As fear levels subside, people begin to do what they used to do: We will start to gather in groups — first family, then work + friends.
Life begins to return to normal, as we go back to work, commute, have mask-less social interactions, go public events, etc.
We will go out to restaurants again; we will shop in retail stores, go to bars, concerts, plays, museums, shows. Business travel returns, including conferences. No one will hesitate to get on a plane or travel.
Changes are coming also:
The Monday to Friday 9 to 5 routine is in danger.
Offices will have to learn to adapt. Technology becomes even bigger in our lives, and while there will be a bit of a reset, there is no going back.
Some of the changes are simply accelerations of trends that were well established long before the pandemic began. My firm launched in 2013: from day 1, we were paperless/cloud built, used screen shares/video conferencing, remote work was standard.
But necessity is the mother of invention, and there are new ways to work that are not only different from what existed before hand, but some are likely to be permanent.
"If you were prescient enough to buy a 1954 300SL new for $7k MSRP + locked it away, it would fetch ~$1.4 million today. Annualized return of 8% before inflation, storage + maintenance.
Most funds performed better + required zero oil filters."
To say nothing of the inherent Survivorship Bias in looking at the cars that did appreciate: Selecting investments after the fact is easy; ask yourself this question: What car do you want to buy as an investment for the next 60 years to be sold in 2081?
$573 Million to settle claims their advice to Purdue Pharma (+ others) led to the aggressive flooding of markets with opioids. It turned out to be damaging, even deadly advice.
Yet another reminder of who consulting giant McKinsey is…
Note: A decade ago, I discussed my thesis the consultant always seems to be giving ethically compromised advice that leads to terrible societal outcomes.
Why is that? Is McKinsey & Co. the Root of All Evil ?
And please, see if you can avoid making excuses for negligent mass homicide we witnessed in the USA
Here is the USA versus countries that managed their response well and versus others that did poorly: Cumulative confirmed COVID-19 deaths per million people