We Have All Been Here Before

I've been reading a great deal of difficult stuff (economics) for what will probably turn out to be a relatively short post.  But I've got to share something I came across in an article that I'll probably not be able to use.

There have been pandemics aplenty before, and if it seems currently like we haven't learned anything from them, that is not quite true.  We actually know where they come from and how to stop them (see "Ebola").  And they knew where it came from and how to stop it in 1720, when the bubonic plague struck Marseilles and southern France; at over two years, it was the longest pandemic on record. 

In a stunning reflection on the stubborn, not-susceptible-to-the-lessons-of-history greed and foolishness of the human animal, the stories of Marseilles in 1720, according to the New Statesman, is far too similar to the current stories of the mismanaged countries which have kept the current pandemic going when it could be all but over.

The French remembered the first plague, almost four hundred years before, and had suffered smaller outbreaks ever since.  They knew where the plague came from, and how to stop it.  An extensive system of inspections and quarantine laws had kept disease at bay for a long time.  But humans will be human.  In Marseilles, it was greedy merchants and shipowners who evaded the extensive and (up until then) effective inspection and quarantine process who brought the plague into the city.  And then the city fathers - tradesmen, all of them - who "dithered" about whether to do anything about it:

The city's primary municipal magistrate, Jean-Baptiste Estelle, owned part of the ship as well as a large portion of its lucrative cargo.  He used his influence to arrange for the premature unloading of the cargo onto the city's warehouses so the goods could be sold soon thereafter at the trade fair.

The number of infections and deaths began to climb within days... Instead of undertaking emergency measures... officials launched an elaborate campaign of misinformation, going as far as hiring doctors to diagnose the disease as only a malignant fever instead of the plague.

Proper municipal responses weren't put into effect for two months (two months!), and by then 10,000 citizens of the city had fled, taking the plague with them.  Half of the population of Marseilles died. 

I guess we just don't learn.  Or maybe we do, and because of that, it was only Marseilles, not every major port in Europe, that was devastated.  Given the current missteps, though, born out of both ignorance and greed, it's hard to be optimistic about the new world.

One Thing We Know For Sure

Actually, there is one thing we know for sure about the new world:

Climate change will be waiting for us when we emerge from the now, and will be all but unstoppable:

Climate change has been unstoppable, given that stopping it requires massive political will that no one with the power to do so seems interested in creating, for quite some time now. 

It's a thing we can count on.  Just sayin'.

Reset Redux

Just a couple more things to finish up the previous post.  I'll only keep you a moment.

First, why did we spend so much time on this piece of research from a business consulting firm?  Because it was the first piece that seemed to take the notion of espying the new world seriously.  Over a hundred people whose thoughts might be useful or interesting.  That is worth taking some time with.  It stood out in a landscape littered with clickbait and speculation and "wouldn't it be great."

Second, there's a promise of "deep-dive" articles that will follow.  As usual, I'll read them so you don't have to.  Stay tuned.

And third:  This report has helped me start thinking of a larger picture of emerging thought about the new world.  Patterns are beginning to develop, and larger themes are being investigated and built out.  No one's got a clear and unobstructed view, but maybe there are some birds, there on the horizon.  Or not.  Maybe the the following deep dives will provide a little more clarity.  

That's it.  Thanks for your attention.

Characteristics of the Great Reset

Remember "Unthinkable?"  I've been looking back at that article, and digging deeper.  The E&Y article is a summary of a longer, more detailed article (link to .pdf can be found on this page).  This, toward the beginning, is what drew me in:

The idea that something very different - a "new normal" or "great reset" - lies on the other side of this devastating pandemic has entered the mainstream consciousness.  Aspects of the pandemic that were initially murky have become somewhat clearer.

Here at The New World, we've been living in the murk for a long time.  

