I respect your perspective and call for calm, but personally, I disagree with most/all the points you've raised.
I don't think it's correct to say demand has gone nowhere. While certain areas (e.g. medical equipment and online streaming) may be surging, the reality is that the vast majority of industries are so badly hit by declining demand that companies are laying off 90% of their staff and closing indefinitely. Every airline in the world needs a government bailout or will go bankrupt. Same goes with any travel-related business. Entire public transport systems are shut down. Every major sports league has suspended its season—advertisers pull out, teams have no revenue and enter legal disputes with players whose salary they can no longer afford. Cinemas are closing for the first time in 120 years. The hospitality and physical retail industries have no income (except for businesses capable of pivoting to online delivery).
All these people will be put on welfare which increases pressure on the state. Even before this crisis, global debt levels were enormous. So now, the US (and many Western countries) are forced to implement massive quantitative easing programs (i.e. printing money) in order to artificially stimulate aggregate demand and prevent the economy from collapsing. Printing money devalues it in the long run due to the increase in supply.
The uncomfortable truth is that even though some sectors are seeing demand surges, these spikes are far, far offset by the rest of the economy shedding jobs. Because software development doesn't exist in a bubble, you will likely be hit by COVID-19's impact on your companies finances. If you're lucky enough to work for a FAANG-tier company you'll probably be less affected! But even then, you should be concerned about coronavirus potentially worsening wealth inequality (which itself has huge implications that I won't go into here).
However, the scariest thing is that we are not even close to the pandemic's peak. People were hoping Italy's meltdown had finally passed its peak. Instead, it has set a new record of 969 deaths in the past 24 hours. And don't forget: this is still happening despite all the draconian lockdown measures introduced.
"No one in history has said afterwards, I should have panicked more."—Ironically, an infamous quote I've been hearing from Italians is "If I could go back 3 weeks in time... I would tell myself to be more worried and to take the virus more seriously." New York's healthcare system is on the verge of collapse, and every other US state will follow. It's not true that the virus' spread has been caused by overly-panicked behaviour; it's actually the complete opposite. Like Italy and Spain, America was fooled into not taking COVID-19 seriously due to its asymptomatic nature (people who look and feel fine are unknowingly spreading it within the population). China—and Asia—is now experiencing a second wave of infections. Finally, if developed Western countries cannot cope with the strain from COVID-19, it will surely then decimate countries in Africa, which appear to be entering the initial phase of the virus. As if this wasn't enough, the sucker-punch is the virus' chance of mutating and becoming more lethal increases, as happened in other pandemics like the Spanish flu.
The longer this pandemic continues, the more consumer confidence remains depressed as households adopt an essentials-only "wartime" mentality. Startups are now luxuries (even moreso than before) and VCs are not investing money (or very small amounts, if so). The global agenda has shifted to damage control. This means doing whatever possible to stop businesses and companies from going under—not financing new ones.
I do agree that things will eventually return to normal. Even better, we'll have more efficient systems developed to deal with disasters like coronavirus. The concern is that this scenario is likely a few years away and many lives will be lost or ruined during that period. When infectious disease experts say they have no idea how to stop COVID-19, there is every reason to be alarmed: twitter.com/BallouxFrancois/status...
FWIW—I hope to God I'm wrong. I've never wanted to be more wrong in my life. But all the signs are pointing in this direction, and I believe it's better to be overly cautious than overly optimistic. Stay safe, and stay at home.
what people confuse is caution with fear and panic; the first is an intellectual effort, is a decision, has a purpose. The later is an emotional response, is useless, makes us do stupid things, blinds us. Italy didn't needed more panic, they needed more order, more calm, taking something seriously is put aside fear and panic and make an intellectual choice, not blindly reacting but making informed decisions.
Assume a doomsday scenario has not use now, the important thing is to hold for now; you have some practical advice to be prepared, that's great, please share it; spread fear is useless. Being afraid is not taking action, worrying is not working on the problem. You can cross the street carefully without being scared of cars, you can wash your teeth without panic of losing them, fear mongering is not only unnecessary it will worsen the situation and actually reduce investments and slow even more the recovery of the economy. Generalized fear, is translated to everyone taking out their money from the market and storing it, increasing interests to protect themselves. That's how the economy freezes.
It also worsen the situation causing an enviroment of anxiety, more depression in the air, less and wors sleep, worst mood for everyone. Yes take it more seriously, so stop being afraid and start taking action. Don't stay at home because of fear to get out, stay at home because is the smart move, because you are helping yourself and others; buy with caution what you think you'll need, not with panic to stash and taking unnecesarily from others who actually need it. Don't spread anxiety and depression, lift spirits, that's what we need, you don't rebuild or fix things in terror.
