GreenPlease wrote:
Infrastructure is a “bet” that we are still going to be here as a nation in 50 years. Roads, bridges, sewers... all of these need maintenance, upkeep, and replacement/repair. The U.S. has accrued a lot of deferred maintenance so there’s a lot of work to be done. Regarding the prior economy, yes, it was healthy. Very healthy. But that’s not going to just come back no matter what anyone tells you. Significant damage has already been done. Further, I don’t think it’s very likely we are going to open things up in 2 weeks or even a month and whenever we do consumer behavior will take quite a while to get back to normal. Infrastructure jobs can provide a useful bridge.
For reference on consumer behavior, movie theaters in the US did $5,500 in ticket sales last week vs $200,000,000 a year prior. Even without a universal “stay at home” mandate, consumers have radically changed their behavior.
Just going to use this post as an opportunity to post my favorite factoid - China poured more concrete in 2011-2013 that the US did in the 20th Century.
https://www.forbes.com/...raphic/#6d884b814131
I agree with others who've said this will change behavior. At least through early next year there will not be a vaccine and there will still be local flare-ups of what will still be a deadly virus even if we solve every ventilator, testing and medical care issue we now face. Best case we try to start some semblance of the economy in late May I don't see any scenario in which it will be possible to go back to the sort of carefree exuberant consumption a lot of people had developed over the last decade. No-one's ingrained behavior changes in 2 weeks or a month but over a year...new habits and outlooks will form.
"Are you sure we're going fast enough?" - Emil Zatopek