E&Y conducted extensive interviews with over 100 "senior professionals - including academics, futurists, non-governmental organization representatives, investors, CEOs and other business leaders."  The results were organized in four broad categories, each with subcategories:

The Global Order:  

- There will be a shift in global leadership that we have talked about before, although there was a somewhat substantial level of worry about a move toward more authoritarianism, which is something to think about.  But there was a lot of "too soon to tell-ism" in this one

- "Globalization will go regional."  That sentence doesn't make a lot of sense to me; I'm sure they meant that instead of talking about, and aiming for, a single global market, we'll be developing more regional markets and economies that will be more resilient when disrupted.  Apparently, we've learned our lesson.  Supply chains will be regionalized.  Manufacturing will move closer to markets.  "Just-in-time" inventory management failed us when we needed it most (most dramatically in the disastrous effect on employees of meat packing plants), and alternatives - perhaps more expensive alternatives - will be developed, including widely-dispersed, more local food sources.  Indoor farming, including vertical farming, a sector that has been growing slowly, will speed up to meet this local food demand.  Interestingly, all this will lead to fewer, not more, truly global companies, meaning some global corporations will make the decision to withdraw from the global stage and concentrate on building more resilient regional operations.

- Many travel, immigration and workforce migration restrictions will remain long after COVID-19 is no longer a major threat - for economic reasons, because the economic effects will long outlive the virus.  Resilient sectors and corporations will adjust - remember the rice-planting machines?  WFH will also help with this - "companies will move to global remote workforces."  We've talked about that, too.

Societies and Economies

- "Societies will address inequality and repair social safety nets" and "Action on social justice issues will increase." are two of the three subcategories here, and the the commentary is essentially what we talked about here.  Still no evidence whatsoever that things will not snap back to status quo ante as soon as possible.  "Our social contracts will be rewritten by COVID-19."  Give me some kind of sign, OK?

-"Urban landscapes will be re-mapped."  Something else we've talked about.  More and more, I think this is a good thing, that it will happen in some way, and that it will help address some of the social and economic difficulties that the pandemic has exacerbated.

Firms and Markets  

- This category's prediction is almost entirely about the digitization of work - another trend which has slowly been changing the way we work, but was turbo-charged when everything shut down and everyone stayed home.  The "senior professionals" who participated in this conversation were more unanimous about this area than any others.  From corporate leaders pivoting to a digital leadership style, to small local companies recruiting from the best talent available worldwide, "the delinking of talent from place" will change the way many or most of us work.

- "You may need a Chief Cultural Officer."  Turns out that this refers to corporate culture, not human culture.  Scattering employees all over the globe makes it hard to establish and maintain corporate culture, and, to the extent that this is important to your corporation, you'll want to do something about it.

Individuals and Households

- We'll be more likely to trust who we know.  Trust in larger institutions and governments has been declining and that decline will certainly accelerate do to the (largely accurate) perception that the pandemic and the economic collapse has been mismanaged.  "This trend will sustain or worsen polarization and reduce societal trust."  Everyone's world has shrunk in a time of fear and uncertainty, and it will be difficult for many to rebound into a world where we're vulnerable and dependent on forces we are not familiar with.  Even personal relationships - which have been digital and distant for so long - may suffer. 

"Minimalist and self-sustaining lifestyles could endure beyond the pandemic."  So many of us have done without for so long, and adapted as time went on.  We might be happy to retain some of the strategies that have resulted in more security and a simpler life.  Diminished and more mindful consumption; more do-it-yourself solutions; cooking meals at home from scratch.  Discussion participants "overwhelmingly indicate that they expect these shifts to continue in some form after the pandemic is over."  

Mental health implications.  Fear, uncertainty, loss; financial disasters, parents working from home, disruption in schooling, and massive healthcare impacts of many kinds.   Lots of new cases of PTSD, and those with existing conditions who have missed therapy or meds will need even more services.  Will the new world include an enhanced emphasis on mental health services?  The participants were "optimistic," but could offer nothing more than that.  "Mental illness has long been the silent pandemic of modern life; COVID-19 might finally bring it out of the shadows." 

