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Ask HN: What skills will be useful during an upcoming recession/depression?
169 points by sideway on March 22, 2020 | hide | past | favorite | 185 comments
My economic knowledge is limited but it seems like the effects of the global domino triggered by conoravirus will echo for many years to come. As a generalist who never had an issue finding a job so far, I'm afraid that in this new reality my software/management skills won't be of any use in 6 months.

What skills would be valuable to develop now to adapt as quick as possible to the new state of things?




People are acting as though we're going back to a pre-industrial economy with this. It's not true. The power isn't going out. The water will continue to come out of the tap.

So my suggestion short term is: learn to cook if you don't know how to. Not fancy, haute cuisine, but how to take whatever's in the pantry and make something tasty out of it. Learn how to grow some produce in small spaces, even if it's just herbs.

Learn how to not spend money. How to reduce your energy and water usage. How to do basic repairs and projects yourself. What you have to buy in a time of logistical disruption is time. If you can increase the time you can be without income from a month to four months or from six months to two years, that is a remarkable difference in your resilience.


I second learning to cook - it’s a skill valuable in good times and bad and really helps you to eat cheaply and healthily if you are mindful of your ingredients.

There are tons of helpful videos to get you started. I recommend Bon Appétit’s Test Kitchen on YouTube


Also, I've never met a partner who doesn't appreciate it!

And in terms of amortizing time spent learning, it's hard to beat getting better at something you do every day. Sometimes multiple times!


My partner's cooking is so good that restaurants food taste like paper to me. It has its downsides as well, I am eating much more and gained weight and getting into diet is hard.


there is disproportionality in the works.

senior positions that require many years of experience for entrancy due to the nature of the job may suddenly go vacant with noone to fill them.

when older people, {people who understand how to retool and operate a VLSI plant for example, people who are ATCs or surgeons} die and there is only a pool of young inexperience to draw from we will have to make do without some of these things, change laws to allow reduced qualifications, and or accept things like nuclear accidents as a learning curve until we have experienced people ,[after the replacements make time in]


> change laws to allow reduced qualifications

Wouldn't be the worst side effect. Nice to occasionally snap things back, then more restrictions can be put in place again if warranted.


Lentils. Just boil them in water with a stock cube. Done


you can get pretty far by stir frying onion/garlic/chili, then adding in some more diced veg and/or a tin of beans or tuna or tomato or something. add a side of whatever else you've got. rice, pasta, boiled eggs.

gourmet cooking it is not, but cheap and easy and often tasty


I'm am really trying to determine whether or not this will be the next great depression.


Yes, but perhaps not in the way that you might think.

There were a number of structural factors that led to the great depression: gold standard currency and restrictive monetary policy at the Fed, overly restrictive tariff laws, simultaneous drought that destroyed a lot of farmland, rampant financial fraud, lack of deposit insurance at banks causing numerous bank runs and failures.

Basically all of the above is different now. The modern Fed is organized around preventing the monetary mistakes made during the depression. We are on purely fiat currency now, not the volatile gold standard. Food security is hugely increased, and restrictive tariffs have not impacted the ag industry of Canada and Mexico, which are key supports of the US's food supply chain. We have the FDIC for deposit insurance and increased post-Great Recession capital controls on systemically important financial institutions (SIFIs).

We have also learned from the Roosevelt interventions of the 1930's that it requires both a strong monetary and fiscal policy to address a systemic shock to the economy. So it might take some time for stimulus to arrive, but it should be incoming.

Finally, we have the internet. Not to oversell it, but it's a significant asset that can ensure a degree of continuity of supplies, services and employment in an event such as this. Yes - it's not perfect and many necessary jobs can not be done over the internet. But it's better than the alternative.

So, my feeling is that we are heading into the most significant non-wartime economic event since the great depression, but if cards are played properly we should be able to mitigate the terrible effects to a much better degree than was possible in the 1930's.


Without knowing as much about the topic I really feel the same way too. This pandemic might take a "long" time but it will end and we will find ourselves with the same knowhow and infrastructure that we had going in. Surely things will get shaken up but there is a strong desire to go back to life as it was before. It's mostly a question of how that happens.


The biggest consequence will be creating two tracks of people: those who immediately lost their job, and those who could work remotely.

3+ months of earning is non-trivial, and they'll never get them back.

Hopefully any stimulus will be aimed at recently un- or under-employed folks.

If I, as a working software developer, end up getting a check... the system is seriously unfair.


Even three weeks of earnings is non-trivial. e.g. hair salons are shut down by government order as non-essential. Barbers and stylists typically rent their chair, are considered self-employed, and do not qualify for unemployment income. They are screwed right now.

They are being told by their landlords they have to keep renting their chairs, perhaps at a discount, because it's a lease. They are being encouraged to get SBA loans by the government, and their landlord. This is vile and immoral. The mere suggestion is unethical feudal nonsense.

Make some people go into debt in order to help secure the income of their lord? It's uncivil to say it out loud. Turning it into official policy is an abomination. It indicts the whole culture of a society to do this.

I think as a class, they should declare bankruptcy. Force the next higher class to find redress, by mortgagees taking haircuts on loans, all the way up to pensioners and 401ks. The entire point of the free market is that it's supposed to account for these risks, and absorb them equitably. If the market or government demands some low rung people experience worse misery than others, it is a recipe for widespread loss of trust in a system, that quite frankly right now does not deserve trust.


> If I, as a working software developer, end up getting a check... the system is seriously unfair.

What if you end up losing your employment a month or so down the road? The 'everyone getting a stimulus check' isn't great, but the effort to means test and make those somewhat arbitrary decisions is non-trivial, and there will always be someone who really did need it, but didn't seem to need it based on some algorithm.


This reads like someone unleashed GPT2 on a bunch of CNBC interviews with a bunch of hedge fund managers making the case for why their portfolio deserves a "fair share" of the bailout pie.


> This reads like someone unleashed GPT2 on a bunch of CNBC interviews with a bunch of hedge fund managers making the case for why their portfolio deserves a "fair share" of the bailout pie.

I am struggling to see why you think that, since I don't watch CNBC and was not thinking of hedge funds or the stock market at all when I wrote the above post.

