A Year of Misery and Vitality

It is finally a moment to look back on the Covid-19 Pandemic of 2020 and think about the changes in America it has hastened. Many of them would have happened over time but were dramatically sped up by sickness and recovery. 

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First, healthcare. The astonishing development of the mRNA vaccines to quickly spur immunity with minimal side effects will go down as one of the greatest advances in medicine in a hundred years. The Turkish husband and wife team in Germany and the Moderna scientists in America had both been working on their ideas for more than a decade when the first whiff of COVID-19, wherever it came from, showed up and immediately started the wheels turning.

The COVID-19 vaccines showed America that the entrepreneurial medical system with a profit motive could move faster than any government organized medical system. The Turkish couple in Germany heading BioeNTech almost immediately teamed with Pfizer in America, headed by Albert Bourla, a Jewish Greek immigrant, to get a vaccine into production and accepted by a timid medical bureaucracy.

A second important shift was telemedicine replacing physical appointments. This was in its infancy prior to the pandemic, but with lockdown and rampant fear it quickly became a viable substitute for a large percentage of office appointments. In business we have seen similar changes.

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The Great Office Boom from 2010 to 2019 vanished overnight. The WeWork fad of shared office space quickly became a joke as the downtown offices of huge law firms and major corporations lay vacant except for venturesome mice and lonely janitors. Zoom tied everything together, business travel virtually ended, and hotels and restaurants lay fallow.

Will downtown offices, commuter trains, and business entertaining come back? Unlikely, I think. In Silicon Valley Google, Facebook, and others have quickly decentralized. People are leaving New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago, and heading for Provo and Austin. Will they come back? Unlikely, unless taxes fall, housing costs shrink, and city crime turns into mass friendliness. 

These are fairly obvious shifts, but they are so hugely important that I had to discuss them first. But there are also more subtle changes that I see. 

The used machinery business is good again. In fact it is better than good, unless you are dedicated to the oil patch. For the first time since the late 1990s, almost every metal working business in America is busy. Yes, we have inflation of steel prices and non-ferrous metals, and it is hard to find workers, but if you pay enough for either you can keep rolling. 

The new minimum wage is $20 per hour, or soon will be. A person can finally make a middle-class living as a machinist, and this will draw people to the field who no longer want starvation wages in the restaurant and travel business. 

Housing is hot again, with cheap interest rates and people on the move. Also, younger people can finally afford to get a starter house if they are willing to leave stagnant, overpriced cities for smaller, overlooked locations.

And, young people are starting to go into business for themselves. It may be a side business like baking bagels and selling them at a farmer’s market, or starting an interior decorating business to help people who are moving or help people staying in their homes, who want them updated to provide the office space they need.

Certainly one reason I think the back to work numbers seem light to the “experts” is fat unemployment benefits, but another reason is the multitude of new opportunities to begin side businesses or work quietly for untaxed cash. 

In our business, we have looked to retired people and entrepreneurial skilled people to fill holes for us. I am sure we are not alone. 

America is still an entrepreneurial country. I look for immigration, legal and illegal, to expand as a post-pandemic boom widens. The toll of COVID-19 has been terrible, but when we look back on the Post-Corona years, it will be astonishing to see the vitality unleashed.

Question: What positive changes do you see following COVID-19?