The Velocity of Hope
As the pandemic settled in earlier this year, jets were already in the air flying to fast closing borders. Vivos, a shelter network company noted that their private global shelters, almost forgotten, were suddenly getting requests to be fully upgraded and freshly supplied. New Zealand, a favoured escape destination was seeing a sudden influx of very wealthy “visitors” heading to the safety of their bunkers with personal doctors and nurses in tow. Robert Vicino, founder of the California based company found himself inundated with calls from previously silent clients. Domestic business also jumped. In South Dakota, two dozen families moved into their 5000-person shelter. Their “bunker”/ mini-city, was built on a former military base about three quarters the size of Manhattan. Similar “bunkers” are spread across the US and the world with varying levels of luxury and defences. Vivos has begun rapidly building new sites in Germany, New Zealand and the US.
Gary Lynch, general manager of Texas based Rising S Co received a call from a tech client who had never used his bunker and had forgotten how to unlock it. The client was fleeing from New York, the then epi-centre of the coronavirus. Dam Twidell of private jet booking service PrivateFly is very happy with his current state of his business. Although international borders are now adamantly closed to American travellers, even those with their own jets, domestic private travel is up.
I have always been an old “follow the money” type journalist. Fact 1; we are globally connected, money driven consumer economies. Despite a cacophony of financial advice flooding U-Tube, the “real” money is quietly minding its own business and walking off to their private financial “bunkers”.
My purview is political strategy not finance. I line up the dominoes” based on global events and watch them all fall.
You can pick any U-Tube financial channel that makes you feel better, but the truth is, there will be no V-Shaped economic recovery. Fact 2; the economy is politics and current politics are in cahoots with the pandemic.
This is not a singular event in one or, some countries. This is new, it’s worldwide. Not even WWI or WWII had this level of equal, global economic impact. Current financial politics are making the Great Depression and 2008 look like ripples up against the Covid-19 tidal wave.
Our global economies have been based for more than 75 years on consumerism based growth. Buy it- bigger, newer, Now! Add in an upside down credit rating system that encouraged debt and the game kept accelerating. Cheap Chinese manufactured goods created a “throw- away” product attitude. “Shopping therapy” psychology kicked in to promote over-priced goods that marketers were thrilled to push forward. Money velocity was at top speed and spinning everyone around like carrousel full of happy children. This is what we called a “strong economy”.
Covid-19 has put a spoke in the proverbial wheel. We are discovering that monetary velocity is no longer a reliable, constant. It is not a physical lever but a psychological one. If we stop getting on our pretty painted consumer ponies, the music comes to a screeching stop. Americans and the rest of the consumer world are changing lanes. Saving vs casual spending. Stashing those elusive pennies for a possible storm.
Increased social unrest, job losses and pandemic depression is leaving investors frantically buying and selling in hopes of keeping the game afloat just a little bit longer. Tuesday markets go up; Thursday markets go down. FANG today, WANG tomorrow.
Democrats and Republicans continue to bicker over expensive lunches and hope to drag Americans along to the polls in November. Stimulus is the carrot dangled along the race track. Does it matter who wins the election? Having my doubts. Protests will not stop. Whoever wins will piss off the opposite side. Cities will not magically re-appear all shiny and new. Closed businesses will not turn on the lights again over night. People will be hungry, tired and angry. Those bunkers will get good use over the next year. Eventually even the wealthy will get tired of re-run movies and only seeing themselves in the mirror. Glitz loses value if you can’t show it off.
I end where I always do. With you. My reader. What are you going to do? There are more options than hiding or, burning buildings. Sit down and decide, what do you want for the future. What real, targeted goals can we create? It’s pointless asking for “world peace”. Oddly, even on that one, no one will agree what it means. My legal half kicks in with a directive of ; “define your terms” to the lowest level, then work back up.
Using “world peace’ as our example; what is the “world” to you? Country, state, friends, family… go deep. Then, what does “peace” mean to you? To your colleagues, friends, family… Everyone has a different idea.
When you finally find common ground, start back up again. Small, achievable targets. How do we create “peace” in our family, community, country etc.? For each small target achieved, step forward to the next, little bit bigger one. It won’t happen in a day. But, thanks to the pandemic, we have time to reinvent ourselves and, our world.
Feel free to drop me a line, I am all in. My “small” definition of “peace” is a glass of wine with friends and jazz music. Would love to hear and share your ideas of peace with mine.