I didn't get into what I think should happen, which is this:

- immediate expansion of unemployment insurance to 75-100% of income for at least 12 months, with no shenanigans allowed at the state level

- for tip and gig workers and self-employed, 1040 income should be used to qualify for unemployment benefits up to a capped amount ($100k or whatever)

- immediate expansion of Medicare to anyone who qualifies for the ACA

- immediate open enrollment so people can switch to Medicare via the exchanges

- immediate expansion of SNAP and WIC

- 6 month moratorium on evictions nationwide

- any bailouts should be patterned on the Obama administration's auto bailout, which is to say the capital structure should be rewritten so that workers are given a piece of the company, and the public should benefit once the economy improves


This seems like the sensible minimum reaction to keep things functioning well to me.

I also expect to see a change in perception in the US to thinking that any civilized society that wishes to keep running needs to have a comprehensive health care system, a social safety net for basic income and housing, and a trusted set of expert institutions.


What part of it didn't you agree with and why?


learn to grow lettuce/greens (chard, kale, etc), it's super cheap, needs almost no fertilizer and can be done in 6 weeks. You cut it and it comes back in another few weeks. $15.00 worth of seeds from a place like Johnny's will last a year or more.


love this, thank you


Skills are tactics. Dealing with a recession is about strategy.

Most importantly: this is a time to focus on reducing risks, rather than maximizing profit.

This is a crappy time to start a startup or being a freelancer. Keep your job, build your skills, save money, and start in a few years.

Think about your job's security: Pay attention to your employers annual/quarterly reports. Which industries does your employer sell to? Travel, restaurants, hotel, retail, small businesses will be the worst hit, with little money to spend.

This is also a bad time to change jobs - depending on your local laws, it probably is much, much easier to lay off someone who just started.

Maybe broaden your skillls. In good times, it is more profitable to be a specialist - e.g. much better to be THE leading expert on scaling wordpress, rather than an all-purpose linux admin. In bad times, when jobs are scarce, being less of a specialist increaes the number of jobs you are suitable for.

Save money, lower your burn-rate, extend your runway - usually meant for start-ups, but this goes for your personal finances just as well

Become familiar with laws and benefits from the government for unemployment, lay-offs etc - if you should happen to find yourself unemployed, know what you have to do, how much assistance you can expect.

That being said: If you have a high risk-tolerance, and can afford to, now is also a great time to start a business or to invest, simply because nobody else is, so there is much less competition for everything.


I work for a university as a teacher. What do you think the economic implications might be for a university in the coming months? I can see less new people enrolling next semester, current students refusing to pay the same tuition if it's going to continue being all online etc.


I work for a company where universities are pretty much 100% of our customers, so I'm curious about this also.


i think as folks have less money and the good times of the last market boom are over, they will more deeply consider the value add that high priced universities may or may not actually add to their life over the long run. I think a correction in university pricing is long over due.


>This is also a bad time to change jobs - depending on your local laws, it probably is much, much easier to lay off someone who just started.

Counterpoint: this is a great time to change jobs. There is much higher upside on equity packages.


What's that ole Soros quote? Something like "when others are greedy, be cautious; when others are cautious be greedy"


Cooking from basic ingredients. Growing a basic seasonal garden. Finding ways to be happy with less and appreciate the simple pleasures in life. Placing value on human relationships more than material things. The art of conversation. Enjoying simple/affordable/accessible hobbies.


All of these things seem learnable with available resources except the art of conversation, something that I actually need a lot of work on. And recommendations on how I can improve on this?


More emotion, less logic. People like to feel good. They don't necessarily want to learn something new.

Crack jokes, banter, wear a smile, but don't be a clown.

Best way is to surround yourself by people who do the same. Do not feel discouraged when they "throw a knife" (take the piss) your way, as it's a test of your conversational and mental frame. Agree and amplify, and laughs will be had.

Then again, don't surround yourself with bullies. A true friend stabs from the front to test and grow your mental frame, while enemies stab from the back to undermine your frame.

Point is, have fun. Don't be a walking talking wikipedia page of logical facts.


> Point is, have fun. Don't be a walking talking wikipedia page of logical facts.

This is sort of what I am. I think it started long ago maybe when I felt as if this is one way I can provide value: to give you facts.

I'm aware that this is a problem, in that by doing this I'm not really engaged in a back-and-forth conversation -- I've been aware of this for some time, it's just that it's hard to transition away from this. I don't know how to do this, because this is who I am now, and changing who I am, that’s a deep change to make, it is hard, and I don’t know how I can do this.


Maybe I can help convince you to make the change...

It might be useful to -- consider that your information is... not useful.

By this I mean that you should be interested in how people react to new information in general. In some cases, people take this information and act on it. In most cases, they don't. It's very hard to convince someone, especially a stranger, to do something differently just by providing them new information.

Don't take my word for it. You don't even need to look to others to find the truth to this. Just look to yourself.

How often do you tangibly change your actions based on new information? I'm sure you have some less than desirable habits, and I'm sure you have know enough information to know that these habits are not helpful. Yet, even with this information, have you changed these habits?

I am similar. I sometimes struggle to engage in conversation... I'd rather just walk away and do something interesting to me. And this is fine, you don't need to always engage in conversation. But when you do, it shouldn't be to just dump information on people. This isn't effective. Even with people who you have close, intimate relationships with... it's even hard to change these people. Even if you do have the right information, it needs to be delivered with patience. You can't expect them to change overnight. You can't even expect them to change at all. If you want to tell someone something, you must do it with compassion, and expect that if they are going to take this information from you, it will be on their own time.


Sure, but one shouldn't feel obligated to provide value. Providing intellectual stimulation when unasked for immediately marks one (to the lay person) as the proverbial know-it-all. Their body language will speak magnitudes; just watch the direction of their feet. Anything more than 30 degrees away from your direction will indicate they are not interested in the service you think you may be providing.

You must gain confidence. Have confidence in yourself, and you will find others will do the difficult conversational parts for you. The quickest way to gain confidence is to learn to lift compound weights and to increase the weight over the years.


An alternative view on this is to realize that being a non-judgemental sounding board often provides much greater value to your conversation partner than offering advice. I often find that people who are having trouble with something already know what the best solution is and simply need to build up enough confidence in their own reasoning to act on it.


Start by learning how to be a good listener.

Beyond that, remember to relax and be yourself. In my experience, people aren’t judging you nearly as much as you think they are.


