What Will It Be Like When We Get There? (Part One)

Wowzers. Here we are, huddling apart in our socially distant fox holes, waiting for the "All Clear" signal to ring forth. You know, the moment when the Good Guys let everyone know it's safe to come on out because the enemy has been defeated. We did it! And life can go back to normal. The End.

With all of the extraordinary events that have transpired since the 2016 election campaign, I can safely say that our lives will not go back to "normal" because that fanciful state of being has been M.I.A. for some time. We've been living in a whirlwind since well before the pandemic hit. But now that the virus has got us in its insidious grip, we all look to better days ahead. What will our world be like when it's All Clear?

Our once-in-a-lifetime circumstances have created a societal tableau featuring the best and worst of what our country has to offer. Most folks are behaving quite responsibly during this national emergency by following CDC and state-mandated guidelines. It ain't easy, and many are really getting hit hard in the wallet. Others couldn't care less and some actively engage in provocative exhibitions that would probably kill them if they were black. Trying to enforce such simple rules as wearing face masks in stores is met with murder.

And while we wait for our deranged President Mean Girl to work through his daily "chaos of peeves, whims, hallucinations and all-around assholery" (thanks, Thomas Pynchon) let's consider how things may play out from a few different perspectives.

Because we are confronted with a crisis that has ignited multiple, larger crises (like how an atom bomb is used to detonate a hydrogen bomb), The Daily Kibitz will look at various ways that the virus may affect us all as we look for cover and stumble into the more-or-less immediate future. And on into the more distant one.

Everything will be based on this, from The Atlantic:

The Atlantic and the four timelines.

Yep, so much depends on a red vaccine wheelbarrow. Going forward, we will develop a treatment and/or a vaccine. Or, MAYBE acquire herd immunity at great mortal cost. Or, something worse: the virus mutates too quickly to properly develop a vaccine or acquire herd immunity and we maintain continuous lockdown. Or, it just goes away, "like a miracle."

Timeline #1: One to two months. Given this article appeared a month ago, this possibility is already obsolete. No treatment, no cure. Nope, not even injected/ingested bleach and UV lights.

Timeline #2: Three to four months. A treatment, not a cure, might be identified that can ease symptoms. But this timeline all depends on testing, which the U.S. is failing at, spectacularly.

Timeline #3: Four to twelve months. Maybe summer seasonality will slow it down and give us time to better understand and treat it. Or maybe it just doesn't slow, because of easing lockdowns and no seasonality (we'll know by late June).

Timeline #4: 12 to 18 months - or longer. No one expects a vaccine before spring of 2021, and it's more likely to be in the fall of 2021. In fact, there are some who suggest that if our lockdowns fail, rampant COVID could mean herd immunity; if it's possible, it begins to kick in by late autumn of 2021. It's a huge and costly "if".

Economic Outlook:

For the U.S. economy, according to the CNBC Fed Survey of economists, a "plurality" say we won't be fully restored until sometime in the 2nd quarter of 2022. The influential Mark Zandi says mid-decade. These projections are all dependent upon a vaccine and a couple more trillion dollars injected, like disinfectants, into the economy by the federal government.

Here's a piece by the Chair of Political Economy at the quite conservative American Enterprise Institute.  He takes a very dim view of opening society without a COVID-19 vaccine. "A Darwinian experiment to invite global herd immunity is unthinkable because it would entail untold millions of deaths." Sounds reasonable... and then he goes on:

https://www.nbr.org/publication/the-new-normal-thoughts-about-the-shape-of-things-to-come-in-the-post-pandemic-world/

He says that the Federal Reserve concludes the net worth of the bottom half of US citizens was lower in 2019 than it was in 1989... by one-third! Since then, of course, we have COVID-19 and that net worth has plummeted further down the abyss.

Without a vaccine, he sees "rolling lockdowns... a succession that presses economic performance severely in countries all around the world simultaneously." Our world economy structure will be chopped back. "It may be more difficult to convince a working majority that a globalized economy and other international entanglements actually work in their favor... we need an agenda/formula to generate prosperity for all."

He continues to see international lockdowns, blocks of travel and immigration, and a rise in Economic Nationalism along with diminished expectations of Globalization.  Glitchy, gummed-up  "international supply chains" will be regarded as less desirable, giving rise to domestically resourced chains, even though the costs of productions are higher and profits lower.

This scenario plays into the Steve Bannon and Steven Miller vision of the creative destruction of governance institutions in order to rebuild the nation into a whole new authoritarian order. Their shared long term goal: A shrinking labor force via aging demographics and a No Immigrants Allowed border block. Although they are intensely racist and stupid, this has been a goal of the Trump Administration.

