The coronavirus will have a major economic impact on the world and US economy even if no one you know gets sick. Obviously, if everyone is the US becomes terrified to leave their homes that would do it, but I don’t want this post to be about fear of getting sick or dying, so in this post we’re going to imagine a scenario where the US never has a serious outbreak of the virus. And let’s first add in one more bit of good news…it seems a very small percentage of people that get the virus actually die, so even if you were to get it, you would probably just get sick and then get better. I’m hoping your reading this in peace and not fear because I don’t have any fear over this virus and I certainly don’t want to introduce any to you.
Wow! I wrote this post yesterday, but I didn’t finish it until 10:30 last night. I was still in the office and knew that proofreading and posting would take me till midnight and I decided to go home so most of the “today’s” refer to yesterday. Something incredible happened this morning to confirm this word so I will add that at the end, and I hope this message gets your attention as it has mine.
I decided to write this post because I’m inclined to believe that this virus will indeed be a catalyst to bring about some of the things we’ve been talking about for over a decade on this blog. The Lord showed me over a decade ago that massive changes would come (mighty and wonderful for those who truly live their lives for the Lord and terrible and scary for those who don’t and a great catalyst to get people to clearly choose which camp they want to be in) and much of the content on this blog over the years were about this coming change. Years ago, I published economic updates of every little event or data point that could nudge this coming reality closer, but I got tired of it and the economic news turned around and in recent years has become quite strong. I only wrote four posts last year and they were primarily spiritual in nature.
One of the posts written last year was economic in nature and I just reread it. It’s actually very appropriate in light of today’s post, so you can read that here. It might not seem like an economic post at first, but it gets there.
Today’s post is different from all those others I posted years ago. I’m not throwing a ton of mud at the wall and wondering if something might stick. I’m sharing an impression that I believe is from the Lord. I do not have a clear booming voice on this, so I could be wrong, but I’ll unfold it for you…
When the bird flu, and the swine flu, and Ebola came about in the last decade, I noticed them, but I never thought they would become a pandemic. I’m not prone to fear and merely watched and sometime prayed for the people whose lives were affected by them.
But when this Wuhan Coronavirus (Covid-19) still had less than 1,000 reported sick in China, the news seemed to be highlighted by the Lord. I can’t really claim anything more than feeling like, this is going to be big. This is important.
Then the epidemic hit northern Italy. Many years ago, there was a cruise ship called Costa Concordia that ran aground on the Italian coastline. At the time, I sensed it was a sign that the coming problems in Europe would start in Italy because each deck of the ship was named after a different country in Europe and it ran aground in Italy. And I now notice it shipwrecked in northern Italy.
So the fact that the first European country for this virus to become an epidemic in is Italy definitely got my attention. And today, it was confirmed to have spread from there to Spain. Europe has completely open borders and we’ve already seen the first case reported of spreading from the epidemic in northern Italy. I don’t see how they stop it from spreading there at this point. (Tuesday Update: It has now spread to Southern Italy, Austria, Croatia, Germany, & Switzerland so far)
Interestingly, I had to do a search online just now to get the name of the ship and I saw that the shipwreck happened on January 13, 2012. So I wondered if Jan 13 was a significant date for Covid-19? Turns out it was. That is the date that the virus was first reported in a country outside of China (Thailand). It was also the day that the virus first entered the US. The first person reported to have the virus in the US was in Washington (reported Jan 19-21, but he entered the US on Jan 15th)
The second case reported in the US was in Chicago a few days later, but she entered the US from China on January 13th. So I decided to and started to write this post before I saw those dates, but that further confirms this post to me since I don’t believe in coincidences like that. It also seems to invalidate our imagined scenario, but I’m going to leave that alone for now.
The problem with this virus is that it incubates for a really long time (weeks) before someone knows that they have it and they are contagious during this time. So they go along feeling good and getting other people infected before they know they’re sick. By the time they go to a doctor who can alert authorities to track down everyone who was in contact with the sick person…those who also got sick did the same thing. So it’s a nightmare scenario for virus spreading. Again, the good news is that a very small percentage are dying.
But let’s get back to economics…
Much of the world’s manufacturing occurs in China (most affected country), S. Korea (2nd biggest affected country), and other Asian countries which have varying numbers of infected people. Even American companies who manufacture goods here use parts that come from there. Chinese factories have been shut down for some time and are struggling to get back online. I watched a video today of two policemen dragging a woman away from her small son to bring her back to work. The people are scared and that’s not going to soon change. As supply chains break down, the economy breaks down. Apple and many others have issued warnings about this. Proctor & Gamble just reported that over 17,000 of their products (many of which you probably use every day) will likely have manufacturing issues due to the coronavirus in China.
Also, as people get quarantined (there are close to a billion people under some level of quarantine right now in the world), they don’t spend money which means sales slow (and in China are plummeting.) Many companies’ sales are hurt by this. As sales drop, the economy falters to that degree. Today alone, United Airlines and Mastercard gave sale/income warnings related to this virus.
What do you do if you’re a government leader? If you close your borders, your economy will certainly falter & people will lose jobs and savings (and you’ll get kicked out of office at your next election). If you don’t, your people will get sick and panic (and some potentially die).