Know why people all they want is to be understood. Everybody wants to be heard. These books tell you how and why. Quote from Never Split the Difference, "Interesting people are interested"

- How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie - Never Split the Difference: Negotiating As If Your Life Depended On It by Christopher Voss


The secret isn't witty jokes or memorizing reams of factoids and stories. Such superficiality is nice as sugar and spice, but not as the main meal.

The secret weapon in good conversation, especially if you're an introvert, is to ask questions. Try to make them open ended, not yes or no, and not right or wrong. Essay questions. Where are you from? What do you do?

Several months ago, there was an article here about a man who would ask the person he met what they did for a living and then, no matter they said, he would remark, "That sounds hard." This triggered a torrent of conversation and feelings of intimacy. That technique crosses over into artificial formula, and so I actually wouldn't recommend it. But it illustrates a point, that people are dying to be heard.

People aren't looking for a walking, talking encyclopedia. For one, the world is overrun with information, thanks to books and the internet. For another, it puts you on uneven footing. Now you are the teacher, and they are the student. People are repelled by condescension. They mainly are looking for people with whom they can be on equal footing.

There are also degrees of intimacy. The weather is a good opening remark with someone you just met, because it's not about either one of you. On the opposite end is something like, "How are you feeling after your recent divorce?" This is something you get the right to ask only after a very long time, perhaps years, of trust. Between those two is a spectrum.

1. Things about neither one of you, and uncontroversial: the weather, a movie, a sports game

2. Things about each of you, but not intimate: your job, what part of town you live in, what town you came from

3. More and more personal things about each of you: college major, family, children, how much you like your job

The first time you meet someone, you may not go very deep. But if you ask questions, be supportive of their answers as best you can, ask logical next questions that show you listened, and so on, then ironically you will be called "a great conversationalist."

The only thing I might add is that you can err too far on asking questions. If you're asking all the questions, and they're doing all the revealing, it may seem creepy. When they reveal something about themselves, then it may be a good time to reveal a corresponding amount about yourself. For example, if they tell you their job, then you tell them yours. Some people actually talk about themselves first, but as a way to let the other person feel safe to open up. For example, instead of asking what they think about the weather, you say, "Boy, it sure has been unseasonably cold." Then they will feel like agreeing or adding to it. "Yes, but at least I get to go skiing more." "Oh, you like skiing?" The best topics are ones that flow naturally from the last topic. That's another reason to listen closely.

So again, the point is not to entertain the other person but to at least start with the promise that you could one day be a trusted friend. That could take years, and for most people you meet it will never happen. But I would say that the same steps you take on the long road to a good friendship are the same steps you take one conversation at a time.


Honestly, I don’t believe we will see a huge depression unless there is war. People are still available for work and all the equipment used for producing value is in good conditions. So long as government provides fiscal stimulus, depression shouldn’t happen.

In case it happens though, you are better of farming stuff like potatoes and chicken than developing software until government steps in with fiscal stimulus, though it will require some existing capital.


In many cases, people aren't available; they're sheltering at home, social distancing. Even for those who can work remotely, the disruption to routine is going to reduce productivity. And worse, many assets are going to be destroyed- for instance, restaurants that go under while distancing is taking place are just going to be gone, and while the brute equipment can be reused later, the "organizational capital" (the habits and knowledge of how to run that particular business in that particular context most effectively) vanishes.

Various governmental interventions (stimulus, rent freezes, etc) can ameliorate this, but I'm not confident (and the financial sector isn't confident, I think) that the government is presently competent enough to get too much mileage out of implementing these; stimulus needs to be done correctly and promptly to have much effect.

If you're in (or your customers are in) an industry that can hunker down and "weather the downturn," the eventual return to normal will be priced in and you'll likely be fine. If you're in (or ditto) an industry that will suffer attrition, the uncertainty will be priced in and you're liable to suffer. Give some thought as to where you stand.


Restaurants won't have to go away if you freeze the rent and pay the previous employees a replacement income.

In other words, providing a stimulus package paid to the right people can prevent it.


We may be okay if COVID is our only real threat. Self isolation won't be impeded, and hospitals will not over saturate. If anything disturbs self isolation, like a massive earthquake, drought, Australian like fires, or like you say a war, there is no chance of a quick rebounding economy.

That being said, as an aside, imagine slipping into a 3 month coma from a heavy Christmas 2019 party and waking up to eight other people on ventilators in your room. Imagine finding out Kobie Bryant died, that the USA assassinated a top Iranian military figure, and that the world economy dropped 35% in 1 month.

You'd think there was a war.


One fear I have is that the current US administration will bring one (a war) to us sooner rather than later.


Math and physics carried me through two recessions so far. I never got rich, but also never poor.


It's a bit of a tangent, but do you have any advice on how to self-learn math? I'd like to complete some CLEP classes so I can meet the prerequisites for a CS program, but it's tough to learn on my own.


Depends what level but https://www.khanacademy.org/math has stuff. Really to learn maths you have to work through problems to grasp it and get it you head. Start simple and work up.


This is a tough one for me. Math and physics were two subjects that I needed to learn in a classroom. This is one of the reasons why I'm skeptical about the complete demise of traditional education.

One possible idea is to get started learning math through physics. The reason is that physics is more applied than pure theoretical math, but the typical way of learning it makes use of similar math principles. Perhaps seeing this stuff in use will help pull you along when working through the pure math subjects.


Add CS to Math and Physics, and you’ll go through the next one very rich


Oddly enough I kinda bet on the wrong side of that, long ago. I graduated from high school in 1982. I had learned to program, and my mom was teaching intro CS at a nearby community college. She actually thought that math was too easy to spend 4 years in college learning it, and her students were getting jobs after a year of training in her course. So I majored in math, and added physics because the added course requirements for double major were minimal. Meanwhile, I continued to learn programming and electronics on my own.

A second issue (note the time period) was that I saw what the CS students were learning, and I also had a summer internship in a computer facility, and I formed the impression that over the long haul, a programming job would be rather dull. The people who were doing things with computers that seemed "cool" to me, were in the math and physics departments. That included the use of microcomputers rather than mainframes.

I've certainly done a lot of programming throughout my career, but have not been employed as a programmer per se. Most physicists program, because it's our most efficient and flexible problem solving tool.