Just a few thoughts before I dismiss you all (I know, I know - class has gone way over time, most of you have left, just a few more minutes...).

First, it may be encouraging to see that a lot of the major conclusions here have already been treated in one post or another of "The New World."  Not that I'm at all prescient or perceptive; it's because many thinkers, coming at this from a wide variety of directions, seem to be coming to the same conclusions.  This may be because humans tend to think alike - and make the same mistakes - or it could be that the murk is clearing.

Second, a lot of the thinking about the new world seems to acknowledge that another pandemic is coming.  And another.  In the back of our minds, we feel like we need to be ready, and we move in that direction.

Third - and I didn't highlight this much in this summary - long-term thinking seems to come into thoughts about the new normal.  And it's more than the obvious "wow, what a disaster!  Let's be ready for the next one!"  I got a (very subjective) feeling that the intrinsic value of long-term planning was being valued a little more than usual.  Wishful thinking? Maybe.

Thanks.  Class dismissed.

The Baby Boom

Here's some evidence to suggest that we don't really know much about the new world.

We heard about the baby bust in June.  Disasters create uncertainty, and in an uncertain world people put off having children.  When the disaster lasts for a year, the effect is magnified.  So - fewer children in the new world.

But wait - this particular disaster has prevented millions of women from accessing family planning services, contraceptives, and abortion services.

Lockdowns, travel restrictions, supply chain disruptions, the massive shift of health resources to combat COVID-19 and fear of infection continue to prevent many women and girls from care.

In 27 countries surveyed, two million fewer women accessed these services in the first half of 2020 as did in the same time period in 2019.  The US Population Fund suggests as many as seven million unwanted  pregnancies as a result of the pandemic.  All of these children will be, in some sense, unwanted.

Of course, we can have a baby bust and a baby boom at the same time.  The difference is, at first glance, that the bust will be among wealthier populations with more regular and reliable access to services, while the baby boom - and a heartbreaking flood of unwanted children - will occur among those with the fewest resources.

More of the same.  There has to be a point where the systemic injustice becomes so present, so excruciating, that there is a shift in the worldwide political will.

Or maybe not. 

No More Cheeseheads

I've been tuning in to the Democratic National Convention since the 1960s, mostly on radio (no TV) or (more recently) on the internet.  I've heard all the great speeches - Ted Kennedy in 1980; Mario Cuomo in 1984; Barack Obama in 2004.  And who can forget 1968, in Chicago?  That was the first year I could vote.  And in 2012, I was a delegate to the DNC in Charlotte, NC, from our upstate NY Congressional District.

I watched the DNC's first night last night, and was struck by how much more I liked it than any other I had watched and listened to.  It was pure content - no cheering crowds, no ubiquitous signs or horns, no cheeseheads from Wisconsin, no delays between speakers.  No talking heads to tell us what to think, and no edited shots of audience members to drive the narrative.

I will be very disappointed if the new world does not include virtual national presidential conventions.  I think we were surprised by this category of changes that may become permanent:  we had to do it this way, and, wow, it turned out so much better than how we used to do it!

Conventions are more than their speeches, I know.  But I'm not interested in much of that other stuff.  I suspect a lot of it went on because  that's the way we always did things.  How much more efficient this way is - it's a lot cheaper for everyone concerned, and reduces carbon-intensive air travel (or, in my case, a 1,500 mile round trip in a hybrid car).  It's sparse, elegant and packs everything into a two-hour evening.  Delegates voted remotely, so that can be done, meaning none of the actual legal participants has to be in any particular place.  

I suspect that there are more folks like me who would love to watch American democracy unfold like it did last night.  Looking forward to tonight.

PS: Watch the official DNC feed here:  no talking heads, no commercials, just the Convention.

UPDATE:  Kevin Drum agrees with me.  But I got there first.

Graffito

 

"We can't return to normal, because the normal we had was precisely the problem."

