The Great Reawakening
Speaking from the northeastern US, here’s what we’ll be seeing from my view:
• Kids will be going back to live classrooms. Online learning has failed. The scientists feel kids can safely go back. The teachers unions might have to be bribed by moving them to the front of the vaccination lines. The educational system at primary and secondary levels has again shown its huge weaknesses, especially with disadvantaged youth.If this doesn’t cause wholesale change, I don’t know what will.
• Summer vacations will return with a ferocity, and it’s already tough to get reservations in many places in the US.
• International travel will continue to be difficult and cumbersome because, inexplicably, Canada and Europe (outside of the UK) have absolutely blown the vaccine rollout. Let’s not beat ourselves up so much here. (Switzerland, for example, with no opposition parties, really, sits there as if vaccinations are beneath their lofty perch. Can you claim neutrality on health?)
• An explosion of “live” events will be scheduled and take place, many of which could be virtual and probably will be in the future, but businesses are “thirsty” to get people together again.
• Professional services will continue to be one of the fastest growing segments of the economy. One of the things you can’t do well at all virtually is to network.
• There will be people and institutions which continue to act in an “abundance of caution,” a phrase I’ve grown to abhor. But I honor their decisions to conduct themselves as they see fit, in their best interests.They will be left behind as the economy continues to accelerate toward and surpass pre-pandemic levels, which the stock market has already done. (Think of the people who panicked and bailed out of the market last March.)
