For three years this day doesn’t exist.
If fact, there are all manner of jokes that can and have been made about today.
Like, do people who are born on this day only have a birthday party once every four years, and, for a 20-year-old, you don’t look a day over 80!!
It seems to be a pivotal day, this year, for a variety of reasons.
The first, we’re sitting on the precipice of a worldwide health disaster brought on by something called the coronavirus.
And, no, I’m not talking about THAT brand of beer.
Some people are calling it a pandemic, some are saying its arrival in their country is inevitable, and others are saying it will not happen.
North Korea, of course, will be the only country that doesn’t have an outbreak.
Period.
It will be interesting to see what happens in America.
In Australia, we acknowledge its coming and are getting ready. We’ve been rather good at keeping prests and bugs at bay for many years, but this one, this is a little trickier with its ease of transmission from carriers who don’t even know they have the virus.
But that’s probably the least of the problems. With the financial markets in meltdown, we all sitting back and watching our retirement funds disappearing before our eyes.
This has happened before, fund managers ignoring the warnings and letting investors funds halve so that yesterday I had a million dollars and was looking comfortable in retirement, today, that’s only half a million, and not nearly enough.
And the markets are likely to sink lower as the fallout from the bug continues.
What happens when China (and Asia for that matter), where most of the world’s manufactured goods come from, completely come to a stop?
Panic buying, or panic in the streets?
I thought the Iran/America crisis was going to shut down the oil supply and cause problems.
It seems that a more simple problem, like a bug, is going to do a far better job of it.
And, what will the world be like next 29th of February in four years’ time?