Coronavirus:

[HONDO74]

Our economy since the industrial revolution have been based on manufacturing- someone selling something and someone buying something and it has always included useless stuff. People in this country store all the useless stuff they bought in their garage. During the summer go out on any weekend and see all the useless stuff people bought at garage sales

Our economy is like a big merry-go-round. Everyone on for the ride trying to grab the brass ring so they can continue the ride.No more brass rings and the ride is slowing down and will come to a stop and everyone will have to get off.

[Rufus T. Firefly]

Our economy since the industrial revolution have been based on manufacturing..........

Except over the past 3-4 decades it's shifted away from a manufacturing economy to a service // consumer based economy.

[HONDO74]

Will people continue to buy frivolous stuff this year like toy trains. Will Lionel & MTH made in China survive.

[v8vega]

I was a machinist during the manufacturing economy, it would be much more difficult to be one now.

[Rufus T. Firefly]

Will people continue to buy frivolous stuff this year like toy trains.

People with money will buy frivolous things; other won't if the credit crisis comes to the forefront. Right now we're only seeing the credit crisis as it applies to Wall St. and the banks as triggered by the virus interrupting the flow of international commerce and how that ripples through the service economy. If the ripples persist into the routine, e.g., your personal credit cards, bank loans, etc. then most people will looking to just survive.

Will Lionel & MTH made in China survive.

Pretty sure that's so far down on the list of concerns as to be just below meaningless.

[HONDO74]

Our economy since the industrial revolution have been based on manufacturing..........

Except over the past 3-4 decades it's shifted away from a manufacturing economy to a service // consumer based economy.

This should be worth at least a double face palm.

Well, to be fair, the global economy has been a house of cards built on a pile of B.S. for quite some time. To think that an economy based not on producing anything, but based on creative financing, unrealistic asset valuations, and ever-increasing household and business debt load could go on forever is just not reasonable. Everyone knew the party would end sooner or later; the virus pandemic is just the gust of wind that blew the house of cards down.

What it has done is exposed the many ways people and businesses can continue to work while maintaining social distancing AND reducing unnecessary travel infrastructure.You can now see how a FREE College education can be provided by doing it online and eliminating expensive campuses where 10,000 vehicles travel to a day and act as infection distribution points.

And elementary schools could be consolidated and more online and home school options provided thus reducing the need for higher taxes. Governments can perform many jobs remotely without requiring staff to show up in person....And many, private sector jobs could do the same.....Obviously, not all jobs can be performed remotely, but those that can will reduce the carbon footprint and more than likely improve the quality of the lives of those involved.....

[MurphOnMillerAve]

I find the expression, "social-distancing," to be an odd, oxymoronic coupling .
Eh, so what, but I just find it unique in its contrasting two parts.

[robert.]

i'll bet people are stockpiling groceries on credit. It will be interesting to see how many want that debt forgiven.

[Rufus T. Firefly]

Our economy since the industrial revolution have been based on manufacturing..........

Except over the past 3-4 decades it's shifted away from a manufacturing economy to a service // consumer based economy.

This should be worth at least a double face palm.

Well, to be fair, the global economy has been a house of cards built on a pile of B.S. for quite some time. To think that an economy based not on producing anything, but based on creative financing, unrealistic asset valuations, and ever-increasing household and business debt load could go on forever is just not reasonable. Everyone knew the party would end sooner or later; the virus pandemic is just the gust of wind that blew the house of cards down.

Yet it continues on.......with denial of reality double downed. We have way too many people that fully expect everything to return to normal in a weeks or a few months. Easter, right..... Things need to change. People cannot expect to carry thousands of debt on cards with 18-25%APR. That's just nutz.

What it has done is exposed the many ways people and businesses can continue to work while maintaining social distancing AND reducing unnecessary travel infrastructure.You can now see how a FREE College education can be provided by doing it online and eliminating expensive campuses where 10,000 vehicles travel to a day and act as infection distribution points.

Almost all true. Free? Maybe - still have to pay salaries and for some infrastructure, and cost of hosting it all. There are many educational areas that do happen to require physical presence. Most of your STEM areas will.....and we surely need those more than another Art History major.

OMG, do away with college sports.....and that multi-billion $ machine......

And elementary schools could be consolidated and more online and home school options provided thus reducing the need for higher taxes.

A little tougher - presumes you have a parent available not already working from home - not really all that true around here.

Governments can perform many jobs remotely without requiring staff to show up in person....

Already have been for many years well before my retirement - I would work from home a lot - I can write articles and answer email, etc. do whatever at the keyboard in my home office. Okay, but not everyone has a home office or something remotely like one. Will take a little thinking and planning. Not like spending the day at Starbucks...........my daughter used to spend 1/2 days there doing her work....