                                                                                                    - Hong Kong

A Fantasy

With any luck, no college athletes will be unnecessarily exposed to the virus because (at least) fall sports will be cancelled everywhere.  

A fantasy immediately sprang to mind when thinking about this.  It's not a "wouldn't it be great," it's a fantasy:

Here it is:  The 2020-21 academic year involves no college sports at all, because, for some reason, we all made non-greed-based, grown-up decisions about exposing young adults to a deadly disease so we could sit on the couch and eat Doritos.  The world did not end.

The result - the new world of college sports?  Understanding that we can survive without college football, and, at the same time, understanding the horrific consequences of repeated concussions on one's ability to think straight going forward, we just get rid of college football altogether.  Done.  Gone.  What is an expensive and dangerous activity for the vast majority of colleges who don't make any TV money from football, is no longer in the budget.  The rather small number of Division I schools who make money from their football programs - they'll figure it out.  They're all very big schools, with enormous budgets.  They can look around at other very big schools without millions in TV money, and see how they do it (Hint:  For a start, pay your coaches the same salary you pay the rest of the faculty).

In fact, let's take TV money out of college sports entirely.  This will probably have the biggest impact on the Division I basketball programs, but again - big schools, lots of models for reform.  TV networks can broadcast games, but they don't pay the schools to do it.

One of the really important benefits of this new world innovation is that athletes in big colleges no longer serve as the unpaid farm system for the NFL and the NBA.  These professional organizations can set up their own farm systems and leave the colleges alone.  Using colleges as a farm system is about as bad an idea as providing health insurance through employment.

So in the new world (my fantasy new world), you go to college if you want an academic degree, and you go to farm team tryouts if you want to be a professional athlete.  Students participate in a wide variety of extracurricular activities, some of which are sports (but not football).  

As a bonus, we get to fix the map:

Win-win.

The fact that this is probably the most controversial post in the entire blog kind of proves the point.

The Momentum of the Ongoing Crisis

 All countries have the opportunity to reset all the systems... Our current goal is not only to escape the pandemic and get through the crisis, we are taking measures to make a big leap by making the most of the momentum of the ongoing crisis.

Joko Widodo is President of Indonesia, the world's fourth most populous country.  I know nothing about him, and I hope he's not a fraud, because I like the way he thinks.

This crisis has forced us to change our way of work, from standard ways to outstanding way, from ordinary ways to extraordinary ways, from a long and complicated procedure to a smart shortcut... We must undertake fundamental reforms in the way we work...

The AP notes that Widodo "did not elaborate on how those efforts would be funded."  Doesn't matter.  We're all going to be broke when we reach the new world.  We'll find a way.  We need to see the opportunity, not make a mad rush back to the conditions of the before, which will be comfortingly familiar, but where lots of things didn't work.  Those who talk like this now, and act like this then, will make the new world a better place.

The Injustice of Inequality

I want to do the kind of post that I have turned my nose up at a number of times:  "Wouldn't it be great if the pandemic will result in this thing I really want, happening in the new world?"

This thing I want is some movement on the injustice of inequality.  

It's relevant, I think, so points for that.  As time goes on, and the virus burns through the red states, we are learning that the victims are not just Democrats, but people in the condition of poverty, and, therefore, people of color.  That connection is, actually, the whole point.  The injustice of inequality.

Most of us are at least vaguely aware of the fact that people of color are dying of the virus at rates that are greater than other racial groups.  In one Wisconsin county, 26% of the residents are African Americans, but they account for 70% of the deaths.  This kind of thing is the rule, not the exception.

Here's how the CDC describes it:

Long-standing systemic health and social inequities have put many people from racial and ethnic minority groups at increased risk of getting sick and dying from COVID-19.

When I read that, I thought, "Well, that does it.  Not much more to say than that."  

But of course, there's more.  Why is this so?  

