Covid Journal, April 17, 2020

Well, it looks like self-isolation and social-distancing will be two new phrases to be added to the Oxford English Dictionary.

And Bigfoot, the ultimate social-distancing expert, will likely be nominated as the “TIME Magazine Person of the Year”.

Just a few headlines that caught my attention today and yesterday.

‘The Worst Economic Downturn in 150 Years’

It’s more than likely that 2020 will mark the worst economic downturn since about the mid-1800s. Let’s face it: there really is no market and that which remains remains either in the hands of a few megolomaniacs (Bezos, Waltons, Blackrock, etc) and it’s unlikely that the excitement about ‘buying local’ will last long past the first whiff of removal of social-distancing guidelines.

Yet even this three-system analysis I just described (pandemic > economy > politics) does not go far enough. The next phase has been little noticed and less discussed.

It involves social disorder. An economic breakdown is more than just economic. It leads quickly to a social breakdown that involves looting, random violence, fraud and decadent behavior.

The Roaring ’20s in the U.S. (with Al Capone and Champagne baths) and Weimar Germany (with riots and cabaret) are good examples.

Looting, burglary and violence in the midst of a state of emergency are the shape of things to come.

The veneer of civilization is paper-thin and easily torn. Most people don’t realize how fragile it is. But they’re going to learn that lesson, I’m afraid.

Expect social disorder to get worse long before it gets better.

Talk about pissing in your cornflakes! So far, things seem very congenial (in Canada, at least), but how long will things be ‘keep calm / carry on’ when there’s no food to put on the table?

Mark Carney on Economic / Social / Political Disruption From Covid

I got this from someone that was quoting the Economist. Unfortunately, they’ve chosen the paywall route, so I’ll provide a condensed version below. Apologies 🙁

Value will change in the post-covid world. On one level, that’s obvious: valuations in global financial markets have imploded, with many suffering their sharpest declines in decades. More fundamentally, the traditional drivers of value have been shaken, new ones will gain prominence, and there’s a possibility that the gulf between what markets value and what people value will close.

Current financial-market valuations reflect profound uncertainty over the path of the virus and the length of time that the global economy will remain shuttered. How many quarters of earnings will be lost? How quick will the recovery be once it comes?

Deeper concerns include the extent to which economies are experiencing supply destruction not mere disruption. How many once-viable companies will be permanently impaired? And how many people will lose their job and their attachment to the labour force? The answers to these questions—more than the scale of any short-term plunge in gdp—will be the true measures of the effectiveness of the responses of governments, companies and banks.

…

As our digital and local lives expand and our physical and global ones contract, this sea change will create and destroy value. Creativity and dynamism will still be highly prized, but new vectors will shape value: economic, financial, psychological and societal. In ascending order, consider:

Let’s hope he’s right and power doesn’t get more condensed into the hands of the few.

Fuck Amazon

Per the note above, it’s time to take our economic fates into our own hands and choose who we do business with. Will it be ‘The CLAW’ (Costco, Loblaws, Amazon, Walmart) or a neighbourhood small business? Will your local retailer become the shopping equivalent of ‘craft beer’? Let’s hope so.

In the interim, it pisses me off to no end to read that the Canadian government will be using the services of Amazon in any way, shape or form for fulfillment with orders and deliveries. While this Press Progress article is just a touch inflammatory, they make the point: we need full transparency ANY TIME ANY COMPANY is doing business with ANY LEVEL OF GOVERNMENT from this point on.

All of the backroom handshake deals have to go the way of the Dodo.

More About Food

Every time you actually wind up in a store now, it’s imperative that you consider what you’re buying and where it’s coming from. Location and source has an impact on our food sovereinty. The short version: question what you buy from China. I’m not informed enough to advocate a boycott, but anything I’ve read (and is easily researched online) paints a pretty grim picture about how they respect the quality of the food chain.