And many, private sector jobs could do the same.....Obviously, not all jobs can be performed remotely, but those that can will reduce the carbon footprint and more than likely improve the quality of the lives of those involved.....

Will have a serious impact on commercial real estate & office buildings,

[chuck]

What it has done is exposed the many ways people and businesses can continue to work while maintaining social distancing AND reducing unnecessary travel infrastructure.You can now see how a FREE College education can be provided by doing it online and eliminating expensive campuses where 10,000 vehicles travel to a day and act as infection distribution points.

And elementary schools could be consolidated and more online and home school options provided thus reducing the need for higher taxes. Governments can perform many jobs remotely without requiring staff to show up in person....And many, private sector jobs could do the same.....Obviously, not all jobs can be performed remotely, but those that can will reduce the carbon footprint and more than likely improve the quality of the lives of those involved.....

Except ALL of that requires a built in infrastructure be it roads, telecommunications networking, IT in general and BASIC research which you can't do remotely without those "expensive campuses".

From a strict standpoint of safety, elementary schools should be smaller and more local. Bussing kids around to mega schools is just begging for trouble. The child is supposed to be in school, not riding around on a bus going to school. "Distance learning" is fine up to a point. Particularly if the point is to learn something by wrote.

A large part of going to school is to learn how to interact with other people. We had a series of ever more complicated design classes as part of the undergrad BME curriculum. This involved teams working on projects for up to a year. I had to video tape the presentations and provide additional support throughout the year. It was fascinating to watch the group dynamics (good and bad) and it was really heartening to see a true team pull together and produce some amazing work.

As a former student and parent of a former student as well as being a staff member I was often assigned the task of giving facility tours to potential students. I occasional ran into a potential student that wanted to do the senior design class on their own. A) This completely misses the point of why you have to do a group/team project and B) the recruit was totally and woefully ignorant of the amount of work involved. I saw teams of five and six people struggling to get a project done in the allotted time as it involved conceptualization, IP research, many levels or prototyping, building/testing/documenting/book keeping, .... The instructor asked the students at the end of the final presentation on their thoughts about the class. They would invariably complain about how much work was involved and how hard it was. She would ask the "seniors" that were coming back in the fall for an MS or continuing on for their PhD to come in and talk to the "new" crop of incoming seniors. They would brief these students on what they were in for, particularly the hard work. They also told them in no uncertain terms was their most important class. They were finally pulling together everything they had learned in the previous three years and for the first time they got some feeling for what it was to BE an engineer.

I agree that back in the nineties the emphasis shifted from making things to making money. It is ironic in that we still make things, we just don't need as many people to make them. The country has survived this before, first in agriculture, then the railroads, then automobiles. We still make a lot of cars, we just don't need as many people to make them. We'll figure it out. So far, we always have.

[HONDO74]

Will have a serious impact on commercial real estate & office buildings,

Probably no more that all the manufacturing facilities that were vacated when the work was shifted to Asia.

And now we have retail facilities that are becoming vacant as the people shift their buying to online.

Convert the office buildings to apartments.

[healey36]

Walling ourselves off into a compartmentalized online world will be a huge mistake. Face-to-face interaction is a huge part of what we are, right, social animals? In the last few years of my career as a manager, I was starting to run into young folks who couldn't successfully fit into the social order of an organization. Too many years of social media, video games, and over-protective parents. Recipe for disaster. All MHO of course...

[chuck]

Walling ourselves off into a compartmentalized online world will be a huge mistake. Face-to-face interaction is a huge part of what we are, right, social animals? In the last few years of my career as a manager, I was starting to run into young folks who couldn't successfully fit into the social order of an organization. Too many years of social media, video games, and over-protective parents. Recipe for disaster. All MHO of course...

Very astute observations. The preamble of the Constitution does not start out with I or Me, it starts out with We.

[Rufus T. Firefly]

Walling ourselves off into a compartmentalized online world will be a huge mistake. Face-to-face interaction is a huge part of what we are, right, social animals? In the last few years of my career as a manager, I was starting to run into young folks who couldn't successfully fit into the social order of an organization. Too many years of social media, video games, and over-protective parents. Recipe for disaster. All MHO of course...

Our generations are presumably social animals; that's not to say that could change. And, what you may have observed is just the mismatch at a cross over point. It's a disaster for us; maybe not for those that grow up otherwise in a virtual compartmentalized online world as opposed to a "real" compartmentalized world.

Wonder what folks that lived in purely rural areas, that never saw a "big city", and the nearest neighbor was barely within the range of vision, and a phone was the height of communications technology would think?

[Rufus T. Firefly]

I got your TP right here.......