The CDC report goes on to list a few major factors leading to the disproportionate number of deaths by people of color:

- Discrimination.  Again, the CDC says it better than I can:  "Discrimination in... heath care, housing, education criminal justice and finance.  Discrimination, which includes racism, can lead to chronic and toxic stress and shapes social and economic factors that put some people from racial and ethnic minority groups at increased risk for COVID-19."

- Healthcare access and utilization.  "Healthcare access can also be limited for these groups by many other factors, such as lack of transportation, child care, or ability to take time off work; communication and language barriers; cultural differences between patients and providers; and historical and current discrimination in healthcare systems."  

- Occupation:  "People from some racial and ethnic minority groups are disproportionately represented in essential work settings such as healthcare facilities, farms, factories, grocery stores, and public transportation."  I would add one point.  When the lists of "essential businesses" are drawn up, "essential" often means "essential to my bottom line."  Which is more essential than the health of workers in meat processing plants.  We could live without chickens for a few months if we had to, but the lives of hundreds of Latinx and African Americans were deemed less valuable than a continuing cash flow.  

- Educational, income and wealth gaps.  Which result in lower-paying jobs, which turn out to be "essential" but do not provide sick leave or health insurance.

- Housing.  Which often tends to be crowded, so more people can chip in for the rent.  And which is probably not within walking distance of work, meaning public transportation, which is another way we pack a lot of people into a small space, so they can share their germs.  And guess which socio-economic sections of town have few or no ICU beds?  

Let me add my own candidate for unjust disproportionality.  Our justice system imprisons people of color at a much higher rate - for the same crimes - as whites, so prisons are disproportionately dark-skinned.  And prisons, of course, are, along with nursing homes, the virus's promised land. 

Oh - and "minority groups are significantly underrepresented in vaccine & drug trials" - even though we know that they suffer way more infection and death than the people who the testers are actually using as subjects.  Systemic racism, anyone?  And in April, when the Federal government gave out as many as 500 million face masks (no one seems to know exactly how many), some private schools got enough for 50 per student, while many meat-processing plants - and their brown faces working hard all day in close proximity - got none.  And people of color have much higher rates of the kind of chronic health conditions - diabetes, heart and lung diseases - that results in much more severe course of the virus, and a higher rate of death.

We know that race and poverty have been conflated for so long that it has never been simple to separate them:

There are so many stories of unequal opportunity, unequal resources, unequal results, and most of them impact people in poverty and people of color in the same degree, at the same time.  A map of NYC's five boroughs shows an almost perfect inverse correlation between wealth and prevalence of COVID-19.  If you're of color, you're more likely to be poor, and vice versa.  Either way, you're in COVID's sights.

We have been talking about wealth and income inequality for a very long time.  It's been an undercurrent in our national culture, like the hum of a refrigerator:  occasionally it's annoying, but we usually don't notice it.  

The massive protests against racial injustice that are energizing our communities could not have come at a better time.  Wouldn't it be great (remember where we started?) if the stark horror of death by inequality that COVID-19 is becoming would result in some systematic change?  Wouldn't it be great if we really wen to war with poverty and racism? 

It's beginning to look like we'll have to fight for our new world.

Maybe It's Just a Shakedown Cruise

I got one of those intermittent e-mails from our financial services people this morning, the kind of thing that lays out advice for various financial events (retirement, college expenses, etc.) and, almost always, counsels us to stay the course and stick to both our goals and our investment strategies.

We meet with our advisor - who we like a lot - occasionally, and often give him a hard time if the stock market is down.  He always, good-naturedly, shows us the long-term (decades-long) chart of the stock market, which shows a lot of spikes and dips but always trends upwards.  Even after the crisis in 2009, it didn't take long for business to be as usual.

I was interested in what today's e-mail might say about being in the middle of the Atlantic in 1492.  I guest I wasn't too surprised:  stay the course, stick to goals and strategies.

