What Do You Think Today?

[Kizza]

Hospitality, and all travel related industry is absolutely buggered.
The talk here is that there may be some hope for hotels and cafes to open by September. There are plenty of hurdles to jump over first....

[Sorus]

That's pretty grim. Our current SIP order expires early next month, and they haven't announced whether or not it will be extended. They've been waiting until the last minute and avoiding any long-range predictions. Tourism is of course a HUGE thing here. My own workplace relies heavily on the convention traffic and people traveling for business, and it's going to be a while before that returns to anything resembling normal. Fortunately we have a strong mail-order side, and right now I'm getting enough orders to justify my keep (or about 65% of it, supplemented by my vacation time) - but business is way down and likely to stay that way for quite a while.

It's rough, but what's the alternative? I was thinking about the concert I was hoping to attend next month that's been indefinably postponed - how long until I will actually feel comfortable being in a crowded auditorium? Same with movie theaters and all the other social-type things we took for granted.

[peter]

I simply cannot see any way forward for these businesses; they cannot survive without income streams; the government cannot support them indefinitely - certainly not as long as the proposed lockdown period will last and the banks and other financing institutions cannot freeze their interest payments for the extended periods and remain undamaged themselves. Not for no reason did celebrity chef Gordon Ramsay immediately fire all his workers when this crisis broke; he saw that the clever money was to cut and run. He has another income stream from his celebrity status - a luxury not shared by the normal employers in the hospitality industry. In addition they simply cannot operate in the suggested scenarios of constant on/off lockdowns that could occur up to four or five times per year for the foreseeable future. No - absent Covid miraculously vanishing overnight the hospitality industry is dead in the water. The best thing for these workers to do is to use the lockdown time to preparation for retraining in another field.

This is a grim scenario, bur I think a realistic one. Our lives will not involve travel and restaurants and hotels in the way they have done in the past - we will have to take our pleasures from our surrounding localities and the food delivery market (perhaps even at the high luxury end) will experience exponential growth. Unemployment will rise in the UK from the two or three million of now into ten plus million. This is a game changer and we is just going to have to get used to it.

[Sorus]

The best thing for these workers to do is to use the lockdown time to preparation for retraining in another field.

The problem is finding a recession/pandemic-safe career that millions of people can segue into. Obviously there isn't a one-size-fits-all solution, but the numbers are mind-boggling. People who had pretty solid job security got the rug pulled out from under them.

[Avatar]

Not to mention all the people who didn't. One of the issues we're facing here is the millions of people reliant on what is called the "informal" economy...piece workers, street traders, etc. etc.

--A

[Savor Dam]

What we need is the next major paradigm shift, as profound as the agrarian, industrial, and information revolutions.

Now, if I could just formulate some viable concept for what that might be...well, the Tankers (and their kin off the Watch) would immediately reduce it to a point-by-point recitation of everything they found wrong about it.

What's the use?

[Kizza]

Maybe go from tourism to toilet paper manufacture?

"Has peoples doomsday buying behavior affected your bathroom supplies? Try Kizzas date roll!"

[peter]

What we need is the next major paradigm shift, as profound as the agrarian, industrial, and information revolutions.

I'm reminded of that Einstein comment where he said he didn't know what the next world war would be fought with - but he knew the following would be fought with bows and arrows. Turns out it is being fought with ppe gowns and ventilators and the same thing might still apply!

Meanwhile I thought I began to sense a trend developing when the radio station I was listening to (I kid you not) consecutivly spun There's a Bad Moon on the Rise followed by I Predict a Riot and Don't Fear the Reaper!

[Avatar]

Well, the first and last are classics. Never heard of the other, but on a quick Google I see it is played by a band named after one of our premier league soccer teams...

--A

[peter]

Ah - the old Kaiser Chiefs! It's a good song Av, especially done live with a bit of audience participation! Listened to it on the morning of my wedding (it was released around this time) and yep - pretty summed it up!

[Avatar]

--A

[aliantha]

I'm in the DC metropolitan area. DC's stay-home order was supposed to end today, but has been extended to May 15. Maryland's order is TFN. Virginia's order lasts through June 10th.

I have no solution for lost service-economy jobs. Although I'm beginning to think Andrew Yang was prescient when he was promoting a UBI; I think that's what it's going to take to keep the US economy afloat until we can figure out what's next.

[peter]

Glitch post!

[peter]

I wondered if in the UK a UBI couldn't be introduced to replace the state pension but payable only to the older 'at risk' proportion of the population - say the over fifty fives - to free up jobs for the millions that will find they have no positions to return to?

Hi Ali by the way - hug for you in these difficult times!

[Skyweir]

Ugh the world has gone mad and there seems little change in sight

[peter]

Are you guys still locked down Sky?

[peter]

Some wag posted that "Whoever it was that said that 'No one man ever changed the world in isolation' clearly never ate an undercooked bat!"

[Skyweir]

Yes still under lock down. You can travel for essential services and work ... its incredible what the global community can do if they have to.

[Kizza]

Hello Sky, hope you are well.
Lock down is not so much fun. Necessary, and I see it appears to work, but still... Nohow, On!

[Skyweir]

Hey Kizza

So great to see you. Definite upside to lockdown lol