virtual Israeli folk dancing has proved a valuable solution during COVID-19, allowing a popular pastime to continue safely, while creating a global dance community. So even when in-person sessions resume, it’s likely that virtual dancing is also here to stay.
This is an example of what I call “remote capital.” That is, people have learned to do things remotely. Even if fears of the virus go away tomorrow what we would see is a blend of pre-virus in-person activities and remote activities. Live Israeli dance sessions likely will include a Zoom feed for dancers in other locations.
Corporations with offices in multiple locations will at the margin substitute remote conferences for some in-person get-togethers. Perhaps Boards of Directors will meet twice a year in person and twice a year virtually. Although much of education on Zoom is not satisfying, my guess is that students will vote with their feet against large in-person lectures.
Similarly, post-pandemic, I expect many – and perhaps most – federal courts to continue embracing videoconference hearings, particularly for non-evidentiary hearings.
A plethora of livestream TV services are available for high schools and sports clubs to broadcast games and even practices so that parents don’t have to congregate in a facility to watch. See for example: https://striv.tv/ This will continue to grow.
I’m not so sure. FWIW, many firms (especially Wall St firms) are going back to in-person as soon as possible. Likewise, in my experience, students are unhappy with Zoom and want to return to the classroom. However, online meetings may be here to stay. I’ve heard few complaints.
Yes, Arnold. The pandemic and the government response will bring new patterns of behavior. We can call them “capital” if we think the new patterns are useful and good.
Not everything that is useful is good, however. As you can read in
https://www.aier.org/article/elections-and-legitimacy/
counting illegal votes have been useful for the beneficiaries but not good for the country.
It never ceases to amaze me that the very same people who think the Democrats are incompetent at every legitimate function of government suddenly think they are also able to continually successfully pull off vast intricate conspiracies at will involving countless people.
And somehow you are never able to prove these conspiracies despite the fact that everyone walks around all the time with a video recording device in their pocket.
+1
The rotten and corrupt D-politicians sometimes can get what they want. In the past 5 years, they tried to get rid of Trump but failed despite the huge resources they could rely on. Both the Wuhan virus and their alliance with radical leftists gave them a new opportunity but it has yet to be seen if they have succeeded.
Yes, horrible people sometimes fail for incompetence or bad luck and sometimes succeed thanks to their competence or good luck.
It seems that you cannot distinguish nice and horrible people, competent and incompetent people, and good or bad luck.
I laugh at the many rotten and corrupt Dems that now deny the possibility of conspiracies when they have been mounting conspiracies to overcome their failures and to promote their abuses (yes, these are the same people ready to re-write history to accommodate and appease their new “radical left” friends). How can these people ignore how much they spend to fabricate a Trump’s conspiracy to collude with the Russians to derail Hillary?
Anyway, the counting and recounting of legal votes is not a conspiracy. It’s the exercise of each American’s political right to ensure that the election was clean according to the law of each state. Rotten and corrupt Dems are governing some states and cities and they promised to do whatever was necessary to ensure that their EC electors vote for Biden.
I’m not surprised that now idiots supporting Biden want to deny that political right. For the past 5 years, these same idiots have been supporting their masters’ conspiracies against Trump.
Yes, idiots, it’s truly amazing:
https://twitter.com/JusticeTristan/status/1326935683663974400
And this is how rotten and corrupt D-writers have been fabricating conspiracies (published today):
https://www.newyorker.com/news/letter-from-trumps-washington/is-this-a-coup-or-just-another-trump-con
I’ve personally witnessed lots of conspiracies in my life and people got away with it. The only shock is how brazen it can be without anyone being punished.
Hey – just a reminder that our QAnon Zoom call for today got rescheduled to 9pm ET from 8pm so that Pence could watch Tucker. I emailed you earlier, but wasn’t sure if you got it. Please use the usual link.
You’re a blessed man if you haven’t seen corruption in your life.
>—-“I’ve personally witnessed lots of conspiracies in my life and people got away with it.”
If you only added an actual anecdote that could rise all the way to the level of anecdotal evidence.
It wouldn’t require a “vast intricate conspiracies…involving countless people”–all it requires is a handful of people in key places (and they don’t have to formally co-ordinate).
For example, the legalization of homosexuality despite widespread, bipartisan opposition and long-established laws–it took maybe 2 dozen people in key positions to ensure that the US stopped being a democracy with the rule of law that time.
Similarly with the election–all it would require would be a handful of people with access to voter roles in areas that are historically very Democratic, but low turnout. And what you’d expect is exactly what we’ve seen–super-high turnout in those areas, driven by votes recorded after the polls closed, in a handful of critical states.
Once people get used to teleworking, how will US citizens justify their wage differential compared to Indians? This could ultimately be terrible for the American office-worker class.
Yeah, this is a great thought, so thank you. But, can I pushback a little?
