There are hinge points in history – like 9/11 – that leave indelible marks on the society touched by them where everything changes. The Great Coronavirus Shutdown of 2020 will be one hinge point. Coronavirus shutdown 

The real question is — what changes will come out of it?

Based on what we’ve seen so far, here are some of the potential areas change, ranging from the macro-level of economics and trade, right down to the micro-level of how we manage our work-life balance.

Let’s start big picture.

International Trade – (especially with China)

One of the significant issues revealed by this shutdown is how dangerously dependent we have become to just-in-time production of critically-important products whose supply lines tend to be concentrated in countries like China that are more rival than a friend to us.

Something will have to change. Otherwise, if a conflict or even an international incident ever breaks out where China’s interests and ours are at odds, they will have us over a barrel. They can threaten to halt, for example, exports of heart medication or antibiotics. Will we repatriate the manufacturing of critical products? Will we set up supply-chain redundancies?

That’s a question we will need to answer.

World Health Organization

They failed us, pure and simple. The guy in charge seemed to be shilling for China, too.

Do we cut all ties (and funding) of an organization we obviously can’t trust? Or do we push for significant reform? And while we’re at it, has the UN finally outlived its usefulness?

Our Blind Reliance on ‘Experts’ Will Get A Rethink

We hear arguments from authority all the time. We HAVE to do x, y, or z because this brilliant guy in a lab coat said so. But those of us who apply the advice of experts are often worse off than those who don’t.

We don’t just mean WHO’s changing advice on masks, either.

How about Nobel Laureate Economist Krugman telling everyone after Trump’s election: “[I]f the question is when the markets will recover, a first-pass answer is never.”

Sure, it’s a little optimistic to say that we’ll start truly thinking for ourselves again, but we might, at least, be more selective about which ‘experts’ we take as blind faith.

Economics

Let’s face it. In responding to this, we blew a massive hole in our budget. And we were already bleeding red ink as it was, and if Pelosi had her way, this shortfall would have been even higher.

Anything that cannot go on forever will eventually stop. That includes living on the national credit card.

This has accelerated the inevitable fish-or-cut-bait decision. Will we as a nation finally learn to spend within our means, or will we continue to create a debt bomb that will detonate in our children or grandchildren’s day?

Our first instinct was to borrow our way out of this problem. The reason for that is because we had nothing set aside in a crisis fund if anything should go wrong… and even in BOOM times, we’ve gone deep into debt rather than cut back on the kind of spending that cannot easily be justified… especially bloated government departments, some of who oversee nothing more than the wholesale manufacture of red tape.

Remote Employment

The Great Coronovirus Shutdown forced many of us to find work-from-home workarounds to keep the workflow going. Many companies that strongly resisted that concept for productivity or other reasons have had a test drive of the new reality thrust upon them.

Many companies will weigh the cost-benefit analysis and discover there are a lot of advantages to the increased adoption of a work-from-home model.

Education Reform

Just as the adults had to stay home from work, so did the little tykes and even college kids. As it turns out, you don’t need a bricks-and-mortar classroom any more than you need a high-rise office building.

If mom and dad are going to be working from home anyway, do they really NEED to ship little junior off to a brick-and-mortar school with metal detectors, classroom disruptions, and dubious education outcomes when many kids can learn just as well from the comfort of their own home — and have a much broader menu of educational choices to choose from delivered over an internet connection?

Why pay to maintain an expensive school with embarrassingly-low literacy outcomes or unionized teachers that cannot be fired even for a legitimate cause when you can choose from an online menu of teaching methods that best match the ability and aptitude of little junior? One, you can swap out for a better option if it doesn’t work out?

We might even see a move away from our massive calcified school system to a lighter, leaner option where instruction leverages Zoom meetings just like the workforce does.

Higher Education

Who could guess what impact this same trend would have upon the pressures to trim the fat on overpriced, bloated University programs, where seats in a course are not limited by the size of a physical room. We might even shift to something more like an a la carte webinar-based classroom model.

ElderCare

Ask anyone in Seattle. Shipping our grandparents off to a retirement home to be looked after can have a serious downside. They aren’t necessarily safer or better off.

Those who can start looking for a better model of looking after our older loved ones… will.

If we make a sizeable societal shift to work-from-home models, we might see more families in a position to set up an in-law suite for granny or grandpa to live in… which would lead to a resurgence of multi-generational family bonding.

Rural Renaissance

For those who can work from home and no longer have to commute into the office, many can give themselves a significant pay raise by merely changing their zip code.

Why would you live like a pauper in an expensive, overcrowded city, when your very same income can let you live like a king in a much smaller city or town?

What is functionally a working-class income in some zip codes would be considered living the good life in others.

Rethinking City Living

We may learn that mass transit and high-rise living were part of why New York was hardest hit with this virus scare.

If a work-from-home revolution reconfigures the way we live and work, Businesses may decide they need much less office space to operate Office buildings would see an uptick in vacancies, with no expectation that they would be filled any time soon. Prices would come down.

This may become an opportunity to move toward more mixed-use buildings where office buildings (for the sorts of jobs that can’t work remotely) and condos share a space.

Urbanites could live and work (and even play) in the same neighborhood. Take some pressure off of the transit system.

Cross-posted with Clash Daily

 

https://lidblog1.wpenginepowered.com

Coronavirus shutdown,  Coronavirus shutdown, Coronavirus shutdown, Coronavirus shutdown,