Dating The Plague of 2020, Round Two

Did you ever have one of those dating relationships where you felt like things were not going well and were not going to end well, but somehow you stuck with it in the unsustainable hope that things were somehow - dare I use the word "magically" - going to get better?  That is what the world feels like right now to me:  this constant sense that things are somehow just not quite right and are not getting "more right" any time in the future.

The lurch back and forth between opening and non-opening is one example.  Things are going fine - wait, things are not going so fine so hold on.  We are not sure when things are really going to go fine, so plan - but do not really plan (if you are business that depends on knowing what the situation will be, this is a killer, and something that will quickly convince you to just stay out of business).  And oh, once we decide to open things up, better get out there and spend, spend, spend because you know - support your local economy and all.

Or the reality that the shutdowns continue to have an impact.  Borepatch has a rather interesting simple state of the world note, where a bike shop that has been in business for 50 years is going out of business simply because they can no longer get any parts because the supply chain has given out from the shutdowns world wide.  And another contributor on his site, notes the same things in home improvement store.  These are the sorts of things you do not notice until you go to use them yourselves.

People have asked when I think I am going "back to the office".  I tell them I sincerely doubt it will be before next year.  My math is simple:  We are now at July.  We are in a place that has just gone back under the lock down so I expect that we will continue to "work from home" for much longer - and if we reach November, that is practically the end of the year with vacations.  And although the death rate from The Plague seems to be sinking, it still has potential long term impacts we are continuing to come to understand so who wants to take the risk?  (Add to that the fact that by the time Winter comes back around we will have perhaps the second wave to deal with as well as our regularly scheduled flu season.)

By that time we will have been "out of the office" for 9 months - can anyone, given what time of year it will be, think that coming back together in the depths of winter will be a good idea?

Add to this the general unrest, uncertainty around personal economics ("Do I have a job?  Will I have a job?"), the eventual inflation that will hit when our propensity to invent money out of thin air catches up with us and the counter-strike when someone suggests we need to "raise taxes" to pay for all this, and all of a sudden that highly uncomfortable relationship becomes one that we cannot dump quickly enough.

I will not say it will not be interesting, because as someone who observes the folly of nations and states this will be writing grist for the mill for years to come.  I will say that, if we are so fortunate to come out of it, it will scar generations the way that one bad relationship scars our love life for ever.