Hyper Consumption, Insatiable Greed & Instant Gratification — The Next Normal
Karl Marx, the father of Communism, the German philosopher, economist, historian, and sociologist once said in the context of Upheaval, revolution & political metamorphosis.
“History repeats itself, first as tragedy, second as farce.”
More often what one perceives as new, emerging, or distinct is often wrapped in new colorful packing with intent, emotions, and the outcome largely unchanged.
Will the Post Pandemic World be the same as was it before Dec 2019 or Will the mortals have new preferences, new biases, and a new set of glasses to peep into the external mirage in which one keeps looking for answers to one never-ending anxiety, restlessness and heartburn?
Will humans shift focus from maximalist to Minimalist? Will hoarding, covetousness for more end?
Will People shift the focal point from human aggrandizement, technological advancement with total neglect of Mother Nature, or will pay due heed, due attention, due consideration to her woes?
Questions are simple, but answers never are.
In April 2020, the note The New Normal http://tiny.cc/nextnormal spoke about the Series of Pandemics which human life has faced and suffered since the last two millennia and the exit for the current Pandemic.
This one isn’t different which has shaken the faith of people from its leaders, from so-called experts, from known preachers.
People are bruised, hurt and many have been pushed hard to the wall some by acts of others whom they trusted and some by their own acts.
Like all good things, bad things also come to an end and so will the Pandemic in another quarter or two from here and now. Mass immunity and mass vaccination is on its way and in two quarters, the influential world, the developed world, and the biggest markets of the world will acquire resistance to fight the virus and the strain or should I say strains, mutated versions in one way or the other.
What would the new Post Pandemic World look like?
If history is any indication of what happened in Post Spanish flu which infected nearly one-third of the world population back in 1918 and 1919, the Pandemic was succeeded by hyper buoyancy, hyper demand for new mechanized tools and equipment, hyper risk-taking ability accompanied by the cheap and easy availability of money for leverage.
(In a decade’s time, the world witnessed the GREAT DEPRESSION, which lasted for nearly 3 decades, followed by another World War)
Does this sound familiar?
Green shoots or signs of consumption are apparent, with Amadeus’ Demand360® business intelligence data showing that hotel occupancy levels are now on an upward trajectory. Worldwide occupancy reached 46% in April 2021, up from the low point of just 13% in April 2020. This means that global hospitality occupancy has climbed two-thirds of the way back to pre-pandemic norms of around 70% for this time of year.
Interest rates have plunged to the lowest figure ever in the history of mankind with nearly one-third of the global bond market sized at 119 trillion USD, (~140% of total Global GDP) trading at Sub Zero Yields.
Will these trends continue and in the last quarter of CY 2021 when herd immunity/vaccination be largely done with? Let’s examine a few of these emerging trends which will become more apparent in a couple of quarters from now.
1. Unprecedented Hurry
Pandemic has established a simple fact, that money is important and money can get you good care and good healthcare but money can’t buy life anymore. Even the richest, even the wealthiest, and even the fittest have become victims of this pandemic. Thus more people are trying to acquire wealth rather quickly by matching the demand and supply gaps as and when they crop up, either by using technology or by increasing efficiency or by increasing productivity.
The concept of Pent-Up demand is now being altered by demand for alternatives and thus gratification and fulfillment, fulfillment with speed appears to be the new normal. One can see the rise of Platform businesses and fulfillment businesses that are ready to pivot in any and every area where demand and supply mismatch exists. Platformization of existing infrastructure which is present in form of rooms, hotels, beds, supplies etc are creating millionaires and billionaires at a pace faster than any time in human history. Result of which Younger and Mid Life professionals and entrepreneurs are quitting the rate race to enjoy the spoils of war earned in past few years. As per the survey conducted in the past few months by Prudential Financial’s Pulse of the American Worker Survey, one in four or to be precise 26% of the workers in the American economy want to quit their job as they believe they have either stagnated or their current skills need more advancement or they need more flexibility and freedom in the work they do and working hours they put in.
The trend from “Earn and then Enjoy” (Happily retired life post 60 or 65 years) is changing to “Enjoy while you earn” (Less Savings, more discretionary spending) and “earn while you enjoy” (Finding fun and happiness at workplace. Doing things which give you happiness and earning money from it).
2. Technology is the new Utility
The generation post the last Pandemic of 1918 or even till mid of last century believed cooking, interpersonal skills, grooming, sewing, gardening were essential for survival and success. In the last century or just twenty years back, water, electricity, etc were considered as Utility. This Pandemic has brought a paradigm shift in what is considered a utility. The first one starts with WiFi or Internet connection and then comes other utilities. Digital skills have become more essential than cooking or interpersonal skill or grooming as one is able to find food at a reasonable cost on the internet and one can earn and enjoy with limited interaction with society. Social distancing which became the norm during the Pandemic was adopted by Millennials a decade ago.
3. Risk & Religion
The Pandemic gave a much-required Philip to Risk and Religion both parallelly (Pun intended). With limited things to do, with limited options in hand to spend time, with limited people to interact with, confrontation, displeasure, discomfort found their way in the society. Media surely provided requisite fuel to fire and aggravated one’s deep fears, aggravated doubts, aggravated abhorrence towards others, others views, others perspectives leading to more than ever conflicts and conspiracy theories on every possible subject with no consensus on practically anything. Cryptocurrency and Capital markets worldwide brought Poseidon’s realm to one’s greed & gluttony.
The fake news which should have been alarming to humanity became calming to the society, for ones pushing those untested, unverified, unjust ideas.
Poor people, people who are victims of the Pandemic, emotionally, physically, psychologically, or economically, who had nowhere to go, found solace in Religion. Religion also took them to the brink of moderation and extremism was easy to seep in holes that were left attended.
This progression seems to be irreversible for now, the question which humans need to find is : Will Humans be able to regain Humanity again?