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I respect your perspective and call for calm, but personally, I disagree with most/all the points you've raised.
I don't think it's correct to say demand has gone nowhere. While certain areas (e.g. medical equipment and online streaming) may be surging, the reality is that the vast majority of industries are so badly hit by declining demand that companies are laying off 90% of their staff and closing indefinitely. Every airline in the world needs a government bailout or will go bankrupt. Same goes with any travel-related business. Entire public transport systems are shut down. Every major sports league has suspended its season—advertisers pull out, teams have no revenue and enter legal disputes with players whose salary they can no longer afford. Cinemas are closing for the first time in 120 years. The hospitality and physical retail industries have no income (except for businesses capable of pivoting to online delivery).
All these people will be put on welfare which increases pressure on the state. Even before this crisis, global debt levels were enormous. So now, the US (and many Western countries) are forced to implement massive quantitative easing programs (i.e. printing money) in order to artificially stimulate aggregate demand and prevent the economy from collapsing. Printing money devalues it in the long run due to the increase in supply.
The uncomfortable truth is that even though some sectors are seeing demand surges, these spikes are far, far offset by the rest of the economy shedding jobs. Because software development doesn't exist in a bubble, you will likely be hit by COVID-19's impact on your companies finances. If you're lucky enough to work for a FAANG-tier company you'll probably be less affected! But even then, you should be concerned about coronavirus potentially worsening wealth inequality (which itself has huge implications that I won't go into here).
However, the scariest thing is that we are not even close to the pandemic's peak. People were hoping Italy's meltdown had finally passed its peak. Instead, it has set a new record of 969 deaths in the past 24 hours. And don't forget: this is still happening despite all the draconian lockdown measures introduced.
"No one in history has said afterwards, I should have panicked more."—Ironically, an infamous quote I've been hearing from Italians is "If I could go back 3 weeks in time... I would tell myself to be more worried and to take the virus more seriously." New York's healthcare system is on the verge of collapse, and every other US state will follow. It's not true that the virus' spread has been caused by overly-panicked behaviour; it's actually the complete opposite. Like Italy and Spain, America was fooled into not taking COVID-19 seriously due to its asymptomatic nature (people who look and feel fine are unknowingly spreading it within the population). China—and Asia—is now experiencing a second wave of infections. Finally, if developed Western countries cannot cope with the strain from COVID-19, it will surely then decimate countries in Africa, which appear to be entering the initial phase of the virus. As if this wasn't enough, the sucker-punch is the virus' chance of mutating and becoming more lethal increases, as happened in other pandemics like the Spanish flu.
The longer this pandemic continues, the more consumer confidence remains depressed as households adopt an essentials-only "wartime" mentality. Startups are now luxuries (even moreso than before) and VCs are not investing money (or very small amounts, if so). The global agenda has shifted to damage control. This means doing whatever possible to stop businesses and companies from going under—not financing new ones.
I do agree that things will eventually return to normal. Even better, we'll have more efficient systems developed to deal with disasters like coronavirus. The concern is that this scenario is likely a few years away and many lives will be lost or ruined during that period. When infectious disease experts say they have no idea how to stop COVID-19, there is every reason to be alarmed: twitter.com/BallouxFrancois/status...
FWIW—I hope to God I'm wrong. I've never wanted to be more wrong in my life. But all the signs are pointing in this direction, and I believe it's better to be overly cautious than overly optimistic. Stay safe, and stay at home.
what people confuse is caution with fear and panic; the first is an intellectual effort, is a decision, has a purpose. The later is an emotional response, is useless, makes us do stupid things, blinds us. Italy didn't needed more panic, they needed more order, more calm, taking something seriously is put aside fear and panic and make an intellectual choice, not blindly reacting but making informed decisions.
Assume a doomsday scenario has not use now, the important thing is to hold for now; you have some practical advice to be prepared, that's great, please share it; spread fear is useless. Being afraid is not taking action, worrying is not working on the problem. You can cross the street carefully without being scared of cars, you can wash your teeth without panic of losing them, fear mongering is not only unnecessary it will worsen the situation and actually reduce investments and slow even more the recovery of the economy. Generalized fear, is translated to everyone taking out their money from the market and storing it, increasing interests to protect themselves. That's how the economy freezes.
It also worsen the situation causing an enviroment of anxiety, more depression in the air, less and wors sleep, worst mood for everyone. Yes take it more seriously, so stop being afraid and start taking action. Don't stay at home because of fear to get out, stay at home because is the smart move, because you are helping yourself and others; buy with caution what you think you'll need, not with panic to stash and taking unnecesarily from others who actually need it. Don't spread anxiety and depression, lift spirits, that's what we need, you don't rebuild or fix things in terror.