The folks at The Bulwark are the sort that used to be the GOP before it became infected with the Racist Hyperpartisan Crazy virus. Here's their take on what lies ahead:

https://thebulwark.com/we-cannot-reopen-america/

No surprise, all future economic activity is dependent on the vaccine. And though some business sectors are unaffected and may even benefit from the pandemic, enough sectors will decline or collapse, sending severe recession/depression shock waves pulsing throughout the domestic and global economies.

Las Vegas is listed as an example for affected business sectors. When it reopens, w/o a vaccine or treatment, who is going to come? True believers and gambling addicts: just a trickle of the former reliable flow.  How about a local dinner and a movie? Any activity requiring physical interaction or close proximity to others is doomed. Such a "pandemic mindset" will continue with most consumers until a safe, reliable and cheap way is introduced to protect everyone.

"The list goes on and on: Dine-in restaurants, coffee shops, hotels, theme parks, concert venues, convention centers, shopping malls, museums, libraries, schools, colleges—every one of these businesses is headed into a nuclear winter that has nothing to do with stay-at home orders."

Their point is that many of these kinds of business may have been headed toward oblivion within a few years anyway... but COVID is the catalyst for instant economic change.

According to the Brookings Institution, broad economic transformation is already underway. Their take is a bit contrary to the American Enterprise Institute folk. In their view, national "Me First" responses in the international scene is self-evidently dead.  Replacing this Nationalism is an existential need to ensure multilateral responses for future cross-border crises like pandemics (and Climate Change) are effectively managed.

"Aggregate demand isn't falling everywhere. But all economic activity that involves physical interaction, both production and consumption, are imploding. Meanwhile, physically disjointed activities are exploding (like Amazon, or any other business with digital interaction). Instead of simply pouring trillions into maintaining business sectors that are suddenly obsolete, a fraction should be invested into this new economic infrastructure.

"It's like Fire Insurance. It's not money wasted all the years you pay in. It's a precaution, in case the house does go up in flames... like it is now."

https://www.brookings.edu/blog/future-development/2020/03/27/awakening-in-the-post-pandemic-world/ 

Another conservative business voice, Forbes magazine, agrees that what once was will no longer be. Global supply chains will transform into domestic supply chains. U.S. companies won't trust their product flow from one foreign country... or anywhere outside the U.S. They will set up new, diversified and local sources for supply chain business.

In-store shopping and commercial real estate will flatline while everything adapts to the on-line experience - and stays adapted. Access and ability to work and learn online is now more vital than ever. "Home Bias" will increase dramatically. "We perceive higher risk the further away the threat is from us... we have a favorable bias/perception of lower risk for what is closer to home. Investors are likely to revert to more investing closer to home, where proper due diligence can be conducted."

Such loss of trust will take years to regain. Moreover, any business that depends on strangers will suffer (think VRBO, AirBnB, tourism, heck the list is endless). Insurance will take Center Stage in all businesses. Risk management is emerging as a core business activity going forward while businesses actively develop contingency plans and insurance services for their own protection.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/suzytaherian/2020/04/07/the-new-world-how-the-world-will-be-different-after-covid-19/#65942d555d15

Naomi Klein is the queen of hard-left economic thinkers. Her book "Shock Doctrine" was enormously influential. Now she's writing about "Corona Capitalism" and how the Shock Doctrine can be used for the good. "According to Milton Friedman, in a disaster, the government should avoid intervening in the harmony of the free market, which is supposed to function like a perfect scientific system... it should smash any regulatory supervision that shackles private business."

This "disaster capitalism" has been likened by conservatives to a gardener cutting back overgrown plants to the ground to encourage new economic growth (hello, Chauncey Gardiner). The Shock Doctrine was a reaction to what Friedman saw during the Great Depression: FDR using a disaster for good by creating myriad government agencies and programs to help citizens and kick-start a moribund economy.  Today, she sees an opportunity to create a Corona Capitalism that ensures a more fair and diversified economy and one that prepares us for the coming Climate Change:

https://theintercept.com/2020/03/16/coronavirus-capitalism/

Hoo Boy. OK, that will have to do for this post. The next one will be more generalized, taking a broader scan on the horizon for how our everyday lives will be affected, outside of the diminished economy...  And as you wait, consider having a tall glass of that special adult beverage, Dunning Kruger Kentucky Bourbon. Dunning Kruger... for folks who think they know a lot more than they really do! You know who they are...