Author: chogan@directresearch.com

Source:  Amazon.com

I was an economist, by trade, and I’ve been thinking about the economic situation.  Most of which I am keeping to myself, because, well, there’s a reason economics is called “the dismal science”.  I figure there’s more than enough professionally-produced doom-and-gloom right now that amateurs need not apply.

But what about Vienna?  And in particular, what about Vienna retail establishments?  Obviously, one thing you can do for local business is keep buying as you normally would, if and as you are willing and able.  But what else can you do?

That’s made me think about ways I could, spend more now.  Get that money into the hands of local businesses now, at (what we hope is) the worst of the economic shutdown.

One obvious strategy is to pre-purchase shelf-stable consumables.  That differs from hoarding because, if you do that, you will of course purposefully stay away from anything in short supply, expected to be in short supply, or that could be a considered a staple of modern existence.

As long as it’s stuff you would eventually consume anyway, that doesn’t even cost you anything.  It’s, in some sense, simply an exchange of assets.

So, today I made the decision to invest in some stock.  In fact, I invested to the extent legally permissible in the Commonwealth of Virginia. 

Source:  Vienna Arts Society and Norm’s.

Norm’s Beer and Wine stock, to be precise.  Didn’t even have to go into the store.  Transacted it over the phone, they pulled a nice selection, I paid, they delivered and stacked it neatly on the bench on my porch.  No human contact.*

* This does not excuse you from tipping the delivery guy.  Now more than ever.  Taping an envelope to your front door works just fine.

That’s arguably more beer than I have bought from Norm’s since it opened.  But so what.  It’ll keep.  At this point, I’d bet my IPA will hold its value better than my IRA.

I will note, for the record, that the beer sections at both grocery stores I’ve been shopping at remain fully stocked.  Maybe beer drinkers are an exceptionally mellow people.   Maybe people have better things to think about.  But regardless of the reason, no shortage.

This is not an ad for Norm’s.  This is a request that those of you with money in your pockets (for now) think about pre-purchasing shelf-stable commodities offered by local business.  If you’re a wine fancier, judging from how Norm’s took this, I’d guess that Vienna Vintner might not mind selling you a case or two.  And so forth.

Again, not trying to advertise, just using these as examples.

I realize that a lot of people are worried about just paying the bills for the next few months.  That’s not really who this is aimed at.  I’m retired, so I’m not going to be laid off.  I suspect there are a lot of folks like me here in Vienna.  Let me suggest that now’s the time to open your wallets, if and as you are able.

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More generally

More generally, I’ve been thinking about consumer-led strategies to stabilize small retail business in Vienna. It’s not rocket science.  If you can: Buy what you would normally buy.  Buy-and-store-it, if you have the cash and the space, to make up for people not buying.  Buy gift cards, where offered, under the hope that both you and that store will still be here when this is all over.  And it’s hard to figure out much more than you, the consumer, can do.

To get the big picture, it might help you think about it to refer to my (almost-exactly-one-year-old) quick-and-dirty survey of Maple Avenue retail.  It’s a year out-of-date, but I’d bet that the mix of businesses (Post #208) is about the same now as it was then.  FWIW, here’s a link to lists and categories I drew up at that time, in an Excel workbook downloadable from this next link:  Retail inventory updated 3-19-2019  I’ll put an exhaustive summary table at the end of this.  (Note:  This is Maple only, and does not include Church, Mill, Dominion, Cedar Park, or any other commercial areas in Vienna.)

Maple has a large component of service providers.  By and large, I think service  providers and their employees are going to take a fairly horrific beating from this, no matter what.  They get paid by the hour.  To some very large degree, they aren’t going to be able to get those idle hours back.  They’re gone.

Gift certificate purchases, where available, might be able to ease their cash-flow problems.  But lost billable hours are likely lost forever.  It’s not like you would want to (e.g.) get extra haircuts once it’s legal for barbers to be open again.  (See this page to see what must be closed, what may remain open, in Virginia.)

The sole exception that comes to mind is providers of routine health care, where such services can be rescheduled if the shutdown lasts only a moderately long time.  For example, my dentist is currently shut down for two weeks, based on recommendations from the Virginia Dental Association.  (I am uncertain as to whether or not they will be allowed to remain open, in Virginia, as health care providers.)  For a business like that, where almost all of it is routine scheduled care, plausibly, he’ll be made whole by working additional hours worked when missed appointments are rescheduled.  That’s if the shutdown lasts a short period of time.