When I worked in tech at multiple companies in the SF Bay Area, we already had large development teams (aka coders) in China and Korea. Much less so in India, except for the customer support folks. I’m thinking that the worker competition in foreign markets may already be tapped out? Why move it overseas now vs. several years ago?
Also, there are already wage cuts in the works for those that choose to relocate outside of the Bay Area:
https://www.businessinsider.com/tech-companies-cutting-salaries-outside-bay-area-twitter-facebook-vmware-2020-9
India may not have a very deep bench of talent. They have a small core of high performers that already flee the country for the west. What’s left isn’t top tier.
Add in cultural, communication, and time zone differential and maybe its not worth it to save a few dollars on marginal work. Big money in tech is O-ring work and you don’t want weak links.
“India may not have a very deep bench of talent.”
Yeah, I agree. We’ve been at this for like 20+ years and the best that India has to show for it is a bunch of mediocre customer support reps named “Jim” or “Jane.”
I see your point, but in the last few decades economic growth in developed countries has been concentrated in urban centers. Accordingly, prices in Silicon Valley* have shot through the roof to a degree that only makes sense if there is a substantial competitive advantage to physical presence. If the jobs can move out of the cities, why wouldn’t they move somewhere much cheaper? If the postindustrial parts of America were cost-competitive with foreign labor, they would still be industrial.
*Also Manhattan, LA, Boston, etc to a greater or lesser extent
Physical presence still matters, which is why other cities like NYC, DC, Austin, Seattle, and Raleigh have seen a lot of growth as secondary tech hubs that are still cheaper than the SF Bay metro.
Diversion: Silicon Valley has some of the most hideous looking real estate and topography that I ever seen (I graduated from Santa Clara University in 1999). Reminds me of L.A. with all of the boring flatness and endless strip malls. The public schools are awful as well. Surprisingly, it took a decade plus for the elites to figure out that they could work in Silicon Valley, but live in the much more beautiful San Francisco. But then the homeless moved into San Francisco and now they are stuck with tent cities and honey buckets. Oh well…
I was at IBM for almost a decade, in Slovakia. A company with great research and strong NIH (Not Invented Here) prejudice – we were starting to use zoom instead of the inferior IBM video stuff, altho the Cisco conf calls were good.
IBM had long had off-site managers, highly paid in the US, with teams working in Bratislava (SK) & Bangalore, India. One of the smartest, hardest working, best performing project managers was from India – so were many of the least reliable. Usually high promising workers, but often needing to be told step by step, what to do.
And then again, the next time in the next week, same step by step instructions for most of them. One reason the high performing Indian was so excellent is that he didn’t try to explain why too much, just clearly told his other team members the step by step instructions. Repeating each time it was needed.
Around 2015 there was a big Agile push, with the idea of forming small teams of hardworking multi-skilled folk folk to solve problems thru “self/team meetings”, on site. The push to reduce off-site management allowed IBM to retire, voluntarily or otherwise, lots of older talent, and increase in-office work with much less off-site remote.
My contacts say they’ve had no problem going back to off-site management, using zoom. With US managers getting paid high salaries, Slovak/Euro team leaders getting paid mid salaries (about half?) and low paid Indian/ Chinese/ Filipino workers, with lots of credentials, doing data entry and basic stuff, getting step by step directions from local or other non-US team leaders.
My anecdotal experience was that Chinese workers had worse English, often by far (especially in speaking), but were much better learners. Often in a text chat. Less step-by-step teaching repetition. But I was team leader for only a few teams – tho most other Slovak managers and team leaders agreed with that. For the real developers, Slack was the preferred async method of leaving text, questions and answers, for the whole team.
I suspect far more WEIRD folk are great at getting good things done by themselves.
Because so much manufacturing is step by step, fairly routine once learned, there will remain a huge cost benefit for those making stuff. Slovakia currently makes the most cars per capita in the world.
Smart Slovaks are as smart as smart Americans; not sure what the ratio is. Dell and AT&T are among many other companies doing on-site and off-site mgmt; not long ago Amazon cranked up large distribution here.
I very well remember the day I was in the Mt. Pelerin Society annual meeting (Transition at the Cross Roads), on a panel arguing about whether or not Slovakia should join the Euro. I was strongly for. Nobel winning Gary Becker was strongly against, from the audience. It was the Slovak morning of 11 Sep, 2001. The towers came down in the afternoon. 🙁
In the short and medium term, the Euro has been much better at increasing Foreign Direct Investment, as I was arguing. Tho the other Visegrad 4 countries have also had good investment (Czechia, Poland, Hungary) while keeping their own currencies.
Joining with the Euro in monetary union was a form of organizational capital.
Good insights, thanks!
“Around 2015 there was a big Agile push”
Lol – scrum teams and sprints anyone? Did MVP (minimum viable product), make its way out there as well? I was a silly accountant back in those days (and still am), but had to work very closely with the software R&D teams. We actually had a large software automotive team located in Galati, Romania (of all places) doing some crazy cool stuff.