We have all gone nuts over a crown

The week that was.Mental health is following the COVID 19 curve very closely. Anxiety and depression have assumed epidemic proportions. Wife and child battery, murder as well as sexual abuse are rampant. This virus brings out the worst in us. Thought mental illness only affects others? Think again

In my Westlands neighborhood, residents buy umpteen bottles of spirits from a convenience store on a daily basis. Alcohol numbs the anxiety and soothes the depression or so they seem to suggest. Are they running mad? – watch their language.

 Last Friday, a friend who was attending a funeral gathering of a young man who had committed suicide, reversed her Toyota Prado into the Toyota Prado of a Real Estate developer whose He was anxious. His SARS-CoV2 positive brother was in the ICU at Aga Khan University Hospital Nairobi and had run up a bill of KES 800,000 in 24 hours. She was anxious. In the middle of this situation, her son had just survived a Pulmonary Embolism. Her son is in his late twenties. Her sister is undergoing radiotherapy and brachytherapy for cervical cancer at Kenyatta National Hospital

The upshot of this is that anxiety and depression fuel irrational actions which can impact other people going about their business. Both these parties had the cash to extricate themselves from this fender bender. My friend went out of pocket to the tune of KES 20,000.She replaced two reflectors. One each for each vehicle and paid for a very small paint job. Both parties value the appearance of their cars.

Senior citizens are going crazy, being locked up in their houses, for their own protection. They need to be kept away from asymptomatic SARS-CoV2 positive young folk who are swarming into the counties that had been locked up and locked down. These possibly crazy youth are back to doing what youth always do – living recklessly.

Parliamentarians and Senators have passed a raft of Bills which penalize the tax paying public. Have they lost their senses like the Teachers who can only wait for January 2021 to go back to work. Police officers have slowed down their contributions to their SACCO. Fewer bribes on the road, perhaps? They must be going crazy.

I know you aren’t among those who supply air to a government project and are still paid. It is those crazy folk, who used to live in Ngei Phase 2 but have now moved to Karen, who did that. They are so sane they don’t know how to tastefully furnish a living room with curtains and upholstery which actually match. The insane nouveau riche what?

I should be raving mad to expect you who has a couple of Million holed up in a bank to shift your money into a Unit linked Trust fund for 36 months at 13.7% interest, tax free with an administration fee of 4% giving you an effective tax free interest of 9.7%.

Relax, I work with Asset Managers who are less mad than you and me. They can wrap their heads around interest rates and returns faster than I can sprint to the kiosk next door. You can’t better this interest but why don’t we meet online or let me visit you so that you can assess my mental stability and vice versa.

 Dr Melvin D'lima is a Financial Advisor with Britam. He works with astute individuals who want a good return on their investment