The Covid-19 pandemic taught us many lessons, probably least of which is in health care. When a candidate says, “I will personally manage the day to day Covid-19 response,” you know you are seeing a lack of seriousness. In the US, you could say that Covid “czar” Anthony Fauci was the person put into that position, and 75 million cases later, it was not a success.
Further, there was no “one-size-fits-all” global approach. Some of the tactics were a result of local conditions; some by design. Even still with over 500,000 actives cases, Denmark is set to lift all restrictions. Belgium took a total-lockdown approach and has 50 percent more cases than Sweden (with similar sized populations), which did not shut down early.
However, on the economic and business front we did learn a few things.
Identity politics is a political approach where people of a particular identifying factor like race, gender or economic group are treated differently based on the identity. We discovered that maybe “identity politics” is not necessarily favorable to the economy.
Eighteen-months ago, global health-care workers were all “heroes.” That was until they started complaining about compensation. Then there were comments about “unprofessionalism” and loyalty to the nation.
Since it is election season, one candidate “pledges P50,000-minimum take-home pay for health-care professionals.” If that is what is needed to have better medical care in the Philippines, teachers should probably get the same compensation. While we are at it, this compensation for police and military might solve the peace-and-order situation. Perhaps a universal P50,000-minimum take-home pay would solve poverty.
There are two economic issues that have been impacted by the pandemic response from which we have gained both knowledge and more questions. I can say though that the greatest way the world has not benefited from the pandemic is the proliferation of experts.
Put enough monkeys pounding enough typewriters for a long enough time and they will produce the complete works of Shakespeare. We nearly proved that to be true.
Many experts are calling “work from home” the future of employment. They may not know that pre-Covid, almost 20 percent of the US workforce was already WFH. Continuing surveys of people that do WFH say that not having to go to an office and sitting at a keyboard in fresh underwear makes them 17 percent more “productive.”
However, this Washington Post headline tells the true story: “You may get more work done at home. But you’d have better ideas at the office. Innovation would suffer if remote work became permanent for most employees.” Maybe that is why there were few new video games produced in 2020/2021 and many that did come out were nearly unplayable (Cyberpunk 2077). Productive people need more face-to-face interaction than the current WFH models offer to do their best job.
Just-In-Time manufacturing, introduced in the 1970s, is an inventory management strategy in which materials are only received when necessary for production. Raw materials—including parts—are not stored. However, the first large-scale incorporation of JIT, Toyota Motor Corp.—quickly discovered its failure.
In February 1997, a fire at a Japanese parts supplier demolished its production capacity. The weeks-long shutdown caused Toyota to halt production causing a ripple effect, where other Toyota parts suppliers had to shut down because the automaker had no need for their parts.
When China shut down in 2020, global manufacturing was crushed. The supply-chain system is still broken.
We all personally learned how to cope with Covid. Did the government leaders? From the political fallout of “quarantine-breaking” in the UK to the truckers strike in Canada, the answer would seem to be “No.”
E-mail me at mangun@gmail.com. Follow me on Twitter @mangunonmarkets. PSE stock-market information and technical analysis provided by AAA Southeast Equities Inc.