The Wall Street Journal opinion piece "Coronavirus Will Permanently Change How We Work" suggests that the virus will increase significantly teleworking. I tend to disagree because the whole point of agglomeration economies is exchange and connectedness.
In a connected world public health surveillance and response systems need to be robust. While the virus is bad, it is a 100-year (or more) event, and sadly, one that could have been contained if (1) the Chinese didn't have wet markets; (2) the Chinese were direct and honest about the emergence of the virus; and (3) the failure to have an ongoing and sound surveillance and proactive reaction system in place such as that employed in Taiwan ("Response to COVID-19 in Taiwan: Big Data Analytics, New Technology, and Proactive Testing," Journal of the American Medical Association), Hong Kong, Singapore, and South Korea.
South Korea, where the virus was more prevalent earlier, has fewer deaths from it than does the US, where the prevalence of the virus came later ("What the U.S. Needs to do Today to Follow South Korea's Model for Fighting Coronavirus," Time Magazine).
Jimmy Williamson rides an empty BART train from the East Bay to San Francisco on March 10, 2020. (Beth LaBerge/KQED)
Micromobility services shutting down in high risk areas. Separately, e-scooter/bicycle sharing operations have announced a pullback ("Lime is yanking its electric scooters from California and Washington due to coronavirus," The Verge), which to me makes little sense because these devices allow people to make trips instead of on (theoretically) tightly packed transit vehicles--although transit systems are experiences catastrophic declines in service based on the statements that you need to be within 6 feet of someone with the coronavirus for 15 minutes to get infected--sounds like the minimum amount of time for a transit trip...
More biking. With coronavirus, more people are biking in NYC ("A Surge in Biking to Avoid Crowded Trains in N.Y.C.," New York Times).
More driving? But probably there will be more driving, except in the most congested places. Although because people are self isolating/sheltering in place, fewer people are driving also.
RE: Sharing economy.
ReplyDeleteFood delivery services should have a field day. Not good for restaurants.
If anything validates Uber business model of using pool of gig workers to do anything. (UberTest, anyone?)
Aibnb model of sharing a room is dead, but otherwise good.
Open question whether these loss making entities will be able to operate when credit is frozen up.
don't think they can operate in a frozen credit situation.
ReplyDeleteThe issue isn't gig workers per se, and yes, obviously for a business to be labor-lite is awesome, but the lack of meaningful gig worker protections.
The thing we missed with globalization is the absolute need to strengthen the social safety net instead of to weaken it simultaneously.
It reminds me of _The Jungle_ where the guy breaks his leg on the job and is basically thrown out to fend for himself.
When I went out to get the paper, on the way I was thinking of how corporate profits for a long time have been stoked by cost cutting (especially labor). E.g., Chainsaw Al. You can do that when you have "fat" but in this case, fat was built up over the decades through investment.
The US economy has been cruising for a long time on "cost cutting" or basically "using up the fat" that had been created over the decades from success.
The fat eaters are the financiers.
At a certain point there is no more extra fat around which can be eaten.