– for a while at least

1. Economists referring to the sharp inventory correction and brief downturn in economic activity following the Global Financial Crisis in 2008/9 as “The Great Recession”. Perspective, people as they say in the US.
2. Pointless obsession with single economic data points like the US Non Farm payrolls as if they give any guide whatsoever to the path of interest rates.
3. As above, but for high frequency economic data in general (although the much abused PMI data will be helpful for spotting an upturn when it finally arrives.) Hopefully extending to quarterly earnings ‘announcements’.
4. Neil Ferguson
5. Prediction models of all kinds not being scrutinised properly for Rubbish In Rubbish Out (RIRO) issues as well as Amateur Academic Coding. (AAC) See here for a devastating critique of the Heath Robinson chewing gum and string approach to the Imperial ‘Model’.
6. The idea that science is ever ‘settled’ – see University of East Anglia scandal for examples of RIRO and AAC as applied to Climate Change arguments.
7. Man Hugs. Let’s face it, always a bit awkward for the over 30s
8. Social Zooming. While there will definitely be more tele-working, the idea of virtual dinner parties/cocktails/quiz nights will drop out of fashion as quickly as Pokemon Go.
9. Fixing a debt crisis with more debt. Post the GFC, the western shadow banking system of funneling long term savings into leveraged and illiquid products on the pretense that the lack of volatility meant that they were ‘safe’ (CDSs) was replaced with a policy of funneling the same  long term savings pools into a different set of leveraged and illiquid products called ‘alternatives’ on the basis that they were ‘diversified’ and also had low volatility and were therefore ‘safe’. It won’t happen a third time.
10. Low cost index tracking of market cap weighted indices. Tracking a benchmark created by a computer programmer is no substitute for an effective investment portfolio. Especially when it tracks the benchmark down in absolute terms. A focus on effectiveness as well as efficiency will emerge.
11. Emerging Markets as an investment universe. The difference between North Asia – South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong and China –  and the rest of the Emerging Markets basket – South East Asia and Latin America, was large before the crisis. It is now enormous.
12. Trust in institutions generally and Health systems in particular, especially in the west. While politicians will push AI for tracking, individuals will use it for online diagnosis. Online consultations will transform ‘point of contact’ for health consumers and public/private mix will increase. Instead of a mix of a free system with rationing by queuing and a hyper-expensive private sector available only to those on corporate insurance schemes, a $30 online consultation from a ‘private’ doctor versus a three week wait in a ‘free’ public system will ‘uber-ise’ the health system, i.e reduce unit costs so that middle income consumers can use it. An Uber is better than a bus and cheaper than a black cab. This will be similar.
13. The ‘Four Freedoms’ of the EU, embedded in the globalist mindset. Much of the world BC (before Covid) had been constructed in the shadows, becoming the ‘status quo’ without ever really asking to be so and is/was institutionally resistant to change. The most obvious example of inertia being the arguments over Brexit, where the four freedoms of movement; of Goods, people, services and capital were seen as indivisible by the EU, yet no-one in the UK had ever voted for them. All four are now compromised in a post Covid world. Freedom of movement of people is obviously being restricted heavily, as countries close national borders and the prospect of returning to the fully open borders of the BC era looks slight in a world of populist politicians. In the same way as a UK politician would struggle to make the case to rejoin the EU now that the status quo is reversed, so any politician wanting truly open borders again will face strong resistance. Freedom of movement of capital is increasingly being restricted to prevent ‘foreign takeover of strategic businesses’ and, for a while at least the same will apply to goods with tariffs. Global supply chains are already unwinding and while ‘re-shoring’ will not be as dominant as some think, the direction of travel is clearly reversing, helped by some aggressive anti-china propaganda. This in turn threatens a lot of ‘services’ like tourism and education that have become dependent on China. In June 2017, China’s deficit on Travel was $26bn. Last month it was $11.5bn. That is a lot of missing $’s.
14. Mass tourism. A similar situation had arisen with mass tourism, which had become the status quo, making local politicians relatively powerless to stop the well-funded lobby of cruise ships, coach companies and airlines imposing the externalities of mass tourism on the local populations while extracting most of the rent for themselves. In the BC era, they could say “there is nothing I can do”. Now, the local population have become used to cleaner waters, less crowding and greater social amenity and politicians will have to be transparent in letting the mass tourism return. A much tougher ‘sell.’
15. Nine-to-five and commuting. The recognition by many of the more valuable employees in the white collar sector that not only is part time working from home achievable, but it is also desirable, will enact a reset of the work/life balance. Companies will have to adapt to keep their best people, perhaps even moving to an agency/contractor model. For the less valuable employees, many under-employed will become unemployed and then self employed, replacing the world of PAYE with its big hierarchical offices, HR departments, staff canteens and endless internal meetings (and minutes of meetings and memos about minutes of meetings) with something more like a WeWork shared office space (although without the financialization of the company, see point 17). This has clear implications for the concept of offices and ‘rush hour’.
16. Un-costed ‘Green’ initiatives. While many greens see the current lock-down as a proof of concept of some sort and predict a form of global ‘re-birth’ as we emerge from the crisis, we suspect that they over-estimate the limits of self-sacrifice as well as the ability of governments and their own propaganda machines to convince the world that ‘the science is settled’. The idea that we should divert trillions of $ from already poor people who are now even poorer in order to benefit large corporations with powerful lobbying interests on the basis of computer simulations we are not even allowed to question but are told it’s for our own good is not sustainable.
17. Financialization of economies. Spelled with a ‘zee’ since this is largely an American initiative. This has been going on for decades, but has accelerated in the world of QE and ultra low interest rates. Manipulation of balance sheets has become widespread, producing apparent GDP, with no actual increase in genuine economic output. Corporations are loaded up with debt, which is then used to buy up equity. Historically this has often been over-priced equity in other companies – management being even more susceptible to the hype of the dot.coms and others than the average day trader – but more recently it has been to buy up their own over-priced equity. Management issuing themselves options at zero or close to zero cost and then using company debt to buy out that equity at inflated prices is a scandal soon to emerge into plain sight. Or perhaps ‘plane sight’ given the particularly egregious behaviour of US airline company management, where the CEOs of the big four US airlines have extracted almost $350m personally in the last 6 years and are now wanting a bail out. No bailout without endings buybacks and dividends seems likely (which is doubtless why Buffet sold his airline holdings).
18. The idea that Sovereign Debt is ‘risk free’. Modern portfolio theory terminology has been hijacked by the bond markets to imply that since the sovereign debt is used as “The risk-free rate”, that it is somehow risk free. This is especially true with reference to emerging market debt, where the shut down of global travel, tourism and remittances as well as the glut of oil and thus weak oil prices is likely to trigger a new sovereign debt crisis.
19. The idea that China ‘needs’ the over-leveraged US consumer to grow its economy. The reverse is true, US corporations are desperate to break into the under-leveraged Chinese consumer. A growing trade surplus in goods is at least partially offset by a growing deficit in services. Shrinking one will shrink the other most likely and the new cold war being promoted by the US is going to make that much harder for exporters of ‘services’ to China.
20. Taking anything for granted…..

‍