09-04-2020, 02:01 PM
What was dying before COVID-19 because it is overpriced or outmoded may itself die. The retail apocalypse already happening will continue.
Fading out:
enclosed shopping malls (expensive to maintain and obsolete in purpose)
low-end casual dining, especially hamburger joints
bookstores unless they also deal in used books
the 24/7 economy as a whole
Boy Scouts of America (gigantic legal settlement)
People will do again what they used to do and love doing. They will be attending sporting events, they will travel, they will go to gyms, and they will get their hair and nails done. There will be family reunions and weddings.
Shields that protect retail cashiers will probably remain in place. Even if COVID-19 should disappear they will be good for protecting clerks from the spread of other communicable diseases. Mortuary practices may change.
Many businesses will find that they can get people to work remote. For some people that will be a solution; for some it will be terror. This said, even the most isolated hick towns at least have churches, civic organizations, and fraternal organizations.
Much will be decided about two months from now on American political life... It may be too early to decide how such things such as tax policy will go.
Americans (at least survivors) will likely see COVID-19 as a crisis due to the body count, already approaching 200 thousand, which is approaching half America's death toll from World War II in a third of the time. This is war, and... the electorate will judge Donald Trump and many elected Republicans on how they led. We may see some cultural changes as Americans lose much of their complacency about things as they used to be.
Fading out:
enclosed shopping malls (expensive to maintain and obsolete in purpose)
low-end casual dining, especially hamburger joints
bookstores unless they also deal in used books
the 24/7 economy as a whole
Boy Scouts of America (gigantic legal settlement)
People will do again what they used to do and love doing. They will be attending sporting events, they will travel, they will go to gyms, and they will get their hair and nails done. There will be family reunions and weddings.
Shields that protect retail cashiers will probably remain in place. Even if COVID-19 should disappear they will be good for protecting clerks from the spread of other communicable diseases. Mortuary practices may change.
Many businesses will find that they can get people to work remote. For some people that will be a solution; for some it will be terror. This said, even the most isolated hick towns at least have churches, civic organizations, and fraternal organizations.
Much will be decided about two months from now on American political life... It may be too early to decide how such things such as tax policy will go.
Americans (at least survivors) will likely see COVID-19 as a crisis due to the body count, already approaching 200 thousand, which is approaching half America's death toll from World War II in a third of the time. This is war, and... the electorate will judge Donald Trump and many elected Republicans on how they led. We may see some cultural changes as Americans lose much of their complacency about things as they used to be.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.