..
..
Excerpts:
It’s the end of the world economy as we know it
By NEIL IRWIN
–
The world economy is an infinitely complicated web of interconnections. We each have a series of direct economic relationships we can see: The stores we buy from, the employer that pays our salary, the bank that makes us a home loan.
But once you get two or three levels out, it’s really impossible to know with any confidence how those connections work.
And that, in turn, shows what is unnerving about the economic calamity accompanying the spread of the novel coronavirus.
In the years ahead, we will learn what happens when that web is torn apart, when millions of those links are destroyed all at once. And it opens the possibility of a global economy completely different from the one that has prevailed in recent decades.
–
But one lesson of these episodes of economic tumult is that those surprising ripple effects tend to result from long-standing unaddressed frailties. Crises have a way of bringing to the fore issues that are easy to ignore in good times.
One obvious candidate is globalisation, in which companies can move production wherever it’s most efficient, people can hop on a plane and go nearly anywhere, and money can flow to wherever it will be put to its highest use.
The idea of a world economy with the US at its centre was already falling apart, between the rise of China and America’s own turn toward nationalism.
There are signs that the Covid-19 crisis is exaggerating and possibly cementing those changes.
–
She envisions not so much a full-scale retreat from global trade as a shift toward regional trade blocs and greater emphasis on having companies build redundancy into their supply networks.
Governments will probably insist that certain goods, like pharmaceuticals and medical equipment, rely more on domestic production given the current global scramble for those items.
–
In a past episode of de-globalisation — the unwinding of global commerce that took place amid World War I and the 1918 flu epidemic — there was also a remaking of the global financial system, with the British pound losing its preeminence.
That kind of thing could plausibly happen this time too, but initial signs point the other way: Toward the dollar’s becoming even more entrenched at the centre of the global financial system.
–
We may not know exactly where this crisis will lead, for the world economy or anything else. But one thing seems clear: History sure can be scary when you don’t know how it ends. THE NEW YORK TIMES
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Neil Irwin is a senior economics correspondent for The New York Times’ The Upshot, a site for analysis of politics, economics and more. He is the author of “How to win in a winner-take-all-world,” a guide to navigating a career in the modern economy.
Read more at https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/16/upshot/world-economy-restructuring-coronavirus.htm
..
Excerpts from:
Will people dine out after the pandemic?
Social distancing may become the new normal in a foreseeable future, but dining and eating together are not going to disappear entirely.
Professor Gao said dining out is not only about eating; it is a kind of ritual and opportunity for social interaction. Eating at home cannot provide this kind of an experience.
“Being together with my friends when dining out is more meaningful than making my stomach full,” echoed Chen.
In addition, people nowadays are embracing a more densely urbanized, busier lifestyle, which means they may not have enough time to cook.
“Although I prefer to eat at home, but it may be difficult,” Chen said, explaining that people will go back to the “busy mode” when the pandemic is over.
Change in dining habits
As the Chinese mainland is returning from quarantine restrictions, another research by Nielsen indicates that a “homebody” mindset is emerging among consumers, which means health and technology will influence spending and shopping habits in the short and longer term. In this report, 89 percent of the Chinese mainland consumers expressed their willingness to buy daily necessities or fresh products online, and 80 percent said they would pay attention to healthy eating when the pandemic is over.
From “the use of serving chopsticks” to “specific eating zones for hepatitis patients in Shanghai during 1970s,” Professor Gao said epidemics have been changing dining habits. She mentioned that dining habits also reflect traditional customs, cultural heritages and the way of thinking, which are difficult to change permanently.
–
It might be too early to say whether the pandemic will permanently change people’s dining habits, but Nielsen’s report tells us that after life returns to normal, healthy eating may register higher on consumers’ radars than in the past.
“People will definitely care more about the hygiene standards of restaurants, including the food itself and the environment,” said Zhang, adding that catering industry should not only rely on producing “delicacies” but also on “health and safety.”
“I hope the pandemic can end soon and I can dine out with my friends to try something I cannot cook at home,” Ou said, however emphasizing that she will choose restaurants of higher standards.
..
..
..
Excerpts from:
https://twitter.com/NZStuffBusiness/status/1251190445868060673?s=19
Mike O’Donnell
04:45, Apr 18 2020
OPINION: I’m unexpectedly spending lockdown in Timaru.
–
Amazon is having an absolute blinder at the moment. Along with a few other industries like the medicinal cannabis in the United States, Amazon has had close to a five-fold increase in through-put.
So while overall employment in the US dropped 700,000 in March (and is predicted to drop a further 1 million in April) Amazon is hiring like a mad thing.
Two weeks ago Amazon announced it was looking to take on 150,000 new staff. This week it announced it needed a further 75,000. That’s 225,000 new jobs in less than a month.
To put that into perspective, according to Statistics New Zealand the total number of unemployed across all Aotearoa in January was 110,000.
The big driver is people in isolation unable to get to the stores, buying online and taking advantage of the essential service nature of couriers. So while there 15 per cent of Americans who were already habitual online shoppers, this has delivered a whole new slice of consumers moving to e-commerce.
But there are other drivers to the recent Amazon growth.
The second driver is about fulfilling unrequited consumer need at a low price point during a time of constraints. What the hell does that mean?
Right now in homes there is a family battle for screens like never before. And while Apple iPads cost more than $500, Amazon has launched its Fire HD 8 tablet with a $79 price tag, with same day delivery in major metropoles.
It’s not the Rolls Royce of tablets, but its perfectly fine for getting the kids off your TV or laptop for less than $100.
Almost 10 years ago Brian Solis wrote The End of Business as Usual. The bestseller explored how technology empowered assaults, including social, mobile, and real time web, had changed the dynamic of business and consumer.
Solis talked about how the always-on nature of the new world forced business to wrap themselves around the consumer in order to survive. He also coined the term “digital darwinism” which is when rapid societal change brings equally rapid consumer behaviour change, and some businesses fail to ever catch up with it.
Right now Covid-19 is bringing massive consumer change, technology enabled change. Change that is likely to hang around after the recovery. Businesses that fail to adapt will find it tough.
A stepped jump in e-commerce is one of these changes.
–
Another example is around working from home. Almost overnight thousands of businesses moved from the idea of a traditional workplace, to a workplace effectively being a laptop in their spare room and a cloud-based work platform.
Those workers and their bosses are now going to seriously question the justification of paying big commercial rents for large workplaces. Particularly when staff efficiency appears to be higher when they work from home. Commercial property should expect to take a hit here.
Likewise business travel has gone from full noise to zero in the four weeks of March. Workers foud that the likes of Microsoft Teams, Zoom and Google Hangouts worked pretty well. So a real possibility is that business travel rates will never recover.
Another example is around working from home. Almost overnight thousands of businesses moved from the idea of a traditional workplace, to a workplace effectively being a laptop in their spare room and a cloud-based work platform.
Those workers and their bosses are now going to seriously question the justification of paying big commercial rents for large workplaces. Particularly when staff efficiency appears to be higher when they work from home. Commercial property should expect to take a hit here.
Another example is around working from home. Almost overnight thousands of businesses moved from the idea of a traditional workplace, to a workplace effectively being a laptop in their spare room and a cloud-based work platform.
Those workers and their bosses are now going to seriously question the justification of paying big commercial rents for large workplaces. Particularly when staff efficiency appears to be higher when they work from home. Commercial property should expect to take a hit here.
Likewise business travel has gone from full noise to zero in the four weeks of March. Workers foud that the likes of Microsoft Teams, Zoom and Google Hangouts worked pretty well. So a real possibility is that business travel rates will never recover.
..
weehingthong 