As I read down the list of the types of service providers we have on Maple, many of them have been categorically closed in the Commonwealth (see this page).  In the main, any service where people have to stand closer than 6′ apart (e.g., spa, hair salon, etc.) is closed by law.  Or any where large numbers of people congregate.  For most, I’m guessing those lost earning hours will never be recovered.  Any of those that are locally-owned will likely go bankrupt under a lengthy shutdown, absent some sort of direct financial aid or some very deep pockets for the owners.  For those, I think there’s literally nothing the consumer can do.

The Commonwealth has converted the entire restaurant and beverage industry to take-out only.  So there, the solution is also clear.  The only thing you can do to support those is … order take-out.  Pick the restaurants that you’d miss the most if they closed, and if you still have free cash in your pocket, spend it.  (But use a credit card.  I think that’s more sanitary these days).

And that just leaves the goods retailers.  Big grocery stores are doing fine, I’d guess.  I haven’t set foot in a convenience store since this started.  So you read down the list, and if there’s something there that you wouldn’t mind owning some of, now-ish would be a good time to buy, if you have the ready money.

Hence, my stock purchase.  I got as far down the goods section as “Wine and Beer” and said, sure, I can stock up on that.  I asked the guy at Norm’s whether it was an inconvenience to get a “legal limit” order (limit:  four cases of beer per day).  His reply was, not at all.  Orders large or small, they’re glad to have the business.  I suspect that a lot of Maple Avenue vendors currently share that opinion.

 

Category	Count
01: Grocery:  General	3
02: Drug store	3
03: Gasoline	5
04: Convenience store	5
05: Wine and beer	3
06: Grocery:  Specialty	6
07: Jewelry and precious metals	4
08: Mobile phone	4
09: Mattress store	3
10: Home furnishings, art excl mattress	3
11: Pet, animal supplies	3
12: Clothing, shoes	5
13: Tobacco and vape	3
99:  All other	28
Subtotal, Goods	78
1: Coffee shop	7
2: Dessert shop	10
3:  Fast Food	4
4: Pizza	6
5: Sub or sandwich shop	3
6: Fast casual	10
7:  All other	36
Subtotal, restaurant	76
01: Medical and Dental	48
02: Hair, barber, skin, nails, etc.	25
03: Spa and massage	12
04: Exercise, yoga	3
05: Education, lessons, test prep	7
11: Car service, wash	6
12: Dry cleaner	9
13: Home remodeling and repair	10
14: Pets and animals	5
21: Bank	14
22: Insurance	4
23: Real estate	8
24: Tax, acing, financial	6
31: Shipping	3
99: Other	21
Subtotal, services	181

I just checked the mid-day numbers from the Hopkins coronavirus map, and even with incomplete data, that’s enough to say that Virginia has not yet hit an inflection point in case counts.  As of this update there are 124 cases in Fairfax county.  That’s up from 80 yesterday.  (That may exclude a few cases in the independent cities of Fairfax and Falls Church.)

As of 6:30 PM EDT, the Fairfax case count remains at 124.  Commonwealth count was up by about 10.  When you get right down to it, those numbers are not likely to be real.  It may have reached the point where the daily reporting is starting to lag. I’ll try to refresh this later this PM, but where the counts come in on a flow basis, if the flow is irregular, there’s not a lot you can do to present an accurate time-series.  I will note that, just a couple of days ago, I had to roll back my update from 5pm to 6pm.  I suspect that process is continuing.

Edit:  Don’t you just hate it when reality spoils attempted humor?  Turns out, my neighbors down the street went to Safeway later in the AM, and … bananas were in stock.  Apparently, I’m just going too early to hit the store when it’s optimally stocked.  I shall adjust my routine accordingly. 

I went to the Pan Am Safeway around 7AM today (3/27/2020).

I have never seen so many people, working so hard, to stock the shelves.  At a guess, there were more employees in the store than there were customers.  And they were all in constant motion.

 I’ve never seen so many aisles packed with boxes of stuff, waiting to be put on the shelves.

So, as far as I can tell, there are only two things wrong with the food supply chain in the USA.  One is the customers, and the other is restaurants.  Customer behavior, I have yet to see any proposed solution to that.  I have already discussed this in Post #563.  Haters gonna hate, hoarders gonna hoard.  But a second, true problem with the supply chain is that so many people were getting such a large share of their calories via restaurants (and fast food and take-out), that suppliers are struggling to divert food from that stream (where it, e.g., comes in inappropriate sizes and packaging) to the grocery-store stream.

A few items were out of stock, and others were thin.   But, e.g. they had some eggs.  Not a lot, but some.  That’s better than my last trip.  Milk was skimpy-to-nonexistent.   Beans and rice were still depleted.  Which struck me as oddly pedestrian, for this area.  I momentarily found myself grousing because they didn’t have the cut of chicken I was after, which clearly marks me as the pampered suburbanite that I am.  I saw no shortages on any other cuts of meat.

