The Economy and The Markets (where are we, where are we heading, and what does it mean for the QC...)

[SouthEndCLT811]

3 minutes ago, kermit said:

AT&T gigabit has been very stable. Its a godsend. 

Agreed, my wife and I are working from home.  Sometimes if things are slow I'll also stream a show while I have a process running (IT/implementing new systems) and it's been pretty reliable.  Living near Southend I'm in the Verizon blackhole where 4G seems to lag and I've noticed with all those running my wifi connection on my phone can be slow.  But still not as bad as our 4G signal in the area.

Otherwise WFH has been great,  forthose needing some quiet during meetings or just a lot of meetings in general I'll recommend the HyperX Cloud Stinger headphones (client of where I work).  They've been a huge help in cancelling noise and just comfortable especially when I did two days in a row of 8 hr trainings. 

In my role we're an old school IT company that came up with IBM execs in the 70s/80s so all we do is face to face, 80% travel.  And we also do waterfall project plans which really have their gaps.  Up until recent when someone retired I was the youngest on my team by probably 2 decades and I'm 34.  Trying to use this WFH time to preach agile and that we can go to a 1 week on site, 3 week off site style project when our travel restrictions get lifted.  By that time I'll have been able to test out my agile plan on 1-2 upgraded systems out in the field and trying to prove out this method gives just as good quality and potentially quicker implementations. 

[videtur quam contuor]

My next neighbor does IT support for his business. I asked him how this is working for him (from a more than 2 meter distance). Normally this is an onsite function. Since the stay-at-home order there have been one or two people at the site doing the necessary physical functions and the rest of his team working from home. He is working about 15 hours per day with breaks for food and hygiene, 25 minutes or so each. So many people contacting him about their set-up, issues, problem resolution and everything else that would take seconds or a minute or two normally, if they even occurred. Now his team is triageing calls and emails, trying to maintain a service queue, juggling hierarchy and efficiency is shyt. 

So I guess the point is that for those on the other side of the WFH interface there is little to rejoice.

[kermit]

 

[nicholas]

3 hours ago, kermit said:

In my industry (higher ed) the shift online is going VERY badly. No one is happy about how it is working. Online ed does have some niche applications, but the bulk of the population believe that f2f is a much more efficient way to learn and assessments of learning quality back this up. In addition, students, as a group, are very eager to get back to campus.

I can see many low-end office activities (e.g. call centers) shifting to WFH. These jobs require little more than a script and the need for workers to learn new things is minimal (and is normally handled by passing the call off to someone else). Unfortunately the shift of low-wage office jobs to WFH will shift many costs on to workers and reduce their quality of life.

Higher-end office jobs (professional activities which require feedback, design, creativity and experimentation) are (IMO) going to remain mostly f2f in centralized offices. Nearly all of these jobs involve a degree of human-engineering (e.g. convincing someone to approve something, learning new concepts and integrating concepts from multiple people) that is incredibly inefficient (or impossible) when not f2f.  Trends over the past decade show us that many of these folks work at home a couple days per week, but need to put in facetime at the big house each week as well — this tends to increase demand for office space in the CBD (‘halfway to everywhere’) rather than suburban office space (imagine if you live in Huntersville but need to report to a Ballantyne office twice a week).

The rise of the Southend office market also shows us that many workers (particularly younger ones) prefer working in places that offer entertainment (e.g. lunch and afterwork drinks) options nearby. The workers who an in demand enough to choose where they work will continue to force  office environments to gravitate towards dense areas — this will become increasing true as demographics continues to decrease the size of our labor supply.

We have been talking about technologically-driven decentralization of office jobs being inevitable since the 1960s — but it has never materialized. But over the past 15 years we have seen downtown (and TOD) office space become much more in demand (think Amazon HQ2 or GE or Lowes or US Bank or Regions or McDonalds or Marriott or.....) despite the best telecom capacity and technology ever. 