I could probably claim to be a "data scientist" right now, if push came to shove, but am in fact working through some training on that and machine learning, to fill in gaps and make me conversant in the terminology. It could propel my next career move, or at least serve as a bit of career insurance.


Similar story- I was trained as an Electrical Engineer, picked up programming/AI on the side. Now work as a data scientist.

What kind of physics? Big banks on wall st hire(atleast used to) pure physics phds and train them to do quantitative analysis for finance


Could you expand on that? In which fields would you work with these skills to earn good money?


Will add more in a bit, but mainly data scientist in Big Tech and Finance. At the right firms/teams your salary will grow much faster than linear in time


Doable without a degree? Any god resources or pointers?

Thanks in advance


Can you explain how it kept you above waters?

Did it make you a better developer?


Would you say that learning Finance directly would be better?


If you can learn how to repair things there will always be need of that in a siege. Returning value from utter losses will be of great need.

edit

For a couple simple examples consider the bic lighter. The strikers are made well enough it is possible to refill them and reuse them several times. Here is a video I made on it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4fnnDu-_hso

possibly not the best video but it just shows it isn't very hard.

What about a ventilator that needs a part? Not hard for someone who knows a lot about 3d printing.


Strongly advise against making any parts of equipment for healthcare or even more - device that sustains life. If it breaks, it will be very simple for government to find you liable. That's also - sadly - reason why these ventilators are so darn expensive, so that they go thru lots of scrutiny and testing.


Plus skyhigh product liability premiums.


while we see some industries taking a hit during this crises, we also see many others soaring with the rise of distributed and remote work. Software products targeting this field will get even more relevant and jobs will likely flourish. That is why I believe having software/management skills are still relevant in the short/long-term.


Mental self-care and acceptance of negative experiences. Working out in small areas/body weight exercises. Cooking on a budget. Getting out of your own head and own problems and into thinking about other people, is also immensely psychologically healthy.


> Getting out of your own head and own problems and into thinking about other people, is also immensely psychologically healthy.

Hmm, anyone have any tips about what to do if this actually just overwhelms and depresses you? I can deal emotionally with my own problems fairly well. But when I start thinking about the wide spread suffering among both the people I know and care about as well as the world at large,I get immediately overwhelmed and start to shut down.


"The chief task in life is simply this: to identify and separate matters so that I can say clearly to myself which are externals not under my control, and which have to do with the choices I actually control. Where then do I look for good and evil? Not to uncontrollable externals, but within myself to the choices that are my own . . .” —EPICTETUS

Stoicism helped me get out of my own head.


A simple exercise is to watch a movie and try to let the judgement pass as you simply try to imagine what the character is thinking about. Sometimes we do this effortlessly but sometimes judgement creeps in and we start thinking 'I would never do that' 'how could they possibly think that, I would never think that' etc.


https://dailystoic.com


Communication never hurts. Being able to distill ideas down to their actionable core and spot miscommunication before it derails things is useful in any context.


ham radio operators builders, radio/comms engineers


Speaking as an also-generalist, I think it's actually a good place to be. My whole career has been pretty much "Here's something you've never seen before, an we need it fixed.". People who can do that will always be in demand.

Beyond that, consider the Epicurean Tetrapharmakos

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetrapharmakos

especially point three. If you think about it, what you truly need to survive is easier had than you might think.


It's a recession, not an apocalypse. These are kind of old news:

1. Budgeting. Know exactly where your money goes and what dials you can turn.

2. It's less about skills than products and services. So it becomes a better time to be a Costco or a cobbler (which helps people save money) than to be a Tesla (which helps people spend money).

For software, my suspicion is infinite monthly SaaS subscriptions will come under more scrutiny. And it might be a bad time to run a money-bleeding self-driving car startup. But that's my only firm guess at this point.


I still think there is plenty of demand for web developers.

If you have time on your hands and know some basic programming then might I suggest learning some web technologies. Even if you can't land a job quickly you can make some income being an indie hacker too (though you may need to learn at least a few marketing skills and SEO)


My thought is that this virus will have passed through the world, one way or another, in 4-8 months.

After that, the world reverts back to what it was doing.

My point is that this is no underlying weakness in the global economy. It's more like a slow moving natural disaster.

I'll admit I don't feel super confident that this is how things work. Happy to be corrected!


Sorry, I don't want to be too negative but I find your sentiment very naive and self-centred.

If you're well off now you'll be fine. If you're decently off in a wealthy country you'll be fine too. If you're one of the precariously employed and healthcare-less workers in a country like the US you will suffer and might die. If you are a precariously employed person in a poor country you'll watch many friends and family die.

Think what happens in Italy, a country with one of the best healthcare systems in the world, hitting South Sudan. Don't confuse your reality with how it will hit the rest of the world.


I'm quite aware this can become the biggest tragedy of our time. That's what I meant by "one way or another".

But I was only trying to think about the economic consequences for the survivors, after whatever is to come is over.


This hitting Syria give me the chills.


It's come to Afghanistan via Iran.

That may be the least prepared country for it.


I was thinking the same thing about the densely-populated Gaza Strip. They're already severely lacking in medical needs.


> My point is that this is no underlying weakness in the global economy.

Unfortunately, this is not at all true. There is a tremendous amount of debt in the system and we are on the precipice of a credit crisis that could wipe out a significant chunk of the global economy.


Perhaps. But it sounds like that's independent of the virus?

I only meant that the virus event doesn't add any fundamental flaw.


It doesn't "add a flaw", but instead it triggers the instability that exists because of the existing flaws. If large amounts of people stop being able to keep their heads above water (which is happening because of CoVID-related layoffs and reduced business) then their accumulated debt can crush them. Very few people in the US can survive in such poor economic conditions for "4-8 months" -- more than 60% of Americans can't cover a $1000 emergency[1]!

This is why many people are arguing for (and some countries have instituted) debt and rent cancellation for this period of time. That helps avoid tipping the scale and crushing a large portion of the population under the mountains of debt they already have. The US is also quite unique (in the worst possible way) in the massive amounts of medical and student loan debt that folks are saddled with.

[1]: https://www.cnbc.com/2019/01/23/most-americans-dont-have-the...


The thing I am worried about is that as the US goes ahead and helps its own people by essentially printing money, the rest of the world is getting crushed.

