COVID changed us, and we can’t go back. People shout as if that’s possible. We listen because the idea is attractive, but it won’t happen and shouldn’t. We’ve changed because we have to.
Oligarchs are astroturfing the “open states” movement, effectively trading our lives for their profits. The compliant media help by pretending this isn’t just another Tea Party fake. The demonstrations are small, orchestrated sideshows. Every poll shows that strong majorities agree with the distancing and shutdowns, with some unhappy because they want even stronger protections. And yet it’s working. Half the states are re-opening despite limited testing, no contract tracing, and, frighteningly, rising infection rates. We’re willing to pretend that the novel Coronavirus didn’t happen even if it kills us. And yes, that insane.
We will never be the same as before the pandemic. We’ve seen too much to stay indifferent. Intellectually, we knew there were epidemic infection risks before COVID-19, but now we have real caution ground into us. We changed our social structures for good reasons, and those changes affect the ways we work, how we eat, and how we socialize. We know we have to mitigate risks, forcing us to modify how we live with each other, from our churches to hanging at the mall, from weddings to funerals, from infancy through old age.
Even after the re-opening, it won’t be the old normal. We’ll see massive business die-offs. Most businesses only make around 3 to 6 percent in return. Are they going to prosper when the American economy is down 15 percent and still dropping like a stone? The pandemic is hammering our economy, and we can’t just pretend it away. No, Donald, every job won’t be coming back. Entire swaths of businesses will shrink or expire: restaurants, entertainment, sports, travel, shopping. Does anyone still want to go to that crowded all-you-can-eat joint? How about going to a ball game? And I can’t imagine anyone booking an ocean cruise anytime soon.
When enough businesses fail, the failures cascade like dominos. When storefront businesses fail, more building owners stop making their loan payments. Most banks can’t eat that debt. Lending will stutter, and it’ll be hard to get money for new companies. Overall, stock prices will drop with the constricting economy. Do we have a plan when retirement funds struggle to cover their obligations? And some businesses will pretend everything’s unchanged, just like they did in the last recession, making everything worse.
In some cases, the die-off won’t be as absolute as you’d expect. Imagine a big industry with lots of stuff — say, Delta Airlines — goes into Chapter 13 bankruptcy. They’ll have to sell all their assets: their planes, their maintenance sites, airport slots, allocated flight paths, reservation and booking systems, all their infrastructure. But now think about the macro point of view. The hardware, licenses, permissions, software, locations, none of that disappears: someone buys it. It’s a shame for the current owners, who will take a bath, but now a new company has the stuff. They’ll ditch the unprofitable parts, which is terrible for those employees but good for the economy. And then they’ll rehire a lot of the workers. They’re a critical part of any business. Even a new airline will need trained reservation people and certified maintenance engineers.
Will we be the same? Of course not. The old normal is dead and gone; we can’t go back. People aren’t going to be flying anywhere near as much, and they won’t tolerate overcrowded American carriers. Same with buses, trains, and boats. The cruise industry is toast; giving them a bailout is just cash down a rathole. A lot of American retail space will be deeply underwater. Restaurants jamming people cheek to jowl? And if the oil industry suffers a disastrous drop in demand, that’s better for almost everyone. We need to adjust. Trying to keep our existing capacity in place is romantic, but it’s a waste of effort.
We need to stop pretending we’ll go back to the old normal. That won’t happen. We can manage, though, finding new ways that work. But we need to start planning that now, not later.