But, yes, we have no bananas. And no toilet paper.  I’ve been trying to think of a euphemism for that that would scan, in that old song, but most of the ones I’ve come up with so far are not family-friendly one.  All the non-obscene ones are pretty lame.  (Yes, we have no butt-wipers, we have no butt-wipers today).  (Also, that song really didn’t age well.  You have to wonder how it became such an American classic.)

I also went to Fresh Market, stalking the elusive banana.  They had, I think, three, in very bad shape.  I wasn’t quite desperate enough to buy them.  But, to the point, they were almost perfectly stocked.  Except for bananas and TP.  If you are short of staples, give them a try, e.g., plenty of rice, beans, etc.

Of note, there was a guy in what I’m pretty sure was a Fairfax Fire and Rescue jacket walking into Safeway as I was walking out.  He was wearing an N95 mask (clearly identifiable via the valve in the center).  My guess? They are the essential personnel.  I bet they’ve been told to mask up if they are going into public places.  Alternatively, maybe they just have a better grasp of how serious this is.  Either way, I think we should all take a clue from that. 

I was wearing a mask.  Man, that’s a pain in the butt when you wear glasses.  But from now on, that’s what I’m doing.  I also:  washed hands before, upon return, and after putting groceries away.  Used a touch-screen stylus (worked perfectly).  Kept my distance, kept my voice down, didn’t talk unless necessary.  Used pieces of paper towel to hold the cart handle, and to open the dairy case.

Mainly, I’m masking up because something about the spread of this does not quite add up, to me (Post #573).*  And, because, empirically, as far as I can tell, the only first-world countries that have successfully suppressed this, so far, appear to Asian countries.  And there, as I understand it, social norms enforce public mask use during epidemics.  There, it’s considered polite to mask up in public.  I think we should learn from that. 

* Although, upon reflection, a substantially longer lag time in testing and reporting in the US, compared to China, would also explain the lack of an inflection point so far. My calculation was based on a median of four days from symptom onset to reporting of test results, in China, from the previously-discussed WHO report.  Plausibly, that might have reflected a test-all-suspects policy.  Here, because, for whatever reason, we have not adopted that policy, we’re probably a) starting testing at a later stage of disease, and b) rumors are that, in some cases, it’s taking forever to get the results back.

Couldn’t hurt.  Might help.  I realize that only fools disagree with the US CDC.  But I still say, wear ’em if you’ve go ’em.

This is based on the 6PM EDT update of the Johns Hopkins coronavirus map and database.  Still too soon to tell if we’ve hit the inflection point.  Separately, the case count for Fairfax County (including Falls Church and Fairfax City) stood at 80, in that same update.  That’s just under twice the number of cases that had been reported as of two days ago.

 

I have been told that Verizon is starting a weekly concert series, with a twist.  They will both ask you to support local small businesses, and then will open up an application process and lottery for $10K grants to local small businesses.

I’m not quite sure of the details.  And it’s not a huge amount of money.  But it’s a nice gesture.

I can give you the links to Verizon’s information, and then quote the key parts.

https://www.verizon.com/about/news/biggest-names-helping

... The weekly series will debut on Thursday, March 26, at 8:00 p.m. ET with a performance from Dave Matthews.

... The concerts will stream live at 8:00 p.m. ET on Twitter @verizon, on Yahoo Entertainment and on Fios Channel 501.

“... Verizon will donate $2.5 million to Local Initiatives Support Corporation (LISC), a national nonprofit that has invested $20 billion to fuel economic opportunity for people and communities across America. Over the course of the series, all viewers who tune in will be encouraged to tag their favorite local businesses and make a purchase in advance for when the crisis is over and the businesses reopen. As consumers engage, Verizon will unlock an additional $2.5 million in funds, bringing the total donation to a potential $5 million. 

LISC will use the funds to provide grants of up to $10,000 to businesses facing immediate financial pressure because of COVID-19, especially entrepreneurs of color, women-owned businesses and other enterprises that don’t have access to flexible, affordable capital in historically underserved communities. LISC will launch an online process for small businesses to submit applications for grants. Applications will be reviewed and then entered into a lottery. 

...

It’s a start.  And the idea of buying (e.g.) gift cards now, for later redemption, makes sense.

I’m going to wear a mask, from now on, on the rare occasions that I shop.  Despite CDC advice.  I’m also going to stop talking when shopping.  This post outlines why.  A subsequent post will give details.

I have never said this on any prior post, but if you know somebody in a position of influence who you think might benefit from seeing this, please pass this post on.

