There's No Place Like Home
Marginal businesses that were struggling pre-COVID19 will be body bagged and cremated, but the vast majority of sound businesses will return. There will be rule changes. There will be changes to the numbers.
Capital Thinking • Issue #567 • View online
If the job can be done in America — even at a slight premium — then it will be urged to be done in America.
It feels like common sense came home after a long overseas stay and said, “Oh, Auntie Em, there is no place like home.”
The idea of making stuff overseas, plundering cheap labor (prison labor, child labor, Uigher slaves/prisoners), ignoring environmental rules, incorporating questionable ingredients — that shit is over.
American Chamber of Commerce, guys, I am talking to you. I will pay a little more for Made in the USA.
The Post COVID19 World Will Be Different?
Jeff Minch | The Musings of the Big Red Car:
I have been mulling the post COVID19 world as this matter continues to evolve.
I have been reading a lot of others’ opinions, many of whom I respect and several of whom I despise — but one has to build a base of knowledge, right?
So, here are some thoughts.
This COVID19 Thing Will End
Just to be clear, there will be an end to this COVID19 affliction.
Yes, there will.
There will be ingrained better hygiene practices (says the chap on his 16,393rd hand washing since 1 Mar 2020), some therapeutics, and a vaccine.
There will be multiple vaccines and the whole vaccine thing will be integrated with the flu vaccine of which 170MM Americans got the needle this flu season. [I got mine at Costco from a guy who had been to school to learn how to do it. Free.]
COVID19 will become like polio — something we figured out, but which was very dangerous. Dr Jonas Salk, University of Pittsburg, talking to you, amigo.
A Slice of America Will Ignore It Completely
Oh, to be 23-years-old, invulnerable, all knowing [I should have run for office back when I knew everything.], and full of the joie de vivre of youth.
There will be some who will not change a single thing and who will barely recall that anything happened. [I honestly don’t recall a single thing about the Swine Flu or the 1970s gas shortages (I was overseas for the gas shortages.)]
Spring Break will return with all of its debauched, cool, reckless mayhem. It will be like nothing ever happened.
Business Will Come Back With a Vengeance
Marginal businesses that were struggling pre-COVID19 will be body bagged and cremated, but the vast majority of sound businesses will return.
There will be rule changes. There will be changes to the numbers.
Every brick and mortar store will have hand sanitizer at the front door, the dressing rooms, and the checkout.
Hand sanitizer will be like caviar. Purell will go public.
Tito’s Vodka will continue its line of hand sanitizer and people will get confused and drink the hand sanitizer after drinking a fair amount of Tito’s vodka. Tito will make a lot of money.
Businesses will come back on a crawl, walk, run continuum. Restaurants of the sit down variety may have some density issues.
Serious issue — businesses are going to look at themselves a little different and while it may be a long time until the next pandemic (25 years), they are going to re-design some of their approaches to business.
This is not directly connected to COVID19; it is because they had time to think about it and to stress test themselves.
Employees
Employees will go to work for businesses that can pay them.
There will be a lot of right sizing, down sizing, re-staffing, upgrading, and hiring. For a short stint, the employers will have an advantage as they suck from a pool of 20% unemployed.
Businesses that have swum deeply in the Work From Home hot spring will really be surprised to see how unproductive some of their people have been and will say, “You know, I think we can get along with 25.43% fewer employees.”
Work From Home
Yeah, WFH is a real thing, but now it will be even bigger. Suddenly companies will be native WFH.
WFHers will have dedicated offices in their homes and they will buy modern art paintings for their backdrops — a nice faux Jackson Pollock is in your future.
Companies will also upgrade the tech for WFH. They will want a certain basic package, not a big hurdle, but something.
There will be an entire WFH protocol, work rules, and dress code.
Zoom will figure out how to have 80 people on one call and Dell curved 34″ computers will fly off the shelves.
One gig Internet service will be mandatory.
Travel v Zoom/Skype/Hangout
Many companies were already up to speed on video conferencing pre-COVID19. This experience just reinforced this smug wokeness.
Good on y’all.
Many companies began to use video conferencing as a wheelhouse management technique. Some companies “first timed” it.
Lots of learning going on.
Some companies will only recede 5% while others will go whole hog, but the bottom line is that every trip will now be tested by this universal value, “Can we just do this via video conference? If not, why not?”
Education
It will be crawl, walk, run and the first crawlers will be turned loose on 1 May 2020.
Geography is going to matter.
Urban environments are going to be slower than the ‘burbs.
While the Trump admin has tried to slap the problem with a checkbook — and they have done it pretty damn well, hat tip to Sec Treas Mnuchin — it is not enough money.
Marginal businesses are toast.
Everybody will be impacted, but in wildly varying degrees.
Young, stupid people will continue to test positive for being young and stupid.
Elderly persons will be very slow and cautious to return to their old behaviors — look, this is one of the reasons they didn’t get picked off in an earlier thinning of the herd.
In a year, it will be completely rear view mirror — therapeutics, vaccine, easy sailing. We will have fewer than 60K dead. It will not feel like the flu, but the numbers will be flu-like.
But, hey, what the Hell do I really know anyway? I’m just a Big Red Car.
Take care of yourself and don’t kill grandma.
*Featured post photo by Scott Webb on Unsplash