The big news this week was, “Google to Keep Employees Home Until Summer 2021 Amid Coronavirus Pandemic”.
When the company with the most data in the world makes a move like this, it’s worth taking note, for sure.
The bit of the article that really got our attention was, although people in New York City have been technically allowed to return to their office for the last month, so far only ten percent have done so.
Considering that servicing the downtown office crowd (delis, coffee shops, parking lots, photocopy and shipping services, shoe repairs, etc) is such a massive part of the economy, the social impact will be huge. A lot of businesses aren’t going to make it.
The other big effect we’re seeing is people, leaving the downtown hipster lifestyle in droves and driving up the price of suburban homes i.e. The number of Americans applying for home mortgages has hit an 11-year high.
Oh, and it’s an election year. So the fun never ends. Yay.
So when does it go back to normal? Sorry to say, but it already did. This is it. This is the new normal. All we can do is hope that we’re better adapted to it, hope that we are more “Antifragile” than we were a year ago.
