"The Optimistic, Udi Aloni, Funder CEO : "Never Bet Against Humanity

"The coronavirus came at the right time". Yes, you might be surprised to hear that but the most surprising thing about this coronavirus is its perfect timing for mankind. Many think that the world is going to change quite dramatically. For instance, there are those who say that real-estate and tourism businesses are finished and that kids will return to the written word, and that we will all go back to live in villages. So yes, there will be changes, most of them for the better and there is no need to so quickly go and mourn abput tourism or real estate businesses.

But let's go back a bit, before we jump into the more immediate and long-term impacts of the coronavirus on the economy and society. Let's look back a bit, prior to the coronavirus hitting us.

The year is 2019, billions of people are connected online to the network called WWW. In this network, billions of people are connected to social media and online purchase platforms. Video calls however are not yet so commonly used but the foundation is already there. Almost everyone living on this planet has a handy 'supercomputer' that is used for calls and finding whatever their heart desires in a press of a button. The smartphone.   

Moving onto the banking industry, almost everyone has a bank account, and anyone is eligible to receive money (from the government or a loan or a donation) with the press of a button. That means that if the governments decide, they have the ability to ease liquidity situation of each and every one of us. Login online to our account is an option that exists for a long time now. Online access to the stock markets have been there for decades.

Continue on with agriculture, the food that we all eat is being produced by a very small percentage of the people. 95% of humanity isn't dealing with the production of food so that even at the time of crisis like the coronavirus pandemic there is no need to go and work the land.

Online supermarket, the foundation for ordering food is already there and many receive their food by ordering online…

I think that you already understood where I'm going "The coronavirus pandemic came at the right time" because humanity is already prepared to deal with it in the best way possible that governments around the world could allow themselves to act according to the Chinese method of lockdowns – quarantines – and social distancing. In this method, the death cases curve during the months of the pandemic will be lower than 300 million (just as professor Sarig has stated) or 100 million just like it did back then with the Spanish flu or even lower than 1 million! Seeing it translated into percentages (it's a sad thing to refer to the deceased in such way) is quite trivial.
But yes, the world is about to change and the ways of actions taken by humanity are constantly changing, but will it make us humbler? I don't think so. Humanity is going to be a lot ruder and more arrogant.

Pay attention, there are already 70 serious projects for the development of medicines and for a vaccine for the coronavirus. In a few more months, humanity will already have in its hands an effective vaccine that will create a sense of "we're invincible", "we're SUPER HUMEN" among the people.

Medicine?

Check!

The American company Gilead has received a rapid approval from the FDA for the medicine remdesivir for treating COVID19 and has already announced it will have at least 1 million treatment doses by the end of the year and three times more by the end of 2021. If that's not enough in order for you to be optimistic, so read this next story. Oxford university together with Astra-Zeneca have already started manufacturing hundreds of thousands of vaccines. Yes, the vaccine has not yet been fully tested on human beings but they're already in the production stage because they're so sure of it. And if you're now glued to your screen, checking the Astra-Zeneca's stock price – then don't! because it has already completed a V (a perfect correction to the drops in the stock market) and you should take into consideration that as long as there is a state of pandemic, Oxford has obligated them to make no profit out of it. For the sake of humanity. (There are more medicines in dispute regarding their effectiveness, like in the case of remdesivir, such as a cocktail combined of hydroxychloroquine, zinc and antibiotics.)  

And now let's go back to the impacts of the coronavirus pandemic on the economy.

Micro economy

The economy during the months of March-April had slowed down suddenly. And many people lost their jobs and the rehabilitation process starts in May and in about two quarters we will start seeing most of the problems getting solved, but not all the workers getting their jobs back. Today it was published that the household consumption in Israel is already about 85% from what it was prior to the coronavirus pandemic hitting, so it will reach its full extent by the midst of June. Amazing. The economists predict a full return to normality by the end of year.

The stock market

The stock market is not an accurate mirror of the economy, but perhaps much more like the 5-d mirror they have in the amusement parks, that makes you look fat, short or tall. Everything concerns the stock market might look the opposite in the short run and sometimes even in the mid-runs. Only the strongest companies can be found on the stock market. The top of the tops. They don't serve as an example for small business or freelancers that need an immediate help. The companies that are on the stock market also have a stronger bargaining power when facing the governments and can get a much more significant aid, a lot faster. The indexes consist of many different companies and only the strong ones survive.

