Envelope / Develope

Photo by davide ragusa on Unsplash The social distancing forced families to stay together and live confined for many hours in a row. Habits exposed at work were transferred in  the family setting and did not fit or led to conflict. The simple way of spending time revealed that suddenly when the time is lapsing slower than usually, people don't know how to stare or leave in contemplation. For unknown reasons: 1. what became obvious to everyone during the corona virus: people have time to think and question and fall on the same old theories - the gods are cheating on us, there is a large conspiracy of big pharma, the government is sold to big corporations, etc.. 2. when there is no skin in the game, there is no incentive to innovate - education, health, management of limited resources, cooperating among nations at safeguarding resources  3. there is no planning for all elected officials and there is no pay-back for the ones who really played the system - I ...

Photo by Trust "Tru" Katsande on Unsplash I was reading about the developing efforts for a vaccine reflected through the stock market. It happened to have a few shares of the VIR Biotechnology ( VIR ) company when the chase of finding a vaccine started. It was an incredible ride, even for a guy accustomed with the up-and-downs of the shares in a company and the political game played when companies are bought or acquired. Just for illustration, please see the chart of this stock for a three month period. There is excitement, at the beginning  of March about the possibility of developing a vaccine for Corona virus, and the stock surpasses 70$/share when before is was lingering under the 17$/share threshold. There are many companies in the race - Moderna ( MRNA ), Gilead ( GILD ), Inovio Pharmaceuticals ( INO ) and probably a few of them will find a virus. What I don't understand is the effort spent in parallel of fighting the same cause. It is a lot of ...

Photo by CDC on Unsplash   Detect immunity One of the numbers broadcasted every day is the number of COVID-19 patients who recovered. Instead of being fixed on detecting people with corona virus, we should be fixed on detecting the ones who had a mild version of corona virus or even were asymptomatic. Once we know they can freely move, socially mark them in a certain way (with a special certificate).  They could be the soldiers of opening closed businesses or helping important economic sectors. They are on the other side of the fear, all the COVID-19 restrictions should not apply to them. It is not known for how long is the immunity lasting, but at least, these people should come back and revive the industries and get the jobs and make the economy re-start. It is a small number, but they can propel some ideas for the ones in the isolation (see below). That should be the second most important decision of our governments - detect immunity, instead of just...

Photo by Jon Tyson on Unsplash I don't know what is worse: the whole pandemic provoked by the corona virus or the consequence of shutting down businesses due to the risk of contaminating their customers? There are industries where people are clustered together, where you have to be close to your client: airlines hospitality (Disney, cruises) entertaining industry restaurants, fast food establishments, wineries, breweries anything related to well being and not health care As I outlined in a different post, year 2020 is essential for US presidential elections. Mr. Trump understands the whole economic factor is so important to get elected a second term. With the forced close down of the major economic sectors (car manufacturing, industrial manufacturing, airlines, entertaining), the crisis in the health sector being overwhelmed by the peak of people admitted in ICU, banks hit by a slowed down economy, there is a perfect storm to bring his chances very down. There...

Photo by Austin Chan on Unsplash   The Covid-19 virus is here to stay. The isolation will only buy time, the WFH will not get back the industries, the jobs and the permanent fear that another virus can hide somewhere. The only major reverse back to normalcy would be to find a treatment/vaccine which could be easily accessible. In order to get validation for it the only action which will convince population and recover the whole lock-up is to put off the spread in Italy. What is it done to get to that ideal scenario? Maybe we should have a website updating this pursuit and calling for volunteers (big pharma, I am quite sure there are many volunteers waiting in the wings !).

The US politics is full of empty slogans and misinformation. I was reading about claims by Barack Obama and Trump vis-a-vis the state of the economy, whose policies left it in a better shape. Photo by Jose Moreno on Unsplash It would make an interesting analysis with proper tools to recognize the real environment inherited by both presidents, the influence of the monetary policies during their period but most importantly their direct role in shaping the US economy. Unfortunately, in US media at least, nobody is talking about the real influences in the economy, the forces at play, with a lot of money power, that want to drive the economy in a "clear direction". We can talk about the beneficiaries of the government spending - like US defense and US health care - to industries sponsored through subsidies or punished because of well/not that well known public issue concerns - soft drinks, fast food, tobacco, chemical compounds. One of the puzzling policies, for m...

Photo by Jonas Jacobsson on Unsplash One in five workers with a high school education or less are subject to a non-compete clause. Labor cost becomes one of the variables any company will try to contain, especially for large companies or small franchises (like soccer, basketball teams) where the star status is coming with large paychecks. I will try to touch this subject in the light of a few observations and findings of today's labor market. Large companies are been tacitly agreeing to limit poaching talent from each other in order to limit the salaries of the talented people Monopsony is the buyer's power in the market, single buyer or many of them agreeing to follow the same rules. I wanted to touch the subject because it reflects one of the old ideas where "managers" are trying to contain costs of their raising stars. That is valid for all industries with the exception of the movie, music industry or individual sports. All other cases - team sp...

Do you do what you like or what the labor market in your specialty is demanding at that moment? Where are you (career wise) when the economy does flourish or plunge? These questions remind me of the importance of the birth month for the hockey players (see Malcom Gladwell, "The tipping point"). Your development stages as an individual could come in collision with the economy cycles and your life could be doomed just because you were born in an unlucky year. I remember reading about the lost generation in Japan: young people without any chances to get a job because the long recession coincided with their start in the labor market. Without prospects, with a stagnant economy they struggled to find jobs and opportunities were not existent as the older generation clutch their seats and didn't want to make room for the "new blood" in economy. The situation prolonged the agony of a lost generation which saw their dreams crushed in tough economic times. With a bit of a ...