If many countries see their currency completely failing, they may be forced to look for radical changes. Which could mean some countries decide they must try to move away from the dollar as reserve. And that's the type of thing that could lead to a global war.

So I really, really hope that people are aware that money needs to work for everyone and act accordingly.

Personally I believe that there are fundamental structural issues with the current system, and it needs an upgrade to correct those issues and to be much more technologically sophisticated. The new system must also have sustainability as one of its core tenets.

What I think will happen is more countries crashing and burning, followed by half-assed sovereign debt relief. Whether we actually get to a world war, who knows.


I don't think so. 4 months without any customers is an eternity for restaurants/bar industry or tourism industry. A larger portion of these businesses will go bankrupt or reduce their size. People will lose their jobs and not have any money to buy stuff, which in turn slows down the economy even more.

I also think 4 months is very optimistic, I bet things aren't "normal" for over a year.


Take a look at what Ray Dalio and others have been saying about the long-term debt cycle.

In fact, there is a massive global debt problem that has been building for many decades.


My father lost his job in the 2008 recession at an engineering firm.

He started his own consultancy.

Dozen or so years later he's pulling in mid 6 figures by himself working 40-60h a month at home.

Do the same. Have skills, learn to sell them.


The care industry at local level is poised to do well and get funded more than in the recent past in order to protect the vulnerable part of the population from the disease and avoid further waves. They will need generalists and computer-savvy operators to smoothen their peaks for sure.


I'm learning how to refinish my decks. Needs some rotten wood replaced. A massive clean. A repaint. And a whole bunch of gross looking misaligned cuts replaced too. I'll then re-do the wiring for the staircase lights and outlet.

I like this project because it isn't blocking anything (like if I took the kitchen out). And when it's all done, this will be the summer I made our back decks beautiful rather than the summer we were stuck inside feeling anxious.


> the effects of the global domino triggered by conoravirus will echo for many years to come.

Why? As far as I know there's no underlying systemic financial reason for a depression or recession. The virus sucks. Some companies will no doubt have a bad quarter or two. But viruses pass, and this one will too.

> I'm afraid that in this new reality my software/management skills won't be of any use in 6 months.

That seems hyperbolic.


> Some companies will no doubt have a bad quarter or two.

That seems like an understatement. 99.9% of businesses in the USA are small businesses. Most that I know will be lucky to survive a month of this, without serious government assistance.


I think 6 months of lock downs or stay at home would show a lot of companies are not prepared to not have income. Businesses going out of business aren't coming back, along with the jobs they provided.


Sure. But if there was a need for the goods and services those companies provided before, then there will be a need for those goods and services again. I don't think enduring financial collapse logically follows from even an extended quarantine.


I don't think that is necessarily true. Something like gamestop won't come back, individuals who put everything into a small business might not recover and try again. A lot is happening at one time.


Something like Gamestop not coming back doesn't mean those dollars aren't still going to flow to gaming


It's not just gaming, there's employees, local taxes, rents, physical distribution.


People skills & Frustration tolerance

1-2% of society are always on the verge of depression, as that is just how gauss distributions work. But chances are, it'll soon be 10%. Google therapeutic shopping and you know that people are willing to spend a lot of money to feel better.

So if you can handle hearing the whining of depressed people without it dragging you down too much, offer to do free video chat with lonely people now. Your goal isn't to change their situation in any way, but by telling you about it and feeling heard, you can help them change their feelings about their situation. So you mostly just listen, reveal related facts about yourself, and ask caring questions.

Once the crisis is over, your newfound ability to stay cheerful in the presence of adversity and your ability to get along well with different kinds of people will be a very valuable asset for romance and work.

Add cooking and laundry and those 4 traits are what I believe most HN readers will be lacking in comparison to the normal population.


I'd recommend learning about markets and economics. My suspicion is that states will continue to implement all steps necessary to contain the virus over the next 18 months and bail out all businesses and consumers in order to keep the productivity of the economy close to the level prior to the outbreak. Depending on how difficult it will be to contain the virus, this might require funds on an unprecedented scale in modern times. It's difficult to predict how eager investors will be to finance these deficits. Obviously something like a hyperinflation scenario is completely out of the question for a developed state like the US and there will likely be more deflationary pressure over the next few years, but at some point states will have to deleverage and I'm inclined to say that they will probably do this using higher inflation rates, in which case you can probably profit a lot from knowing about markets and economics.


Do you have any advice on where to read up on this sort of thing? I’ve always been interested but never acted upon it. Now seems like a good time to understand more about how our world actually works in terms of the economy


Take a look at the Economics & Finance videos on Khan Academy [1]. I have only watched some of them, but those I watched were good.

You could read some standard macroeconomics textbooks, but I'd advise against doing that, since they are expensive and unnecessarily formalized using elementary math, which doesn't really add anything to the material itself. There's however a good book on monetary economics by Mishkin called Economics of Money, Banking and Financial Markets, which is really good, but the Khan Academy videos on banking mostly cover the same material.

Personally I've learned a lot from reading economic history. Some books I can recommend are: Eichengreen - Globalizing Capital: A History of the International Monetary System

Frieden - Global Capitalism: Its Fall and Rise in the Twentieth Century

Soros - Alchemy of Finance (skip the first couple of chapters on his reflexivity theory, but the 'diary' chapters are a gold mine)

Ferguson - The Ascent of Money (probably a good book to start, the others might be harder to completely grasp for a beginner)

Some other good book I can recommend (not history books) are: The Secrets of Economic Indicators: Hidden Clues to Future Economic Trends and Investment Opportunities by Baumohl

Inside the House of Money by Drobny (mostly about global macro trading, but you would learn a lot about economics along the way, would only recommend this after having built up some basic knowledge though)

Most importantly you should start reading the Economist, which has really high quality economics and finance articles, but is released only weekly and offers a good trade off with regards to time commitment and knowledge about what's going on in the world. Note that you will probably need to know some basics in order to understand everything, but you can look up things along the way. Economics really isn't hard to learn if you have a technical background.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/user/khanacademy/playlists?view=50&s...


Learn to learn.

And then practice learning. Our brains have very high capacity to learn, adapt and forget quite a lot - just believe that you can, and you will. All you need is focused effort. You only need to prove that belief once to yourself. I know this sounds philosophical, but it works.

