Furlough Estimates

[Roger Roger]

Definitely not. Every industry has conferences. Hang around major convention cities enough and you’ll see it. I was in Vegas the week before all hell broke lose. What conference was at the hotel? Amazon delivery drivers. I have no idea what they talk about for three days, but that’s how long they were there.

I could spend three days just talking about all of the ancillary fees I charge tenants.



Oh yes. Every businessman I know is focused on outsourcing. The wonders of systems like Zoom, Google Suite, Slack, Time Doctor, etc. make it crazy easy to manage huge teams from thousands of miles away and at a tiny fraction of the cost. Most of my staff lives in Mexico and works from home.



Yep.

So all your pro-union pro-labor stuff is just a front. Got it.

 

[SlumTodd_Millionaire]

I'm shocked you are so sold on Zoom despite their privacy issues. And it's concerning how many people are so high on them as well that they're going to be the new norm of business. College institutions are having massive difficulties and constant struggles with it from what I've read. Just figured you would be anti-Zoom. Not attacking you personally.

But again wasn't the same rhetoric said about business in 08? Technology is going to take over, outsourcing will begin and financially it will take a decade to recover or longer.

I think my point is: we are all just arguing opinions here on whether we see the glass half empty or half full...

I like Zoom because it’s such a stable platform. GoToMeeting, Skype, and others are buggy as hell. But yes, it has some issues, and those are being worked through now. It’s a trial by fire for these systems right now. Nobody expected the whole world to suddenly be run from afar overnight.

 

[SlumTodd_Millionaire]

So all your pro-union pro-labor stuff is just a front. Got it.

I’m a trade unionist, but I’ve never been a protectionist. During the Moak years when I was on the Executive Council, I was openly opposed to all of his protectionist garbage, and said so here. This a global economy. Pretending otherwise is childish nonsense.

 

[tcco94]

I like Zoom because it’s such a stable platform. GoToMeeting, Skype, and others are buggy as hell. But yes, it has some issues, and those are being worked through now. It’s a trial by fire for these systems right now. Nobody expected the whole world to suddenly be run from afar overnight.

I agree, but many schools and businesses today announced they are banning Zoom. I reckon by the time they figure it out and hopefully don't have lawsuits it will be too late.

What keeps me up at night is more how the economy rebounds and how discretionary money is spent. I'm shocked the conversation is about the mindset of humans right now. Especially with my generation having a long future ahead in business and seems completely fine with going back to normal life and travelling in 6 months. Hell I know many who are taking advantage of cheap vacations next year and at the end of this. That's who I'd have my focus on for a timeline on the rebound. But I try to have a glass half full type of outlook... To each their own.

 

[mastermags]

So today I learned that the only thing business travelers do is sit in meetings.

 

[SlumTodd_Millionaire]

So today I learned that the only thing business travelers do is sit in meetings.

Basically accurate.

 

[hammerhat]

Oh please. That’s so beyond reality I can’t even comprehend it. Everyone I know is itching to fly as soon as possible, to other countries as well.

And I'm itching to go clubbing and partying but it's not happening anytime soon. The virus has shut down the clubs (also I'm too old, have wife, kids and bald spot)

Look, I never said I liked it. So why don't we come back here a year from now, April 7th 2021. I truly hope my forecast is wrong. And I will pop a bottle of expensive scotch and will comment here and admit that I was wrong.

 

[SlumTodd_Millionaire]

And I'm itching to go clubbing and partying but it's not happening anytime soon. The virus has shut down the clubs (also I'm too old, have wife, kids and bald spot)

Look, I never said I liked it. So why don't we come back here a year from now, April 7th 2021. I truly hope my forecast is wrong. And I will pop a bottle of expensive scotch and will comment here and admit that I was wrong.

I think you’re a little too pessimistic even for me. But I think you’re a lot closer to accurate than the people predicting a speedy recovery, that’s for sure.

 

[hammerhat]

I think you’re a little too pessimistic even for me. But I think you’re a lot closer to accurate than the people predicting a speedy recovery, that’s for sure.

I am pessimistic on the industry outlook, yes. But otherwise I'm optimistic. I expect that we'll learn our lessons from this benign and easy virus and on the other side of this pandemic we will emerge stronger and healthier. The healthcare availability and efficiency will improve, even in the U.S. The safety nets will get stronger worldwide. We'll be better prepared for the next virus that in all likelihood will be more dangerous. And while things look gloomy for the airlines think about all the new industries that may not even exist yet but are about to skyrocket.

 

[Roger Roger]

I am pessimistic on the industry outlook, yes. But otherwise I'm optimistic. I expect that we'll learn our lessons from this benign and easy virus and on the other side of this pandemic we will emerge stronger and healthier. The healthcare availability and efficiency will improve, even in the U.S. The safety nets will get stronger worldwide. We'll be better prepared for the next virus that in all likelihood will be more dangerous. And while things look gloomy for the airlines think about all the new industries that may not even exist yet but are about to skyrocket.

You clearly haven’t met many American voters.

 

[Inverted25]

I am pessimistic on the industry outlook, yes. But otherwise I'm optimistic. I expect that we'll learn our lessons from this benign and easy virus and on the other side of this pandemic we will emerge stronger and healthier. The healthcare availability and efficiency will improve, even in the U.S. The safety nets will get stronger worldwide. We'll be better prepared for the next virus that in all likelihood will be more dangerous. And while things look gloomy for the airlines think about all the new industries that may not even exist yet but are about to skyrocket.

