can cross the oceans in a few days or a couple of weeks (the products MIGHT need to sit in a port/warehouse for some days or weeks - but once they are on a moving cargo ship crossing the worlds oceans doesn't take that long.)


I think the biggest threat would be when people who are running countries (or in charge of armies) die off in quick succession. That kind of thing can make for domestic chaos as power unexpectedly changes hands - or worse when a "vacuum" occurs and there are lots of factions trying to fill the void.

[stillmovingforward]

Interestingly, I think corporate farms might not take over. I live in a small rural farm area and our farms have done better with the lockdowns and similar. Our farmers are local and can get the foods to the stores easier and in better shape to resale. Farming friends tell me it's been a good 18 months once they figured out how to make the pivot.