Becoming an expert in an area is quite another thing. For that you need to evaluate the benefits.

> new state of things

Nobody can predict the new state of things. We can make an educated guess. And my guess is that software skills will be useful for many decades to come. You may have to get better to stay ahead of the competition and that might be more work. The economic impact of the lockdowns has already started hurting small businesses as contracts are being cancelled/paused. They can only take 2 more months of beating, but to clear economic uncertainty we all have to be back to normal working within next 15 days- that is simply not possible. So get ready for small biz to cut/die first followed by the bigger ones.

> will echo for many years to come

I think the worst is yet to show up, the next two months will show where we stand as a world on the pandemic. Right now we only see virus as a health issue, but the virus effect is also shaking up the geopolitical state of the world and questioning global trade and policies. We will probably come out of it quicker than before. The economic effects will be huge, but not necessarily bad for every country.


Like this a lot. Anything that has helped you learn how to learn?


I heard that from one of the senior professors 18 years back, and that stuck in my mind. I was doing that even before that but then had the formal phrase "Learn to learn".

What has helped? - It was definitely not books about the topic and I had very limited access to internet or videos.

I do not know the answer, but I will try to explain my scenario. There are some things you can replicate and some you cannot.

Something changed in me when I was 17 years old and that motivated me to learn a lot. Before that I was an average kid who thought studies are pointless burden. In a way, I was right because it was directionless but wrong because I was not getting educated in any other way either.

Unfortunately, I was a college freshman by then and with worst grades of my life prior to that. Parents and relatives looked down on me as a failure and my parents gave up on me. So here I was a new person, highly motivated to learn and catch up learning from the lost years and also had a high degree of freedom to think and learn whatever I wanted to. So few things - I had freedom, no pressures, I knew that I didn't know, self-motivated, no fear of failure, open-mindedness but still questioning everything, and no-ego.

Few beliefs set in quickly:

1. Human brain can learn anything. And I meant learning, not memorization - I hated memorizing. I also believed that if I can do it, anybody can.

2. Knowledge is universally accessible (as if it is in a higher dimension on a shared hard-drive) and if we focus just enough on what we want to achieve, our brains will tune to it. I know how crazy the second one sounds. I may have a wrong perception but it was my own (not induced by someone or a book or some movie). It works for me whatever the underlying neurological reason might be. Today, internet does the same thing - making knowledge universally accessible

Then, it was a top down approach starting with what I want to do or what problem I want to solve.

Did not matter whether the effort would pay back or whether it was any useful to me. I just needed to have some interest in that subject.

For one instance, it was music, I impulsively bought a musical keyboard. I was foolish to think that because I was good at a computer keyboard, I will be naturally good at the musical one too. I had lot of time after work and I wanted to stay away from programming all day (because programming is my hobby too). Then I selected one of the keyboard's built-in composition, Beethoven's Fur Elise in tutorial mode. The keyboard would tell me which keys to play. I hate memorization, so the first thing I did was to listen and hit the right key. I was basically exploring and feeling the keyboard like a toddler does with things. And then I would practice the song again and again and again for many hours a day (at least 3-4 hours). I would end up optimizing my finger movements when I used to get stuck. Then sometimes I would try to fit the tunes of some songs on the keyboard. Few months later a musician friend of a friend came in my room to see the keyboard. When I played Beethoven's Fur Elise, he was amazed at how well I moved the hand and the fingers. He was astonished to know that I had zero formal training. How did I learn that? Trial and error and focused effort. I came to know then that what I was doing is called "ear training". He shared more information about books, videos and musical languages. I gathered more resources to learn about those things, got good at playing complex musicals. But then gradually I stopped playing the keyboard - may be because it started to feel like work or may be because something else interested me more.

I'm not discounting the value of formal education. It saves you lots of time and prevents lots of mistakes.

I also dig deeper into the history of concepts, because it makes me understand and remember it. A college friend accidentally taught me that. For example when I was reading about pharmacology and drugs - I wondered why they name the drugs like they do. Exploring deeper is like falling down the seemingly infinite rabbit hole - but that is what keeps learning fun for me, even if I get off track for a while.

On the cons, every week I spend hours learning things that have no immediate benefit or use or any visible long term benefit. But most of the times, sometimes after many years, it turns out to be helpful in ways I could not have imagined.


That was awesome. Thanks for taking the time to write that.


Being a doctor is always valuable, though I'm not sure it's that easy to retrain into one...

More importantly, knowing how to live frugally is valuable in and of itself, assuming we do end up with a once-in-a-century-type depression.

Not impossible, according to some (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22655670) but then forecasting is very difficult, especially when it involves the future.


Freelance general practitioners are massively being laid off (contracts terminated, no new opportunities) at the moment in the Netherlands. Almost no one is allowed to come to a gp office, anything that is not urgent is postponed...


Doctors should start making house calls again. In full protective gear


They do, as little as possible.


Being a doctor involves at least 4 years, plus an extra 3-4 for residency — and that's assuming you have met the pre-med requirements.

There are several other health care options that are much quicker to learn. Such as nursing, physician's assisting, lab work. Etc.


Cyber security maybe? I don't think that companies will seize needing sales roles?

I know that Launch School is doing a webinar about this topic the coming days, titled:

'How to Navigate a Recession for Software Engineers'

I am not affiliated with them, but here is the webinar link:

https://zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_xarP2qpeRdKTfD-qikbX4A


develop a flare for barter and trade. learn how to provide the things people actually need.

general construction trades and adhoc engineering.

farming. hunting fishing.

veternary skills surgical skills midwivery dentistry.

localized /offgrid/on site power generation.

production of fuel from raw materials.


Adding to this: learn the basics of ham radio. Not only is the theory fun if you're the math/science type, it's also a lifeline service if cellphone or satellite communications are down. You can learn enough in a weekend to get an amateur license and buy $20 radios that will let you talk across the state or further.


and right away find a local repeater and get accepted into an operators net, thats going to be crucial...

there should be some rep among operators to avoid bad apples that would try to take or make advantage with black comms


Any good resources?


there are prepper sites, and if you look in the "shadows" you may find a lot of specialized literature that aught to be free for humanity.

the prepper culture is really something elso tho, there is a local group that is just about the one group that i want to have as far away from me as possible.

have a look around here for example that ought to be a good starting point:

https://www.reddit.com/r/prepping/


Agriculture, hunting, fishing, carpentry and masonry.