One point interested me.  The message asked the question:  

"Did the downturn keep you up at night, or cause emotional moves, such as reducing risk or moving out of the market?  If so, it's probably time to examine the level of risk in your portfolio.

The combination of "stay the course" and "adjust your portfolio for your risk tolerance" - both messages we have heard constantly for years - means one of two things, I think.  First, that the industry thinks that things will get back to normal, just as they have after every disruption since the end of WWII.  The new world, then, will be a lot like the old world, investment-wise.  

Or perhaps not.  Perhaps there is not a sense of moving on to a place where the rules are different. Denial (We can't change that much)?  Politics (It's not really that bad)?  It won't take anything more than an adjustment of your risk tolerance.  Nothing to see here; you're overreacting.  Does the financial services industry think we're on a shakedown cruse and will return to Palos de la Frontera sometime soon?

Either way:  we haven't looked at our investments since February.  When we get to the new world, we'll see what we've got. 

Time for a Cartoon

 

"Looks like progress, but it's too soon to tell."

                                                                                                            New Yorker, 8/12/2020

Pure Waiting

I've written before about waiting - about how the new world is a long way off.  For instance, here and here.  

Columbus did a lot of waiting, too, as did the third mate on the Pinta.  Not, as I've noted, anywhere near as long as our wait has been.  And Columbus' wait was actually a little shorter.  When you get close to land - any land - there are telltale signs.  Cloud patterns, rain without wind, sticks floating in the water, and, most usefully, birds.  So "Tierra!  Tierra!" wasn't a complete surprise; the pure waiting had ended a few days earlier.

We're still in the midst of the pure waiting.  No sticks, no birds.  Logic suggests that the virus will burn through the most vulnerable and most available, and then die down.  But that's just logic, based on theories, hopes, and not nearly enough hard evidence.  The same could be said about Columbus, before the sticks, before the clouds and rain.  

We're still in the middle of the Atlantic.  We're not talking as much about "after the pandemic," and what's being written about the new world seems desultory, like they were phoning it in.  

Eventually, we're going to start seeing signs of scurvy.

Nancy's Mask Got Game

My wife is a great admirer of Nancy Peolsi's mask stylings.  I, of course, didn't notice until she pointed it out, but Nancy's masks are elegantly matched to the dress she's wearing.  When she's speaking, and she has the mask down, it looks like a nicely-matched scarf.  It enhances her look, as opposed to all the rest of us.  

So my wife, knowing that I was in the new world business, suggested that, in that new world, if people continue to wear masks (as my son - below - suggested) when they have colds, then dresses might routinely come with an essential accessory:  a matching scarf, perhaps made from the same fabric as the dress.

So -if my son is right, then my wife will be.  Me?  I just report the news.

Masks

My son says he thinks that, in the new world, people with colds and flu-like symptoms will be much more likely to wear masks while the symptoms persist.  Or at least some people.

In Asia, this was true in the before:

In Asia, it's considered good hygiene to wear a mask.  It's thought to be considerate of others.  It can even be stylish to wear a patterned mask.

Most of the 8,000 victims of the SARS outbreak in 2002-3 were in China and Hong Kong, so here's an example of a ratchet maintaining a good habit after it is no longer essential.  

Will that happen in other places, in the new world?

I hope my son is right.

The Next Pandemic. And The Next.

Our current set of difficulties with the coronavirus is, apparently, a "starter pandemic."

Just Google "next pandemic" and you're set for a couple of days of grim reading.  The WHO has a prep page, and an annual simulation exercise (the last one was "cat flu").  Prep for the next pandemic, by the way, will cost $30 billion.  Annually.  Quite a bargain, apparently, given that the last six months have cost us around two and a half trillion.  

There is even a Disease X, which is an avatar - a hypothetical stand-in - for the next of the one and three quarter million unknown viruses, existing in the world today, which "spills over" from animal to human.  About forty to fifty percent of them seem to be able to make this jump.  This apparently happens a lot, but most, it seems, are not transmissible from human to human.  But there only needs to be one - and then the next one and the next one.

