Thursday, March 19, 2020
Political Mayhem Thursday: What happens next?
So what happens next?
Here are a few thoughts on that:
1) This is going to reshape the retail market, and we are going to lose a lot of stores, big and small. Sure, we can order stuff online, but there is a real loss when local retailers close down. They are often community hubs, the places where we see one another.
2) The federal government seems committed to a trillion-dollar stimulus package, much of it going to large corporations. I have mixed feelings about this. I see the necessity for a stimulus, but as I argued in 2008-2009, debt matters, too. We already are running a trillion-dollar annual debt under the Trump administration, and doubling that isn't sustainable. There will be long-term and short-term problems. The long-term problem is that debt service will become a more significant part of our federal budget. The short-term problem is that there will be political demands to reduce debt when this crisis fades, and that can come from the military, social security/Medicare/or everything else (Courts, transportation, housing, etc).
3) The coronavirus itself is the biggest threat. I am starting to see something on my Twitter feed that I have feared: people reporting that people they knew died of Covid-19. That's a threshold. But how bad it gets from here is the real unknown.
4) Our social networks are going to change, and the longer isolation continues, the more it will change. I predict we are going to see underground societies develop, some of them based on in-person human interaction that is otherwise verboten. And out of those underground societies (online and in person), we may see new forms of art, music, and theater develop. New York will be the epicenter of this-- people there will not be able to stay holed up in small apartments.
For now, the best we can do is watch out for each other and do our jobs the best we can.