Einstein: "I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones."


when i was young there was this bully that screwed with everyone, one day someone put him down to the ground and several of his repeat victims fell upon him like animals, when he was down and vulnerable. the kid ended up in the hospital.

A tactical position requires caution when vulnerable. old festering wounds and international quarrels can quickly be escalated in a situation like this.

It is a feasible scenario that someone of less than level head thinking will:

see opportunity >take advantage >achieve an objective.


Is there a war coming?


Well, hopefully we don't follow the 1929 trajectory too closely...


China and the USA are leading up to one.


The implication here being that the virus will disrupt society in such a way that people will need to hunt for their own food or hire people who will do it for them?


...and programming and dozens of other things.


Work from home effectively.


Learn to make a budget and stick to it. People who follow and understand the expression "Waste not want not." and act accordingly will be in a much better position.

Start with going over your latest bank or credit card statement and really think about where your money has gone and where it should be going.

"How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time!"


> I'm afraid that in this new reality my software/management skills won't be of any use in 6 months.

First skill: Patience

Second skill: Adaptability

Third skill: Resilience. Software will always be needed. You just might need to work a "beer money" job for a little while.


or learn how to make your own beer


It's only cheaper to make your own if you drink a lot and get it perfect the first time around. Otherwise, you waste a lot of money while you learn, or end up only saving a few pennies a bottle but wasting your time.

That's why the people who get into brewing do it because they enjoy it, not for the money!

(The last time I made beer I forgot about it and found the barrel a few months later!)


All true although it’s a great hobby for being stuck in the house and likely safer than buying beer currently.


There always are a few skills that help during recession. When recession comes, people want to switch to cheaper ways of doing things. So find a way to making stuff less expensive always helps.


There was a thread on 4chan covering possible jobs during the Apocalypse.

Scavenging, Mushroom picker, Hunter, Under Ground Bunker Specialist, Medic, Combat/Army specialist, Tinkerer, etc.


I can say that my apparently unusual innate ability to get slack and zoom video and screen sharing to work has been in great demand for the last few weeks.


If this is the same level as '08 I don't think much will change in your sector. The demand will still be there,just a lot less of it. If your employer is not in tech either you lose a job or you don't see a pay increase for a while. If your employer is in tech then there are plenty of non-tech places all over that are starving for your talent which will do well in a recession.


> “...I'm afraid that in this new reality my software/management skills won't be of any use in 6 months.”

I’m curious: What do you mean by this?


I've been following many threads on Reddit (and one on HN) about people getting fired already. As there is no indication this trend will be reversed any time soon, I get the feeling that a) lots of industries have already been hit hard and b) things may get progressively worse in the following months.

It worries me that, as a huge percentage of the web runs on ads, if lots of industries get into trouble, the ad space will inevitably suffer as well. The cascading effect of that will most probably affect in a very obvious way every company I've worked for, layoffs will oversaturated the market and my current skillset will be insufficient to give me any competitive advantage.


There will be a lot of layoffs. The question is, what kind of jobs are they? Are these experienced developers with multiple languages and platforms under their belt, or one-trick ponies that came from a bootcamp?

You're right - ad-driven web properties won't do well. There is tons of code written every day that does actual revenue-generating work, however. It's not sexy work, it's not VC-funded work, and that's okay.

During the dot-com bust I had no problems with work. My longest contract was for a hospital, writing software to help nurses schedule and track patient visits. This was tangible work, with a tangible benefit. It wasn't a nebulous business model.


> Are these experienced developers with multiple languages and platforms under their belt, or one-trick ponies that came from a bootcamp?

During the last recession, many of those that were let go were the "expensive" experienced developers that could command higher salaries than new hires.

I know several experienced developers that lost their jobs last week.


Knowing multiple languages, to maximize your options.


Many native speakers of Spanish and other languages are also confined to their homes right now. This means there are a lot of multilingual professionals eager to help native English speakers learn. There are a number of sites that facilitate remote, 1-on-1 lessons for many languages. You can get 1:1 teaching for under $10/hour (a bit more if you want somebody with teaching experience - imho not that necessary if you're motivated). Plus it's a great way to socialize. I'm currently using Verbling but there are others. Highly recommended if you're into learning languages but have hit a plateau.


You mean natural languages, not programming ones, right?


ha, I just revealed my status as a non-engineer. Yes, languages. I am trying to improve my Spanish during quarantine downtime.


i think both would be usefull espescially when its time to rebuild.

if you know old programing language and are able to port ancient applications and data structures to a recent language and platform you will be valuable for the rebuilding.


As a grandchild of a holocaust survivor, this was told to me repeatedly.


Greg Fenves, the president of UT Austin tells the story of his dad who sneaked out of Buchenwald and was recognized at a factory using prisoners for slave labor by an SS guard who knew him from the camp. Upon being asked what he was doing there (being too young for normal labor selection) he on the fly responded that that Buchenwald had thought the factory would need an interpreter


Like by learning Spanish in addition to English, you can flee to Mexico if the UK isn't taking immigrants?


the #1 thing is how to build community online... effectively, relationships.

this is actually harder to do for a lot of folks... especially the millions who are now forced to do it.

im training a few folks a week: http://yen.camp


This is a little narrower - but I'd be interested in suggestions for open source software useful for local online communities. People in my area use Facebook. Except that many (like me) just won't sign up for a FB account, and even those that do around here mostly loathe it.

I'd like to set something up but as this has just occurred to me I'm vague on specifics as yet. At a minimum I'd like easy-to-use community forums. Discourse is obviously a possibility.


To add, self-promotion is also a very useful skill in these times.


Knowing Chinese ...


Chinese is not a bridge language like English is.


Not useful since so many Chinese are bilingual already; in China if you know English that might just get you a few more RMB per hour, in the USA you might get a couple of more dollars per hour. Besides, I have a feeling that China is going to get the coming recession much worse than the USA, making interactions (eg via tourism) a bit more turbulent for the next few years.


Would you mind elaborating?


It is still too early to tell but what if the corona virus pandemic ends up hurting the us and Europe much more than China? Pushing the shift towards Asia/China into overdrive.


