Does anyone here have any daily impact from COVID currently? I'm not talking about something that happened a year ago. But something in your life NOW that is impacted by COVID?
Yep.
The entire world was FLOODED with fiscal stimulus. That money is floating around the economy right now chasing an amount of goods that hasn't gone up--hence EVERYTHING is expensive a f.
Today, I'm not working. The company decided to shut down in the US for the week [unpaid] to save money. Why is everything so screwy? Because COVID caused massive supply chain issues that created inventory overhangs that are still being drawn down. More specifically? One of the big markets we serve is video surveillance, which is HUGE in China. But their 2 1/2 years of Zero-COVID policies meant that they weren't often able to install hardware in the field, which means that their need for our products has been in a 2 1/2 year lull. We're hopeful that the end of Zero-COVID will lead to a rebound, but the speed at which that means anything meaningful for business is unknown.
Oh, and all that fiscal stimulus, and the inflation that it caused? Why do you think we need high interest rates? What has it done to access to capital? How are businesses going to afford the loans that they need to either maintain operations or grow their way out of this, when access to money is so expensive?
The world economy, and entire industries, were disrupted by COVID and the attendant government policies that came with it. Those effects are still here.
Most people here are living their lives without giving COVID much thought. But that doesn't mean that a lot of the absolute messes we have right now aren't effects of COVID.