The economy of the world will be seriously hurt by this. Governments will print tons of money and take on tons of new debt. If the US is able to not see an epidemic, then I would imagine the US Dollar would stay strong because it would be unique amongst major economies in that regard. Then again, if the rest of the world is hurting for money, maybe they would want to cash in their US Dollars? That is still the economic hammer that most aren’t expecting that I believe will come down at some point. But we don’t need that to experience a traumatic financial event. In any case, the countries of the world are going to push their grand experiment of debt carry and money printing to extremes way beyond what we have today (which is already unprecedented.) It will not end well.
There are excellent ways to prepare financially that did not exist when I began talking about this subject. Obviously the stock market crashed today as it finally realized that this virus is a real threat, but hopefully I’ve demonstrated that this post was planned before that and today’s market action is completely irrelevant in the grand scheme of things.
I’ll put more virus information below but want to change direction to what’s really important.
Why would this happen?
“For it was fitting for Him, for whom are all things, and through whom are all things, in bringing many sons to glory, to perfect the author of their salvation through sufferings. (Hebrews 2:10)
He is bringing many sons to glory. I would encourage you to read this post from nine months ago where I talked about how God is going about fulifilling His plan. God is bringing His plan to fulfillment. He hasn’t forgotten it and He will do it. If you think that means life goes on as normal and then poof, Jesus appears in the clouds and you float up with Him, or you just vanish in a rapture and then the real craziness begins, I would encourage you to really breathe in the scriptures. You might find a verse that you can manipulate to point that way, but that’s not at all the essence of what the bible teaches. He still is going to have a people such as this…
““This day the LORD your God commands you to do these statutes and ordinances. You shall therefore be careful to do them with all your heart and with all your soul. You have today declared the LORD to be your God, and that you would walk in His ways and keep His statutes, His commandments and His ordinances, and listen to His voice. The LORD has today declared you to be His people, a treasured possession, as He promised you, and that you should keep all His commandments; and that He will set you high above all nations which He has made, for praise, fame, and honor; and that you shall be a consecrated people to the LORD your God, as He has spoken.”” Deuteronomy 26:16-19
There is much in the scriptures that must be fulfilled first before Jesus returns in bodily form. His plan is to return in your body! (If you are willing.) He plans to bring “many sons to glory”. To fill His Temple (Eph 2:21). To have a nation of kings and priests (Hebrews & 1 Pet 2:9-10). I don’t want to go on about this, but if this is new to you, I encourage you to start here.
Historically (because it’s God’s way) blessing always goes hand in hand with judgement. And this is a time of tremendous blessing! Seek the Lord in all things. He will divide the wheat from the tares. Do not be distracted by fears. Seek God and what He is doing. He will lead you in all things. And if you suffer a little, well, doesn’t that show you that God loves you and is disciplining you as a son?
“You have not yet resisted to the point of shedding blood in your striving against sin; 5 and you have forgotten the exhortation which is addressed to you as sons,
“My son, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord,
Nor faint when you are reproved by Him;
6 For those whom the Lord loves He disciplines,
And He scourges every son whom He receives.”7 It is for discipline that you endure; God deals with you as with sons; for what son is there whom his father does not discipline? 8 But if you are without discipline, of which all have become partakers, then you are illegitimate children and not sons. 9 Furthermore, we had earthly fathers to discipline us, and we respected them; shall we not much rather be subject to the Father of spirits, and live? 10 For they disciplined us for a short time as seemed best to them, but He disciplines us for our good, so that we may share His holiness. 11 All discipline for the moment seems not to be joyful, but sorrowful; yet to those who have been trained by it, afterwards it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness.
12 Therefore, strengthen the hands that are weak and the knees that are feeble” (Hebrews 12:4-12)
If you are meant to be God’s temple, what could the following mean?
““Behold, I am going to send My messenger, and he will clear the way before Me. And the Lord, whom you seek, will suddenly come to His temple; and the messenger of the covenant, in whom you delight, behold, He is coming,” says the Lord of hosts. 2 “But who can endure the day of His coming? And who can stand when He appears? For He is like a refiner’s fire and like fullers’ soap.”
Seek the Lord in all things, He is doing mighty things!
UPDATE: This morning, former Egyptian President Mubarak died. You might remember that I mentioned him in the Coming Storm message in 2009. If you have not watched that or don’t remember the message, I highly recommend you do so which you can do for free here. (You do have to create a sign privilege.) In that message, I said something very similar to…”When Mubarak dies, there will be chaos in the Middle East.” Well, a couple years later, Mubarak was deposed in the great uprising that became the “Arab Spring” which was absolutely chaos in the Middle East. But Mubarak didn’t die yet, he was only deposed. I had a friend share with me that Mubarak’s death would be a great sign. I don’t typically share most of what he shares with me, but I felt this was an important enough sign that I included it in the Coming Storm message. The fact that I am writing this post as the first update to the Coming Storm message in years….and in the middle of it, Mubarak dies? Well, I hope you take the message seriously.
I also hope that you understand that I’m focusing on the economic elements of this great change in seasons because this blog was created to be about the interplay of walking with the Lord and personal economics. There have been and will be many other changes that are not economic in nature (see Matthew 24). Obviously, the individual lives of each person involved are far more precious than grand economic events. But I’m focusing this post on those events.
More Covid-19 information for those who want it
- The director of the Center for Disease Control says that it will probably spread to the US and is imminent.
- Harvard epidemiologist predicts 40-70% of people in the world will get the virus
- Japan has basically decided the virus can’t be stopped and are instead focusing on treating those who are sickest
- Other virus updates here