This 'spillover' of viruses from animal to human seems to be increasing as history progresses.  As populations of humans and animals increase (especially commercially clustered meat animals like pigs and chickens) over time, this factor - and others - have resulted in habitat destruction for many populations of wild animals, and the chaos and adjustment required by those populations have brought them, in many instances, into much greater contact with human populations.  Deforestation and the wildlife trade each has an outsized effect.  Add to this the effects of global climate change - which is happening, by the way, and has been disrupting habitats and migration patterns for over a century (National Geographic says that half the species on earth are on the move), and there are really a whole lot of opportunities for novel viruses to jump from animal to human.

This is not new.  The Black Death which, as we have seen, killed up to half of Europe in the fourteenth century, is a good example.  Habitat destruction  - in one case, huge fires in large Chinese cities - killed a lot of rats, and destroyed, at least temporarily, the places where the rats lived.  So the disease-bearing fleas abandoned the sinking rats and found another salubrious host - us.  Apparently, the plague did not often find its way to human hosts where rats and humans lived in harmony. 

Anyway, we seem to be burning down a lot of buildings, killing rats and freeing disease-bearing fleas to find - us.  Figuratively, of course.  Literally, I guess, we're upsetting the ecological balance that kind of kept everyone to himself.  All bets are off, and one of the few things we can count on is that math says we'll have another one, soonish.

The new world will contain more pandemics, like a set of never-ending Russian matryoshka nesting dolls.  Don't lose your mask.

Unthinkable

The article I said I'd get back to, was also a kind of a disappointment.  It was published in the "MIT Technological Review," but when I looked closer, it was "sponsored content," meaning a company - in this case, Ernst and Young (E&Y), an accounting and business consulting company which is apparently the seventh-largest privately owned organization in the United States - paid to have it appear.  So - grain of salt, and all that, but the truth is, we're all in this pandemic economy together, and we all want to get out the other side in one piece, so it's often interesting to hear what everyone's saying.

Not a lot, and those of you who have been reading here right along know that this is no surprise.   Lots of paragraphs that ended with "It is likely that these shifts will continue after the pandemic is over," with no attempt to suggest why they'll continue.  And a lot of "here's what I have wanted to happen in the world for a long time.  Wouldn't it be great if the pandemic, in some unexplained way, somehow brought this dream to fruition?"

This was an article aimed more at business leaders than at guys sitting home and writing a blog, so it included some suggestions for business strategy in the new world.  Although I'm guessing you could figure out what those recommendations were without me telling you, I did stop to think some about them.  Here they are:

"Scan - and wait.  The journey ahead is uncertain."  Well, you've got that right.  But the idea of businesses waiting and watching - and, most importantly - not knowing what exactly they're waiting or watching for, is a very new world-y approach.  That is certainly what most of us are doing right now.  For how long?  In business and commerce, what will that mean for innovation?  for investment?  for growth?  Will people start spending money again, and if so, on what?  when?  how much?  And if not - then what?

"Be flexible - and move quickly."  At some point, we'll know it's the right moment to move.   No feelers, no tentative forays into the fray.  Wait, consider a wider variety of options than you're used to, maybe even reconsider where you're standing and waiting - and then jump.  Lots of interesting results can be expected.  

"Plan for the unthinkable."  This is my favorite.  "'Unthinkable' scenarios are no longer dismissible; they should be a core part of your strategic planning process."  Planning is no longer safe and predictable.  The environment won't allow that - it won't reward it.  Things will be different, and in ways you weren't even thinking about thinking about six months ago.  

The economy of the new world will be different because of the very long-term effects of the economic damage that has been done, and is being done, and will be done, by whatever extreme measures are, or will be, required to defeat the virus (or required by our unwillingness to go far enough to defeat the virus).  It will, according to E&Y, who, I gather, charge large amounts of money for these insights, be an environment that rewards both patience ("Scan - and wait") and quick, decisive, irrevocable action (Be flexible - and move quickly").