One way to think about the continued need for office space for knowledge industry workers is to think about how legislation is made. AFIK, there is no democratic legislature anywhere in the world that meets remotely to conduct normal business. The reason why is much of the backroom horse trading stuff that is fundamental to legislation becomes impossible in a remote environment.  The production of new ideas often requires the same sort of back channel stuff.

In short, I do see some office space getting abandoned, but I think the places getting hit the hardest are suburban business districts like Ballantyne, Sandy Springs or North Raleigh. I am not quite saying these places become the new Rustbelt, but I think rents will drop to the point where it makes no sense to build there. Downtown  office space in large metros (roughly Charlotte’s size, bigger if they have no major HQ or research presence) will continue to grow.
 

(Everyone here knows I have a bias towards density. While this bias comes from the research I do as part of my job, its possible I am bending the narrative to fit my views)

I am a UNCC student, and all of my classes have been moved online.  It SUCKS.  I don't think anyone likes it, or at least not anyone who takes the classes seriously.  My instructors can't wait to go back to in-person classes, and I think many of the students feel the same way.  I've only really worked in restaurants, so not sure what a desk job is like, but I'd hate to have to work from home.

[joenc]

I wonder how many of the universities won't open in the fall. I think it'll be 25% or so.

[SentioVenia]

2 hours ago, kermit said:

AT&T gigabit has been very stable. Its a godsend. 

The best household decision I made in the past two years was getting off Spectrum and jumping on AT&T fiber when it was laid in my neighborhood.

[kermit]

26 minutes ago, joenc said:

I wonder how many of the universities won't open in the fall. I think it'll be 25% or so.

I have heard of 3 small private universities (all in the Midwest) which have decided to permanently close this week -- a ton of small-private university closings are inevitable due to demographics,  CLOVD just happened to be the event that killed these off. With more established universities I would bet that the decision to repopen for f2f in the Fall will be dictated by state and national conditions. No University will want to assume the risk of being an outlier to reopen so I'll bet either all Universities will be open, or none of them will (god I hope that is not the case) -- I would be very surprised if reopening were scattershot. 

Edited April 2, 2020 by kermit

[UrbanCharlotte]

13 minutes ago, SentioVenia said:

The best household decision I made in the past two years was getting off Spectrum and jumping on AT&T fiber when it was laid in my neighborhood.

AT&T fiber is not yet available for me in Ballantyne... anyone know what the expansion plans are?

[Guest]

3 hours ago, NikolaTesla said:

I feel for you there Kermit!  Not surprising considering that most American homes are pretty much made of paper and sticks.  

My windows are open in Brooklyn (55 degrees is the new 75) and I can hear at least 6 people on calls right now.

Edited April 2, 2020 by Guest

[nicholas]

13 minutes ago, joenc said:

I wonder how many of the universities won't open in the fall. I think it'll be 25% or so.

From my UNCC weekly newsletter:

"All courses for the full summer term and the first-half summer term (Session A) will be completely online/remote. The decision for whether or not to move the second-half summer term (Session B) fully to online/remote will be made by May 18..."

I suspect UNCC is tentatively planning to go back to normal operations in the fall, but we won't know until closer to that date.

[kermit]

7 minutes ago, nicholas said:

I suspect UNCC is tentatively planning to go back to normal operations in the fall, but we won't know until closer to that date.

Faculty and admin (including system-level admin) are all (so far) working on the assumption that Fall will be a normal semester. (go niners!?)

Edited April 2, 2020 by kermit

[joenc]

29 minutes ago, kermit said:

I have heard of 3 small private universities (all in the Midwest) which have decided to permanently close this week -- a ton of small-private university closings are inevitable due to demographics,  CLOVD just happened to be the event that killed these off. With more established universities I would bet that the decision to repopen for f2f in the Fall will be dictated by state and national conditions. No University will want to assume the risk of being an outlier to reopen so I'll bet either all Universities will be open, or none of them will (god I hope that is not the case) -- I would be very surprised if reopening were scattershot. 

There's also the international student question, it's possible there will be fewer Chinese students paying the full sticker price.

