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Things are going back to how things were in March 2020 very quickly [1] [2]

As an aside, I’ve stopped being surprised with how out of touch and in a bubble HN posts are. There’s so much understanding of human nature out there that is missing here.

1. https://www.forbes.com/sites/alexandrasternlicht/2020/05/14/...

2. https://nypost.com/2020/05/09/carnival-swamped-with-bookings...

> I’ve stopped being surprised with how out of touch and in a bubble HN posts are.

I step away from the site every few days to help stay centered.

I hope things return to normal as quickly as possible, our economy depends on it. Very few people can afford to weather this without a strong economy.

In the US when you lose your job you lose your healthcare too. Healthcare can’t be fixed in a hurry but we can all agree to be reasonable and keep as many people working as we can.

Have you watched Powell’s most recent remarks? He doesn’t seem to agree with your assessment.

These types of people predict the worst so that they are never wrong on the downside. That’s why the initial death projection was 2m people. Imagine if they instead predicted 1000 deaths.

Same stuff happens with global warming preds. You’re getting the worst case, x100, every time.

Who are "these types of people"? Fed Chairmen are usually pretty level-headed.

Do you have an academic source for the global warming claim?

Right - we saw a lot of businesses lose 80+% of their customers before any shelter in place orders were mandated. In low margin places like bars and restaurants, it's highly unlikely many can survive with even 75% of their normal level of business.

That just means prices will go up. Nothing is certain, of course, but those prices are low mostly because of high competition, not because people are unable to pay.

There will certainly be a bit of both, but it's not like you won't be able to find a restaurant after the pandemic.

Some businesses' fixed costs mean raising prices won't prevent bankruptcy.

Restaurants will remain available, but will movie theaters? They were already being disrupted by streaming services.

> Employers will probably maintain work from home and cut back on office space. All those jobs that support maintaining offices may not come back either.

I think there will be a greater demand for office real estate because suddenly everyone needs double the space and (spacious) cubicles or standalone offices will make a comeback.

That is, unless every company goes full remote.

You maintain a location with a handful of dedicated offices together with hoteling and conference rooms for people to come in a day per week or so.

It will be a long and slow ramp. I don't expect to sit inside a restaurant or go to the movies for the rest of this year, possibly most of 2021.

Theaters were on the way out before any of this started. Movie ticket sales have been declining for years. That trend will only get worse.

This makes me ponder how fortunate I am (or dumb I am) to have eaten in a restaurant twice in the past week.

It depends where you are, really. I'm in the hot zone here (northeastern US...)

Personally I'm not so sure if movie theaters are nonviable. Nerdy stuffs are generally safer.

> Will the public feel safe enough to go back into theaters all at once before theaters run out of money as if nothing happened?

the need for theatres and cinemas have not disappeared. They will come back once the virus situation is under control (in say 2-4 yrs time, when vaccine is available). Therefore, the jobs will come back in 2-4 yrs time.

The companies will have been different - the old incumbents will have bankrupted by then. But that doesn't matter - as long as there is new investment, new companies will spring up to soak up the demand.

Same with office spaces. It's not like the need for office space will disappear indefinitely.

>Same with office spaces. It's not like the need for office space will disappear indefinitely.

There is an arguable difference here, a lot of people were willing to WFH before the crisis, but most businesses didn't allow it. A crisis like this, forcing businesses to accept WFH, has the side benefit of doing a large experiment where business owners see whether WFH works for them, maybe even has good sides to it, but also what's negative about it.

Before, many employers were just apprehensive and would only think about this in theory. Many now see in practice what they were afraid about, and maybe they're not as afraid anymore.

So maybe office space will rebound, but maybe not. I'm quite sure in my city most office jobs are doable from home, however for meetings we might get back to some balanced level of WFH + office work. But it may never rebound to pre-crisis levels.