With the onslaught of COVID 19, hundreds of thousands of workers were transferred quickly to working from home. Companies needed to maintain work efforts while at the same time complying with shut-down mandates.

This transition in a short period of time from office to at-home work is unique.  Future textbooks will no doubt be written on how to effectively migrate employees from office to home. For now, each institution has employed best practices available.

Across the United States, more and more government leaders are permitting businesses to reopen. However, reopening frequently comes with additional expense because of regulations.

For example, as restaurants reopen the establishment is required to maintain social distancing inside the business.  The difficulty restaurants face is understanding the economic viability of social distancing.  The regulation means you may only operate at 50% of capacity.

With many states forcing businesses to shut down and those businesses that remain open suffering from reduced customers, many tenants will not be able to pay their current rent.

For example, a mattress firm contacted 2,400 landlords informing them that they considered the virus an “act of God” and would not pay rent on their stores. Subway has alerted over 20,000 franchisees to withhold rent payments for an indeterminate period. 

History is a great teacher if we listen.

During the summer of 1878, yellow fever broke out in New Orleans. At the time people didn’t know how the disease was transmitted, but everyone knew the disease was deadly. During the initial outbreak 25,000 people departed the city, and 17,000 stayed. Eighty percent of those who remained became infected; 5000 died. Many departed the city because there had been four previous yellow fever epidemics with devastating results. 

The fever marched up the Mississippi River toward Memphis. Daily reports came by telegraph.  The disease was reported in Grenada, Mississippi on August 9, only 100 miles south of Memphis.  However, the Memphis newspaper simply reported:

A recent article on cnbc.com reported that up to 110 million customers in the United States will have their credit scores altered under a new logarithm. Individuals who have a higher level of debt and/or some additional late payments on their record are more likely to see a negative change while those with less overall debt and strong payment histories will likely see an increase in their FICO score.

A person in business needs to maintain a sterling credit history.  King Solomon wrote, “A good name is to be chosen rather than great riches, and favor is better than silver or gold.”  (Proverbs 22:1, ESV) When a small business seeks credit for their business, the credit history of the owner or owners is critical in the approval process. Also, we know that the higher the score the better the terms; the lower the score means less desirable terms. 

I understand these changes to be reasonable changes. Those who are more reliable with a lower debt load should be viewed as a better risk and therefore should receive a higher FICO score.