I feel like Yakob created another username


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[mikecweb]

I’m more concerned he wants to “pop a bottle” of scotch. Dafuq kinda scotch is that?

 

[Hiboglossi]

I feel like Yakob created another username


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

It's definitely not me- notice they said "otherwise I'm optimistic"!

 

[z987k]

Here's my prediction: quarantine will become permanent. Well, not in its present shape and form. Schools will reopen. So will some businesses. Social distancing will become the norm. Many industries will never fully recover. International travel is one of them, at least not in our lifetimes. Government travel restrictions will become commonplace (think "health visa" to virtually any country, mandatory 2 weeks isolation for all arrivals etc). Wannabe dictators will continue their power grab and restricting freedoms.

This in unfortunate for the airline industry but also this will be a catalyst for new industries that will start emerging soon. Remote work for office clerks will become the norm rather than exception. Outsourcing will further accelerate.

Also, I would not tie the economic recovery prospects to any cure like vaccines, antivirals etc. This whole pandemic event is as mild as it could possibly be, with the novel coronavirus being just a hair more aggressive than common cold. And even this mild of a virus demonstrated how woefully unprepared we (humanity) were. Communists, capitalists, socialists, liberals, conservatives, national healthcare systems, private healthcare systems... All of them are failing spectacularly! And at the same time there's probably another virus lurking somewhere in domesticated dogs or rats or maybe ants that is one mutation away from crossing over to humans and causing hemorrhagic fever with mortality of Ebola and 30 days of contagious symptomless incubation period.

To echo what @GypsyPilot said, I really don't think you've been outside the US and probably have been glued to a US TV station recently.
Korea and Taiwan have knocked this out of the park. Aside from the dead airport, the countries are both operating as if nothing is abnormal. I just had lunch with a friend and about 50 koreans all sitting so close we're touching arms more or less. Not only are they not overwhelmed, they have less cases overall, as a % and less deaths. What they are doing has worked quite well.

 

[killbilly]

Zoom's wounds are largely self-inflicted. Many of the privacy concerns that have the Virtual Happy Hour crowd clutching at their pearls are normal business features. I was irritated when they dropped the attention tracker feature - this is a good and necessary tool in business applications. The issue is that the proletariat is using a business-grade product and not knowing what they're dealing with. It's great for the company from a marketing perspective; they've achieved the holy status of having the name of the company be the de facto verb for the industry. But the second-order effects are that they've painted a nasty bullseye on their backs, and the price they've paid for the system being so easy to use is coming into a harsh, cold, ugly light.

Where they really, really screwed up was claiming they had end-to-end encryption, and then rolling their own.

They don't, they won't, and they shouldn't. It's transport-layer encryption and it's how most legitimate business gets transacted between businesses and cloud service providers.

This family of issues occupies about 30% of my daily attention right now....

 

[SlumTodd_Millionaire]

Zoom's wounds are largely self-inflicted. Many of the privacy concerns that have the Virtual Happy Hour crowd clutching at their pearls are normal business features. I was irritated when they dropped the attention tracker feature - this is a good and necessary tool in business applications. The issue is that the proletariat is using a business-grade product and not knowing what they're dealing with. It's great for the company from a marketing perspective; they've achieved the holy status of having the name of the company be the de facto verb for the industry. But the second-order effects are that they've painted a nasty bullseye on their backs, and the price they've paid for the system being so easy to use is coming into a harsh, cold, ugly light.

Where they really, really screwed up was claiming they had end-to-end encryption, and then rolling their own.

They don't, they won't, and they shouldn't. It's transport-layer encryption and it's how most legitimate business gets transacted between businesses and cloud service providers.

This family of issues occupies about 30% of my daily attention right now....

Virtual happy hours are of the devil, anyway. All of these extroverts with their Zoom parties are trying to ruin the joy of this stay-at-home apocalypse for the introverts.

 

[killbilly]

Virtual happy hours are of the devil, anyway. All of these extroverts with their Zoom parties are trying to ruin the joy of this stay-at-home apocalypse for the introverts.

They're certainly consuming bandwidth and resources that actual commercial applications could use.

Sending you a DM....

 

[hammerhat]

I really don't think you've been outside the US and probably have been glued to a US TV station recently.

It's funny you said that because I'm of asian descent, and while born in Europe I spent more than half of my life outside the US, including in Asia. I also don't have and never had cable. But all that is irrelevant.

Korea and Taiwan have knocked this out of the park.

I hope you're right and we all learn from Korea and Taiwan (or better North Korea, they only had 1 case so far which was "cured" quickly)

But be very careful when extrapolating from outliers without fully understanding confounders and sampling error. This is a textbook example of selection bias.

 

[Screaming_Emu]

I’m more concerned he wants to “pop a bottle” of scotch. Dafuq kinda scotch is that?

Maybe carbonated scotch is one of the industries that doesn’t exist yet that he was talking about.

 

[mikecweb]

Maybe carbonated scotch is one of the industries that doesn’t exist yet that he was talking about.

We should probably just leave scotch alone. Hannah and Skylar can screw something else up.