The US economy is digging its way out of the pandemic quagmire. That’s irrefutable good news. The numbers, however, are strange. The question is, who’s paying attention to the lessons of the pandemic?
The New York Times has a necessarily abbreviated sector-by-sector summary of the economic upswing, which is a sort of default boom rebound. The big upswing is necessary and unavoidable. The issue now is what’s not responding, and how the playing field has moved for business and employment.
Let’s not go nuts overrating this unavoidable rebound. It’s good, it’s pumping money again, but it’s also something that has to happen. There’s much more to this transitional period than meets the eye, and it’s all useful.
When the pandemic began, a painful and clumsy shift had to happen. America adapted quickly, if sometimes reluctantly. Businesses didn’t have much trouble moving to remote work, for example, whether they liked it or not. Distribution and delivery efficiency picked up fast after an uncertain start.
Despite the economic insanity of certain rabid political skank factories, most people dodged the bullets reasonably well. “Normal” wasn’t considered viable, let alone smart, in these conditions.
A lot of people did it tough, but they did it.
Some people noticed things, like:
• Not spending a fortune on expensive physical places of work.
• Greater efficiencies and speeding up processes through collaboration.
• Shorter lead times for projects.
• Better time management for employers and employees.
• People could do their work in peace, without being called in to mindless meetings every 5 seconds.
Other, less obvious, things also happened:
• The moratorium on major cost things like rentals reflected the real cost of the “normal” price/cost/wages situations.
• The cost/price environment reflected directly on basic economics. The subsistence level (or in some cases much less than subsistence) degree of economic activity was actually bottom line. Some people noticed that, too. Some didn’t.
• Economic activity in this far more modern, if ultra-paranoid, economic model, shifted away from all the usual patterns. Some prospered, many trod water, some went under.
The irony here is that the pandemic effectively enforced a classic New Economy model, the business unit which sources what it needs remotely. Businesses got lean, more agile, more cost-effective, and survived. These less costly business models were well-positioned to manage the pandemic.
The fundamentals of the pandemic economy worked
Excuse some business basics here:
The critical word for this situations is “competitive”. The newer business models remained competitive. The older models had to flounder for months to work at all.
Even the dried-out old businesses noticed the reduction in costs through different work methods, particularly remote work. The costs of setting up remote work are far lower than onsite facilities under any circumstances. When you’re saving that much more money, your business is doing a lot better, right?
When distribution got a new rule book, it adapted very fast indeed. Freight and distribution may have been as baffled as everyone else by the endless mixed messages from Washington, but they got it working soon enough.
Services did pretty well, if also lumbered with mixed messages. The How Tos had to be organized, but were pretty much OK.
The great psychological trauma of checking unspeakably dull routine messages turned out not to be such a crisis after all. The messages also created an instant useful audit trail, “blockchain by other means”.
Workplace stresses aren’t as bad when people aren’t parked in each other’s faces 5 days a week. The office drama queens effectively went out of business.
Productivity was undeniably up. That was a universally noted aspect of the pandemic economy. People who can manage their times properly and schedule efficiently ARE more productive. Not having to “commute” between offices and in-house psychoses helped, too.
Interestingly, the pandemic economy undercut America’s ponderous “employment at will” fossilized mindset very effectively. Actual need will beat superficial outdated ideologies anytime, and that’s what happened.
Having time opened up some space for people to have multiple income streams working remotely. Instead of committing a very large percentage of their lives to one job, they could do more. (This is an ancient theory that has always worked, and it took a global pandemic to prove it?)
Who’s learning?
Now – How much has been learned from this global cluster? Has Big Money figured it out? Don’t hold your breath about the dino-money, but the Rising Money seems to have got the message very clearly. That’s good.
More efficient cost structuring, less ritual, more productivity and more options for employers and employees does work, well. Let’s hope that’s what happens.
