Life after Covid-19. Who wins and who loses?

[YellowThumper]

Now that the world is starting to reemerge from the shutdown/meltdown.
As header states. Who will win and who will lose.
Thread intent is to discuss primarily business after the fact.
Not conspiracy theories. Please keep it as such.
Business owners, tell us how you believe you will fare.
As I have previously stated, I work for a medical company.
Specifically I am in charge of outsourcing the build of their injection molds.

Winner for us as their primary products are engineered for non invasive patient monitoring. Tje right place at the right time.

Other medical suppliers that primarily produce mechanical based products are hurting. My former employer is one of them.

I expect will continue to hurt for the foreseeable future. Many elective surgeries will now never happen.

To keep it relevant to this forum. It is my opinion that our hobby will take a significant hit. I believe that our supply chain of offshore parts for all classics will not continue as it has for much longer.
Reasoning is, I anticipate sweeping restrictions and penalties will be levied onto China in the near future. Our hobby of readily available and low cost parts being a casualty of this.
Company I work for is also anticipating this and has ramped up many more replacement projects to be prepared for the pullout. Past 2 months I personally have an additional 1.5 million added to tooling budget for this to happen immediately.

[anlauto]

The first losers are the 320K+people that have died already 

[dodj]

Well, definitely Amazon and other mail order businesses will do well. People that stayed away from online purchases before have been kind of forced into it. And many will continue.

[70 Challenger Lover]

I see one positive out of this mess is that there will be more telework and online meetings. Many would never have considered it before but after being forced into it, I know of many who are now saying they want to continue it to some degree after COVID. Companies like Zoom could really profit.

There could be another benefit to many of us employees. Some of us can work from home and may be permitted to do more of this in the future now that companies see it can work and have things somewhat set up. Many people outside the US see Americans as work driven, putting it even before family and happiness. Outside the US, many people work simply as a means to enjoy life and it doesn't define them like it does for most Americans. If more Americans are allowed to work from home, they get to spend a little more time with family, less commuting, Etc. and might start to strike a better balance between work and personal lives.

That's the positives I'm hoping for. The negatives are already seen and sadly will probably get worse.

[YellowThumper]

Exactly correct as I see it also. I worked from home for 2 months. Only coming in occasionally as necessary.
The taste of online meetings has been set.
Second to that is the forced online ordering.
This will only accelerate the difficulties brick and mortar companies were already facing. Many previous walk in shoppers will not give up the learned convenience and return to old ways.

[Brads70]

I thought a lot of metal stamping s were coming from Taiwan and not so much China as in PRC China ? 

[70 Challenger Lover]

I thought Trumps trade war with China would make all cheap Chinese imports dry up but they didn't as far as I can tell. I think people are pissed at them but my guess is they will get over it and continue to want inexpensive Chinese goods.

I do hope some of our critical stuff will move back here. Stuff like pharmaceuticals, protective gear, etc.

[YellowThumper]

I thought a lot of metal stamping s were coming from Taiwan and not so much China as in PRC China ? 

Yes a lot of stamping is. However look at the size and population difference.  They will never be able to produce enough product to flood the world like China can and does.

[YellowThumper]

I thought Trumps trade war with China would make all cheap Chinese imports dry up but they didn't as far as I can tell. I think people are pissed at them but my guess is they will get over it and continue to want inexpensive Chinese goods.

I do hope some of our critical stuff will move back here. Stuff like pharmaceuticals, protective gear, etc.

Most of that was his normal blustering to get his way. He did get some concessions out of it. However he still needs to win election #2.
I would put money on the table that if he wins next election it will become a balls to the wall agenda push. Also suspect we will have many countries teaming up against them as well.
Yes pharmaceuticals for sure. The world had a serious shortage of antibiotics early this year. All because of their shutdown.

[JS29]

If other country's set out to get Trump, The demorats won't have any purpose! 

[BIGSHCLUNK]

So far    That being said....

The majority of our customer base is car lots, body shops. service garages. Over all car sales are way down in my area. Again the key word here is "overall". There's a crap ton on youtube right now about it will be a great time to get a "deal" if your in the market. One place that has been a very long standing customer ( so I know he will give me the straight answer) said we sold 4 cars this month. Typically it's 30-40

Very few body shops have much going on. A few are busy catching up on "dealer" work. I was in a Caliber Collision (big chain around here) 2 weeks ago. 3 cars in the entire shop. This location is usually packed when I've been there.

I was in the service dept at a Hyundai store last week.... We could have played football in there. Yet they keep building these multi million dollar facilities. The majority of people who needed repairs that got their stimulus (nothing for BIGS... ) have already spent the money they got. 

I still have guys on layoff and most likely cutting hours next week. Things generally slow a bit between Memorial / Labor days. I was working on a deal to sell the shop to a long standing carlot customer. Just about had things sewn up. Then COVID hit.... put everything in hiatus.   Metal prices overall are down, so liquidating is unwise at this time.

I do have some concern with my apartment building. I hoping everyone can continue to pay their rent. My properties have been self sustaining. I will know more about this at the end of the month.                                                                   
                                                                                                                                                               With all of this I still feel lucky. I'm old enough to walk away if necessary and it wont change my lifestyle. If I was younger it be a whole different scenario. Previous recessions we actually good for us. This time it's not looking that way. This is uncharted territory and time will tell.    SIDE NOTE - the wife's been working from home since march 17th. But you can't run a store from home for long (unless your amazonish). 

[cuda hunter]

I build homes so I'm not sure how this is going to play out yet.
If there are folks with big bank accounts I should still have people wanting vacation houses here in Colorado. 

One thing I've heard from several business owners I know is that they are having problems finding employees after this.
Lots of people are on unemployment and making more than they were when working.  So they are staying on umemployment.
That makes us tax payers the losers. 
Amazon is the one who is surging from this.  Bezos is due to be the first trillionaire.  Unfortunate really as it makes more of us antisocial.
More working from home and more ordering from home only makes our society retreat from one another.  That's unfortunate really.  Creates the divide in the name of convenience. 

The marijuana industry is having no troubles here. 

[ToxicWolf]

I had a tire on my truck leaking air.  Took it to a Goodrich shop and all 8 lifts were up in the air. Really surprised me. 

[71-440]

An e-mail I received from my personal physician.


"A recent UN report from Reuters indicated that hundreds of thousands of children could die this year due to the global economic downturn sparked by the COVID-19 pandemic. Tens of millions could also fall into extreme poverty as a result of the downturn in the economy.

The UN report also indicated that nearly 369 million children across 143 countries who normally rely on school meals for a reliable source of daily nutrition have had to look elsewhere for nutrition.

The UN report also indicated that the economic hardship experienced by families as a result of the global economic downturn could result in hundreds of thousands of additional child deaths in the year 2020. This reverses the last 2-3 years of progress made in reducing infant mortality in a single year.

With business shutdown and greater than 1 billion people told to stay home, the International Monetary Fund is predicting the world will suffer its steepest downturn in the economy since the Great Depression of the 1930s.

The UN report also indicated that 42-66 million children could fall into extreme poverty due to the economic shutdown.

The elites continue to say we have to stay home and ruin our economy to save lives.

If you look at the number of people dead in Georgia, the mortality rate is less than 0.01% which is less than the influenza illness.

I am not saying the Wuhan virus is a hoax. I am questioning our response to it."

[JS29]

  Even New York City is starting to revolt!  Mayor Di bla bla blozio is wanting to use the police that he dose not like to try to impose his marshal law.