In a paradoxical way – layoffs, unemployment, and bankruptcies of small companies, all of this is helping the big companies in the stock market "jungle" to make even more money. It doesn't mean that big companies can't collapse, see for example the cases of Nokia and Kodak and now we may even witness the collapsing of Hertz or that of the oil companies, but in contrast to them, we'll also see the hi-tech heavyweights skyrocketing and the indexes soaring up.

A tsunami of money is flowing into the markets

Flowing money at the expense of next generations, is a method that started actually less than a hundred years ago (Every economics graduate heard of the name – John Maynard Keynes) that was further improved in 2008 with the flowing of trillions of dollars to the markets. In fact, you can say that if the coronavirus pandemic would have happened before 2008 it might be that the economy would have been much more shattered, so much so that we would have been able to overcome the crisis only after many years to come.
In these past days I've been hearing about people wanting to invest their loaned money in the stock market. Not the smartest thing to do, but you need to understand that there are lots of liquidity which is flooding the market. Maybe in the future it will come back to haunt them. Meantime the markets are up as a result of that.

Health

No doubt that the medical equipment, medicine and bio technology companies will skyrocket. Much like the security companies that managed to convince governments to purchase security equipment even if there is no war in sight… the medical equipment and medicine companies are also trying to convince us that it's important that we should stock ourselves with large amounts of medical equipment and medicines, who knows maybe there will be a second, third or more coronavirus pandemic waves.
Even now many medical equipment and medicine companies have already completed an amazing V in the stock market and their future looks bright, at least until satiation sets in and a surplus of equipment will push for a decrease because life is circle of: shortage, growth, over decreasing, and so forth.

Communication

The cellular companies and in particular the manufacturers of cellular systems that will in no doubt flourish. 4G, 5G and in the future 10 because there is no doubt that humanity needs a faster, available and powerful communication. These are the autostradas of the future, these are the fast trains and the bridges over the ocean, we can't see our lives without them: Internet, banking, retail, education.

Social medias have remedied our loneliness. Imagine to yourself a lockdown with no Facebook, LinkedIn, twitter, WhatsApp?! Just imagine that. Words can't describe the magnitude of today's humanity without the network, without being able to search online, without the ability of purchasing online, without learning from home.
The network is the most powerful platform that was ever created by humanity. The ability to communicate over an optic fiber network in the air, out in the sea and on land is one that only maybe UFOs can fathom its magnitude. The number of fields that are now making the transition into the network world is huge: learning from home (online), medical tests (online), banking (online) cyber bulling (online), consulting (online) everything and anything you can do from your own home - online. Indeed, there are people who don't feel any need to leave their houses. All the companies that can take their business online - will benefit. The banks will become more efficient, the retail will become more efficient, the internet will thrive even more.

Workers and real estate

Many companies are about to make the transition to the "work from home" approach and because of that, more workers will turn into freelancers who are able to provide services to more companies. Therefore, platforms such as Fieverr will thrive. Also, the freelancer's rights will thrive. They must receive their working rights in order not to lose their productivity due to two damned months of the coronavirus pandemic or even due to one long time off once a year.
Office buildings – there is no doubt there will be a significant hit and that the companies are not going to populate so many office buildings with so many workers. This big change is not because the fear of getting infected but more because of the improvement of home working that was achieved using software such as ZOOM and CRM in the network that enables home working.
Will office buildings stay vacant? No.
A vacant office building will be transformed into an apartment building. Even when you're working from your home office… you need a home!

Homes

Residences will undergo a change. They're not just a living space anymore but an office space too. Architects will have plenty of work trying to figure out what will be the winning design that will dominate in the new apartments! "Smart home" or "smart home-office" startups will also have plenty of work.

Apartments prices

The prices for an apartment are at sky high level. There will be no harm if they will come down a bit. The regulation would change and the taxing will be much easier on the investors, just like it skyrocketed during successful times so now it's going to come down. For example, the purchasing tax of about 8%-10% will be down to about 5% in the first stage.
If the prices of the apartments will come down, it will happen as a result of toughening up the conditions for getting a mortgage loan and less because there was a rise in the interest rate. The government will have to provide securities for first-time apartment buyers.

