An after-Covid19 World Outlook
A new normal about employment initiatives, CAPEX investments, SaaS and machine-human interaction
My last flight was on February 26th, after, for almost 1 month, I battled with what looks like the virus that is now ravaging communities across the world.
The anti-bodies test is way off, making it impossible to second-guess the real cause of the malady, but the solace of isolation provides time for strategic thinking. Learning from personal experiences, borrowing from 3rd-party perspective, reading history lessons about similar events — I wish to quickly summarise my gut feeling about where the world would go.
UN agency projects a total loss of 195 million FTE equivalent jobs — disproportionally hitting part-time shifting employees. Unavailability of safety nets increases social distress as companies would invest more money in tech, taking more and more away from a user.
Personal behaviour would adjust during the lockdown phase, preferring services with near-zero interaction with couriers and choosing slowly drone, robo-taxis and AR interaction.
Industries will increase distancing between workers and will start designing experiences in heavy and manufacturing industries applying new requirements around personal health — if another virus strikes.
Capital will be aplenty, extended by QE programs and repurchasing bad dept and refinancing big conglomerates, that might still win because scale and deemed importance. They still remain key political donors, something that the Sanders donation revolution built around an individual, could not solve.
Companies will continue investing in tech in menial labour and so, via alleys of state-ownership of fallen industries, there will be state-owned re-education and re-employment programs run by the state.
Efficiency of capital deployment will matter even more than ever, with negative returns and doldrums being a sad reality until the global economy readjusts — and so back-office efficiency and return on tangible equity stays.
Volatile markets will move countries to form regional alliances, due to distrust fanned by nationalism policies. First sparked by what brought the virus into the world and then supported by state-sponsored manufacturing programs employing people out of work, it will add certain local comfort but would. further water-down globalism tendencies of the past.
USD system will stay but can crumble further as trade balance will shift from US-China to regional hubs developed by all major countries that suffered. Currency rebalancing will increase in motion.
Habits formed in isolation would stick — thinking more about long-term, also motivated by zero return on short-term assets. Hence, we might see bolder bets on reinventing the relationship of oneself with the world sooner.