I believe that we should always be on the move to adapt to changing environment and foster multi-skilling. I am actually in the same frame of mind!


Aim to be an expert in your field = what you love to do and you'll be fine. High performing people are unaffected during crisis.


I'm a "high performer", a core collaborator in a big open source project and a library maintainer of a few libraries with 10M+ weekly downloads on NPM. I have a BSc in CS and lots of "good" industry experience in strong start ups for long-ish ( 5 year ) durations.

I'm definitely going to be impacted by this recession. I was impacted by the 2008 recession and I was impacted by the dot-com bubble. A lot of friends went to do enterprise Java at banks, jobs without glamour and other things to pay the bills.

There are a lot of things I get away with right now that I won't be able to get away with anymore.

Also don't forget that "high performers" are more expensive and a lot of times "mid performers" do a good-enough job, so high performers had to compromise for mid-performer salaries during recessions.

Obviously start-ups closing and less funding all around also changes the supply-demand balance in the short term. It's likely to induce job changes and closures for at least some of us.


>A lot of friends went to do enterprise Java at banks

Perhaps I'm projecting but I think that cloud skills will be the enterprise Java/.Net of this recession. There is a trough of skills and a pretty clear line, it reminds me of desktop apps to web apps around 2008 as well.


My field doesn't really exist right now. The highest performing people I know are just as unemployed as the schmucks like me.


Learning what to cook to stretch your food supply. Learning not to waste food.


Honestly, right now during the pandemic, medical courier. How do you think tests get to labs?


How to grow vegetables and fruit in the garden.


Cyber security?


turning stress and chaos into patient and focus (and using this time to do whatever is beneficial)


Carpentry


if the GPS goes out of business because people aren't leaving the house, you'll need to navigate dense urban areas without assistance


I think the most important skill is learning how to gain access to zero-interest loans from the Federal Reserve.

This skill allows you to lend to your buddies who can purchase distressed businesses and properties for pennies on the dollar, which gives you and them the opportunity to make billions in profits while everybody else is suffering.

I’m still trying to learn how to do this; if anybody has any information about what’s required, please reply.


> This skill allows you to purchase distressed businesses and properties for pennies on the dollar

Banks aren’t net purchasers of assets in downturns. (If anything, they tend to shed risk-weighted assets.)

Non-bank financial firms, who have access to cheap financing, but NOT to Fed funding, are the asset accumulators. They go into crises with cash or credit lines. (And tend to be net financiers to banks in crises. Banks go into crises levered. If you depend on bank financing in a crisis, you’re screwed.)


Thanks; I updated the comment.


Another option is to get massive zero-interest loans that the government will forgive later. That way you don’t have to go through the performance of buying a company, you can just pocket the cash.


We will need negative interest loans, not just 0 interest to buy overpriced assets such as real estate.


Or get a loan from an Indian bank. The interest rate doesn't matter since you don't have to pay the loan back :)

There were some high profile cases of people taking millions of dollars of loans and running away (search for Neerav Modi, Mehul Choksi) so I am not making this up.


You should be looking at borrowing from a bank. The Fed does not lend to individuals.


So step one is "found a bank"?


Now might be a good time to take another look at public banking: https://www.publicbankinginstitute.org/


You know what would be interesting? A Y Combinator or Hacker News bank. That would be interesting, but in reality probably extremely hard to realise... Still a fun and interesting idea to occupy your mind in this times of solitude.


It is incredibly hard to get a banking license. Easier to buy an existing bank. Banking regulators are also biased as to the type of banks they want to support, making it difficult to stand up a narrow bank.

Consider finding opportunities to extract value from the existing banking system to achieve similar end goals. Maybe the Fed will lend to you if you can provide collateral they typically wouldn’t consider high enough quality? (Google “primary dealer lending facility”)


> You know what would be interesting? A Y Combinator or Hacker News bank

DKSB - Dunning-Kruger State Bank


Like founding a bank instead of robbing one?


"The Best Way to Rob a Bank is to Own One" - https://www.amazon.com/Best-Way-Rob-Bank-Own/dp/0292754183


which gives you the opportunity to make billions in profits while everybody else is suffering.

And hopefully utilize those profits to help fewer suffer.


You should do stand up comedy.


And write book reviews explaining why the world will suffer a lot less if only more plebs will fall in line with your view of what is best for them.


This is what Gates is doing now, and I appreciate his choice, he's doing really great things now.


Yeah, like helping sponsor and organize Event 201, a global novel coronavirus pandemic simulation, just a few weeks before the actual coronavirus began last year.

And, now that that exact pandemic is underway, he’s kind enough to offer us ID2020[2], which he has been working on for some time now, coincidentally just in time for the pandemic; invisible tattoos so that our vaccination status can be tracked, to help prevent those who don’t want to take part in this scheme from having access to business resources, etc.

It’s funny; it’s almost as if Bill Gates can see the future. He really is amazing.

1. http://www.centerforhealthsecurity.org/event201/

2. http://id2020.org/


Lol. +1


I hope this is sarcasm, I hope people aren't actually as cynical as this.


I hope you’re not as optimistic as that.

GM lost the American taxpayers north of $10MMM. That was enough to purchase over 500,000 vehicles at the time. 500 fucking thousand vehicles. That’s just the amount of money that they lost us with their “good Bank bad Bank” style IP-related scam. Do you think this is not reason enough to be cynical during financial crises?


what is $10MMM? that doesn't exist


M is "thousand". MM is "thousand thousand", which is "million", and a fairly common shorthand. I haven't really seen it, but its pretty clear then that MMM is meant to be "thousand thousand thousand", i.e., billion.


You could have also written it as "$10B" and 100% of people would have understood what you're talking about without an explanation.

Why didn't you write 500M cars as well? Could it be that it's a stupid convention?


I guess you are blind to how your comment comes across:

> which gives you and them the opportunity to make billions in profits while everybody else is suffering.

Strikes me as shitty attitude, "here's how you can profit from everyone's dire situation".


making masks.

Calling All People Who Sew And Make: You Can Help Make Masks For 2020 Healthcare Worker PPE Shortage

"In settings where facemasks are not available, HCP might use homemade masks (e.g., bandana, scarf) for care of patients with COVID-19 as a last resort."

https://www.forbes.com/sites/tjmccue/2020/03/20/calling-all-...




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