Productivity

A term that refers to the job yield per hour of work. This grows is due to home working and home studying. The worker yields more per hour of work but he's also left with more free time because it doesn't get wasted on traveling to or doing nothing in the office.
At last everybody will be measured according to their yield-output and not according to the hours they're putting in.
Take for example a freelancer adviser who works via ZOOM: he can provide more consultant hours working from home to a lot more people, charge less per hour and overall earn much more. Everybody earns more in the end. That's what called higher productivity.

The beauty model

It was once considered custom to believe that being young is beautiful. After the coronavirus pandemic, being young is not just being beautiful but it's also about being healthier. Unfortunately I'm not that young anymore but during the coronavirus pandemic I started thinking that maybe a hair transplant won't do any harm… think just how damned this coronavirus disease is, it mainly strikes the elderly and if we thought that there is a process taking place where the "older beauty" is taking center stage and having more presence and that the world belongs to the elderly because the life expectancy is rising… so turns out it was only a thought.
There is an opportunity here for plastic surgeons, fitness trainers, dieticians and bio technology researchers who work to develop medicines for slowing down the aging process. Truth is that this is one of the fields where you can make big bucks even after post coronavirus period (may it be cursed in peace).

Oil

The oil prices have sunk down even prior to the coronavirus and then it broke out. For the investors among you, oil is the worst investment option. Even if you have crystal ball and you know exactly what its price will be in a year from now, there isn't really any device that can keep track of the prices as you would want it to. Exchange-traded notes are maybe a good device for tracking stocks, but they are surely an awful one for tracking merchandises. In addition, oil companies are ones that have a very complicated legal structure for amateur investors. Even if the companies are very profitable, most of the times you will only get the crumbs.
The prediction for the oil business is that of a moderate rise but these goods have a low ceiling and very high volatility and a demand which increasingly goes down. So why take that risk?

Tourism

Here is a shocking prediction – tourism is going to make a big comeback in less than a year. My assumption is that within a year a vaccine will be available and there is already a medicine in the works. And it will happen in less time than what all kind of "experts" say, those who never allowed themselves to be confused with the facts. What is the connection between the FDA approval for a vaccine during regular days to one that's for the coronavirus? The rapidity in which the regulators will work on the coronavirus vaccine matter is one that we have yet to be seen. Luckily enough this virus pandemic is very similar to another virus called MERS and there is a lot of knowledge regarding it, even here in Israel, there is a research institute called " MIGAL" in north of Israel that has already started developing a vaccine and the same is being done at the Israel institute for biological research in Ness Ziona. As we mentioned there are 70 groups of developers that have already started with their research.

The lockdown and quarantine caused a huge deficit in the "social account" of each and every one of us. There is this huge yearning for social human touch. Because whatever may come, Facebook and WhatsApp can't provide, to full extent, the need for companionship, a hug and so many other things that people do when they get together. The need to see the world and people, have not disappeared even for one moment but instead became even more powerful. Today, when all of us all over the world are speaking the same language, "the language of coronavirus", the common ground of all the people all over the world is growing. We all now have the same mutual history. And there is a great need to fly, to meet, to work, to relax, to vacation.
The brave of us will board the first plane whereas the populations at risk will be the last to fly. The Chinese people are already out traveling, in china.

My assumption is that in a year from now, in the next summer (two summers from now) it will be hard to find good price tickets for flights. Part of it is because the low-cost companies will be out of business but mainly because the governments will want to get back the investment, they put into saving their local airlines companies and will reduce the competition to favor them. It's like taxing the rich, problem is that everyone will want to fly and not just the rich.

I've already covered here 1800 words without even speaking about masks, ventilators, alcohol gel and other products that will stay with us for one, two, or ten years, who knows. Because in the moment humanity is holding on to some kind of " "a disease prevention" such as the following, like watching hands, brushing teeth and so on, it will keep obsessing over it. And so there, I've mentioned alcohol gel. In conclusion, the world is going to change but that's not necessarily means it will be less good or less profitable or less fun. Humanity is winning in a knockout. My suggestion is to never bet against humanity! Be optimistic, because this is the time to make the change you always wanted and didn't have the guts to do that. Take a chance because it's going to be good, really good.