bra4you

This is a pretty good answer. With cash you are total contrarian in the current environment. But this strategy also comes with risk. "Haircut" etc.

"Assets? Physical, material goods? Or investment vehicles like bonds and funds?"

Everything.

"What happens when the bubble bursts?"

Good question. High inflation? Strong recession? Or decades of stagflation? Everything is possible. The future is hard to predict.

"What doesn't lose value? Who doesn't wind up underwater?"

"No place left to hide".

"But overly tight money is really really not the way to make land affordable."

It is the other way around. Please google "asset price inflation".

"It's an exceptionally destructive approach." Only in your head my friend.

"Prices of houses may be high but affordability is not because of cheap financing."

A 7 fig house still costs 7 figures. In many countries you can not lock in the interest rates for 30 years but they get re-adjusted after 10 or 15 years. Could be a bad awakening for some.

"Asset prices are bounded by the cost of producing new houses"

1. "asset prices" are not only houses. But also Stocks for example

2. The most expensive thing is most of the time not the house but the land. "Buy land, they stopped making it! - Mark Twain"

Read a few books about economics dude.

"I tried to explain why here"

Well, you failed. Interest rates are historically low. We have seen a gigantic amount of liquidity injected over the last decades.

"The poor are much much more hurt by overly tight money."

What is the most expensive acquisition in their life for the majority of the people? Real Estate. Prices are through the roof thanks to the central banks. Young people are just getting priced out of the market.

Real helicopter money has not been tried yet.

"I wish western world central banks were as competent." Well...

"Western world central banks tend to pressure prices down during economic shocks by withholding liquidity."

Well, we have seen gigantic quantitative easing in the US and the EU and also in China. Inflation - I assume that is what you mean by "pressure prices down" - keeps elusive. Japan has tried for decades to create inflation.

The only thing that the central banks in the world have managed is to create a gigantic asset bubble, via the so called "asset price inflation". They basically build a cash pipeline to all the asset holders. Make the rich richer and the poor poorer.

"Is that a universal truth, or is it historical? Situational?"

It it experience based on historical data. A virus jumping to a new host (species) will be more aggressive in the beginning until it has adopted (mutated) to his new host.

While this is not a universal truth, it is experience and could also be backed up mathematically (>host dies to soon, virus can not spread) and by game theory.

Yes. But not threatening for the human population at all.

AFAIK the flu vaccine is terrible ineffective. I would have to google numbers but the reliability is low.

"I suspect that “chance of dying” varies based on treatment, "

I doubt this. WHile this may be true for a known disease, we have to ask, how much can the hospital do in this cases? It is a little bit like HIV in the beginning. Watch them die?

Interestingly, China is trying HIV medications on the infected.

>50 years is not old. I don't know what is considered old but I know that >75y has a two magnitudes higher mortality rate with the flu.

I doubt that the 50 years old Hospital doctor who died had any serious per-existing health condition. In fact, you could argue hat most doctors have a stronger immune system than average since they are exposed to more germs due to their profession. So this 50y old professional dropping dead is a bad sign! (and hands off to him for his bravery in doing his job).

You could only argue that he cough the strain very early. A virus jumping into a new species is more aggressive at the beginning, later it adopts more to the new host and becomes less aggressive.