Newminimalists are right side up.
Recently I saw videos of middle America in Southern California living in zombie land. Main street was empty except for one man and his truck full of timber and the composite boards he was using to cover the windows of international brand name stores. This man cut a lonely figure of energy and purpose in a barren street scape. The only other sign of life was at the Starbucks drive through where about a dozen cars were lining up for shot of coffee. Of course there was a small crowd milling around the electronics retailer. Meanwhile across the way all the car parking spaces outside a closed car rental outlet was full to the brim of its stock of vehicles. The whole scene was "opposite day" on steroids.
Moving up the 405 to Palo Alto we find that Stanford University sustained a loss of $US 267 million for the first 6 months of 2020. And despite an endowment of around $US 27.7 billion management at this institution are looking to reduce costs across the board and this will include staff reductions. There will be pay cuts for senior leadership, salary freezes, sharp reductions to departmental discretionary spending, and a pause on approvals to all new capital spending. Management at Stanford University know that the demand for their educational product is falling and falling fast. The key concern inside the halls of Stanford administration is that their prestigious model of teaching kids is flawed. And the fear instilled in them is that this place may be headed for long-term decline and failure.
The picture of America we saw for the past 100 years is now Upside Down [see photo].
Richard
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