No more chugging along in the wake of a soothingly familiar economy.  Actually, it sounds more like trying to survive in a jungle.  Unthinkable. 

Take Me to Your Leader(s)

Hidden in all the "the social and cultural behaviors brought on by the pandemic will stay with us afterwards" nonsense is an interesting idea.  It is based on a sense that the world will not continue to organize itself in the same way it has in recent years:  around nations that, as it turned out, exposed real structural weaknesses when presented with a complex, overwhelming crisis.

The US and China have been circling each other, itching for a fight, for a while (even before the virus changed everything), and, if anything, events during the last six months escalated the tensions.  Even in the before, however, it didn't seem like other countries were watching with the intent of aligning themselves with one country or the other.  The Cold War was over long ago, and we're not going back to that bilateral team play anytime soon.

It's hard to imagine the US regaining it's global stature anytime soon, even if Joe Biden is elected and does everything right.  We have shown the world just what kind of mess we can create, and how quickly things like alliances and long-term security agreements can change.  Everyone knows we can create four years of chaos and destruction, and that we can do it again, as early as four years from now.  It's hard to see a road back to world leadership.

China is a more complex picture.  It seems like alliances in that sphere have been chiefly economic, and that China's economy has just started to approach a substantial cliff, what with competition, the problem of a coal-fired economy (which is growing even when renewables are, as well), internal pressures, and - who knows? - perhaps even some global boycotts in support of the Uyghurs or Hong Kong.  A guy can dream.

Anyway, add China's substantial position in a global economy that has just fallen off a cliff, and the chances of it roaring back on top, attracting allies and trade or security partners is not something a lot of us would bet the farm on.

All of this is to ask the question:  Who will provide the needed leadership as the world emerges from the shadow of pandemic and economic devastation?  There is a way out - especially since our economic problems are the predictable results of our turning the economy off on purpose, and there will be a vaccine.  

The US, Brazil, Russia, India and other countries (including Sweden!  Imagine that!) have not responded well to the pandemic, and in most cases, we still don't know the extent of the damage.  The problems have been bad political choices that were made in the presence of enough information to make good choices, and that's not going to win you allies or partners.  So who will lead us out of all this?

It would be interesting to see Germany, New Zealand, Singapore, Canada, and some other folks who made some very hard - but correct - political decisions (NY Governor Andrew Cuomo?), get together and talk about how those decisions came about and how they might use that process to move forward, rebuild, and take the opportunity to make a much better world than we might have without the crisis. 

Plateau

We've all become very familiar with the charts - the line rises, reaches a peak, and then falls.  In some cases, it falls to near zero and curves out to the horizontal.  In some cases, it doesn't fall, but zig-zags all over the place.  In one notable case, it falls - and then rises again, higher than before, and keeps on going.  

Some of the charts are "plateauing" - not falling, but continuing out to the right on a horizontal path, neither rising nor falling.

This is what's happening to speculation regarding the post-COVID new normal.  The new world.  The vast majority of what I'm reading is of the "wouldn't it be great" subgroup called "Here's how we've adapted to the quarantine environment. Wouldn't it be cool if we continued doing this kind of thing when it was over?"  From what I've seen, we're just going on and on with this kind of thing, at least in the popular press.  Distancing, leery of large groups, more use of sanitizer, etc.  

The AARP is guilty of this, among others.  "Sanitizers are here to stay;" "Economic Disruption;" "Fear of People in Stadiums, Trains" "Staying Home," etc.  These are things that are part of our lives because they have to be.  We need a little more insight and evidence to start thinking that we won't move back to normal in these areas.

The article (as well as an MIT Technology Review article, of which I may have something to say later) does start a conversation about decentralized living, which we discussed earlier.  

I'm going to start looking for more speculation about decentralization, and then add my own.  What fun we can have!