Continue reading Post #573: Please shut up in public, Part I

Source:  Analysis of Johns Hopkins coronavirus database.

My original posting on this was wrong, and I, in effect, posted the effects of change in data reporting.  The correct answer here is, we have not yet reached the inflection point here in Virginia.

If social distancing is working, that really ought to occur sometime before the end of month.  Or so.

 

Source: Let’s Make A Deal.com

Continuing the thread from Post #570, I’d like to say that I’m doing this immediate follow-up because I need to set the stage for the analysis yet to come.  But that would be a lie.  I just need to get this off my chest.

But this post does serve to introduce one of the key concepts needed:  The value of a human life.  Of course human lives have value, you may respond.  Really?  Aside from practical and moral issues, this is exactly the point that the “Just let them die” strategy typically brushes off.

But when I ask you, OK, what is a human life worth, in dollars and cents?  That’s when this discussion starts to get tough.  And our inability to deal with that is precisely what allows the “let them die” crowd to brush that off.

So let me start with the basics:  It’s more than zero.  And zero is what those focused solely on GDP effectively assume as the value of a human life. Continue reading Post #571: Course correction, Part 2

Source:  Psyllium husk Metamucil.

I wanted to get up this AM and write something light.  We’ve been digging through our pantry, and I thought of holding a contest for who had the worst, long-forgotten-but-still-edible item in their household.  The item that, even though you own it, you can’t fathom why you bought it, much less kept it.

My personal winner so far is a king-size container of generic unflavored unsweetened coarse-ground psyllium husk.  (Psyllium husk is what Metamucil is made of.)  Ran out of MetaMucil yesterday, so I tried it.  I literally had to spit it out.  And the container was open, too, so I must have already tasted it before and still kept it.  It’s the sort of item that I describe as a more-than-lifetime supply.  And, … yeah, of course I still haven’t thrown it out.

But after reading the headlines this AM, there was a slight course correction.   This is a tough topic, so this initial post is just the intro.

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“Just let them die.  It would be cheaper if we did.”

Continue reading Post #570: A slight course correction.

Source:  Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Map, update through 9 PM EDT, 3/24/2020.  Historical data file for all days prior to that.

I have now figured  out, I think, what Hopkins changed about the data files, and they have released new ones.  At present, there is only an “official” time-series data set for the US as a whole, plus one-day cross-sectional counts for US states and counties.  This means that the final data on any of these graphs may be subject to some (hopefully small) revision when the next set of numbers comes out tomorrow.  This change in the data resulted in modest change in the historical day-by-day counts for the US, but nothing that mattered materially.

Hopkins has stopped tracking the number of people who have recovered, because they do not have (and never really did have) any hard data on that.  In addition, they plan to start listing the number of people tested, which will be a big help in analyzing differences in apparent mortality rates across countries.  (All other things equal, countries that test more and identify a larger number of mild cases should show lower overall mortality rate as a fraction of all identified cases.)

From the currently-released files, we can tell that Fairfax County has the most coronavirus cases in Virginia (46).  Here’s a text list of the current (9 PM 3/24/2020) counts for DC area.

Area	Cases	Deaths
Fairfax, Virginia, US	46	1
Arlington, Virginia, US	36	0
Prince William, Virginia, US	23	0
Loudoun, Virginia, US	18	0
Alexandria, Virginia, US	8	0
Stafford, Virginia, US	6	0
Fairfax City, Virginia, US	0	0
Falls Church, Virginia, US	0	0
District of Columbia,US	141	2
Montgomery, Maryland, US	107	1
Prince George’s, Maryland, US	63	2
Howard, Maryland, US	30	0
Anne Arundel, Maryland, US	24	0

Original writeup follows but is no longer relevant.

Caveat:  Hopkins changed the underlying data structure of its coronavirus database today.  It looks like they are transitioning the US data to a county-level basis, from states.  When something like that happens, you can’t quite be sure if today’s count is completely comparable to the historical data. 

Further, the Hopkins data files available to the public, as of today, no longer contain any US state data.  The accompanying discussion suggests that they plan to provide an additional file of detailed US data, but so far, that file is not available.

That said, up to this point, for Virginia, the 5 PM update of the map has almost always turned out to be, after the fact, the official count for the day.  (Presumably, any cases diagnosed after that point are counted in the next day’s total).

The upshot is that it appears that we had another day of (roughly) non-increasing additional case counts, per a hope expressed in Post #567.  But there’s some chance that’s an artifact of the change in the structure of the Hopkins database.

Upshot is, it remains too soon to tell whether Virginia has hit the inflection point.