[kermit]

BAC seems to feel confident about its ability to weather the storm

 

[urbanlover568]

West Virginia bank is first to fail since onset of coronavirus

https://www.americanbanker.com/news/west-virginia-bank-is-first-to-fail-since-onset-of-coronavirus

[NikolaTesla]

Has anyone worked on any new projects or learned any skills? 

I am working on rebuilding the back deck.  I started about two weeks ago with dismantling the old one, which was a beotch.  Here are some progress pics.  I have the steps to do, one small fence door and then staining..finishing work etc.  It's not perfect but it's turning out decent, This is my first time building a deck.  Thanks

[kermit]

^Looks square and great spacing. Excellent work!

(a coat or two of waterproofing sometime in the next 12 months will feel very worthwhile when you are looking at your deck in 2030)

Edited April 4, 2020 by kermit

[NikolaTesla]

10 minutes ago, kermit said:

^Looks square and great spacing. Excellent work!

(a coat or two of waterproofing sometime in the next 12 months will feel incredibly very worthwhile when you are looking at your deck in 2030)

Thanks Kermit!  Looking back at the pictures, they make the railing look a bit distorted too...its much more square in person.  I am planning to let it dry for a few weeks and then stain it all.  

[11 HouseBZ]

My wife has tasked me with finally organizing the garage. So next week I'll be building some shelves around my work bench. This past week I hung some hanging shelves (pictured) and then a ceiling fan in the living room (pictured). I also got my yard in order and hopefully will figure out how to make Bermuda grass look good (lots of doubts). I also might be monstaliner-ing my truck in a couple weeks. Just gotta fit this in between days that I'm working. 

The deck looks great NikolaTesla!

Edited April 4, 2020 by 11 HouseBZ
I'm dumb, I'll add photos later

[videtur quam contuor]

Stairs are the critical part. Take your time. Measure three times. Draw the scheme of the stairs in several views. Measure again. Take it from someone who had to rebuild his deck stairs because of insufficient planning/reading/visualization. Preparing the landing spot is also important.

9 hours ago, NikolaTesla said:

Thanks Kermit!  Looking back at the pictures, they make the railing look a bit distorted too...its much more square in person.  I am planning to let it dry for a few weeks and then stain it all.  

 

[NikolaTesla]

26 minutes ago, tarhoosier said:

Stairs are the critical part. Take your time. Measure three times. Draw the scheme of the stairs in several views. Measure again. Take it from someone who had to rebuild his deck stairs because of insufficient planning/reading/visualization. Preparing the landing spot is also important.

 

Yep, well said!  So we initially ordered step stringer replacements but realized they were too short, so we are going to cut them out of board today and make some custom ones to replicate the old ones.  I will post some pics once they are done in case anyone is interested to see.  Thanks Tar 

[A2.]

Enjoy the coming Depression! I’m out for a while. I will keep you all in my thoughts and prayers and might even come to visit just to check out the awesome pics of the QC. That said, can’t do the UP thing for a bit. Please know I appreciate you all, just remember to be safe, for what is coming will be truly Biblical in Nature! 
 

signing off and wishing you all well!
 

A2

[kermit]

Sucks for us:

 

[urbanlover568]

Goodbye Dollar. 

38 minutes ago, kermit said:

Sucks for us:

 

 

[cltheel.sdl]

Where do you guys think we're headed?  The markets have had an astounding rebound this week....feels like we are on our way to recovery but what do I know.  These unemployment numbers are horrible but it seems like the government will continue to print money to backstop the economy.  

[urbanlover568]

4 minutes ago, cltheel.sdl said:

Where do you guys think we're headed?  The markets have had an astounding rebound this week....feels like we are on our way to recovery but what do I know.  These unemployment numbers are horrible but it seems like the government will continue to print money to backstop the economy.  

pump and dump. the fact the fed is basically buying almost all the debt should ring alarm bells. i dont see how they keep inflation in check at this point. Zimbabwe 2.0 economy coming. 

Edited April 9, 2020 by urbanlover568