Although I’m not on complete lockdown, I’ve come to realize the importance of human connection over the past few weeks.
And this is coming from someone who doesn’t really have that much face-to-face interaction with people to begin with.
Before the pandemic hit, I would typically see my coaches and friends at the gym for an hour or so, usually five days a week.
At least one day a week, I’d visit our local bakery, where I’d get a coffee, a cinnamon roll, and our bread for the week.
I’m usually at our farm a couple of days a week, too, to pick up food, shoot the shit with the farmers, and occasionally get my hands dirty.
But compared to most folks, my day-to-day interactions are few. Still, I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t affecting me. And I’m not the only one.
I can tell through conference calls and FaceTime chats that people are really starting to show signs of cabin fever.
The Value of Human Capital
Generally speaking, we are social beings and not designed to be cut off from human interaction.
When we don’t get it, we get irritated. We get angry, sad, anxious, and depressed. We become distrustful and easily triggered. This kind of isolation is not good for anyone.
While I certainly encourage anyone who doesn’t have to go out in public to stay home, the long-term effects of this isolation are still unknown.
How are we going to act when we can finally go out in public again and greet our friends and family with hugs and kisses?
How are we going to interact with strangers?
Will we end up being unnecessarily cautious or will we be so excited for human contact that we end up becoming overzealous in our attempts to re-engage with others?
Will we reconsider the value of medical professionals, truck drivers, delivery people, restaurant staff, food market workers, and farmers?
When you think about it, it really is a shame that it takes a deadly pandemic to make folks realize that jobs that are sometimes considered “beneath one’s status,” are, in fact, incredibly important and valuable to a well-run economy.
The bottom line is that without this kind of human capital, a healthy economy cannot properly function.
If you’re unfamiliar, human capital is typically described as intangible collective resources possessed by individuals and groups within a given population.
Examples would be things such as knowledge, skills, abilities, and talents. And these are all necessary for economic stability and growth.
Sometimes it’s easy to forget the value of human capital when it relates to farmers, truck drivers, and laborers. But how quick we can remember when everything comes to a grinding halt.
We have gone from mostly ignoring these folks to calling them heroes.
But hero worship doesn’t pay the bills. Our collective consumer behavior does.
Cheap Chinese Crap Is Expensive
An awful lot of people in this country say they want more “made in America” products.
But I don’t think that’s true.
If it were, Walmart (NYSE: WMT), Target (NYSE: TGT), and Costco (NASDAQ: COST) would have a hard time staying in business.
Understand, this is not an attack on those stores. They’re simply responding to customer demand, which typically boils down to cheap Chinese products.
The reality is, we really don’t care where our stuff is made or how well it’s made, as long as it’s cheap.
Generally speaking, most Americans would rather pay 20% less for food produced in and shipped from China than support their local farmer who can barely eke out a living growing healthier and cleaner food.
Or they’d rather pay for an $8 pack of poorly produced socks made in Pakistan over a $12 pack of higher quality socks made in the U.S., using domestically grown resources.
I’m not saying it’s wrong to buy products that aren’t made domestically. But what I am saying is that the lack of respect we have for our domestic workforce is a major factor in our inability to be properly prepared for situations like the one we’re in now.
As an unapologetic advocate of honest free markets and free trade, I will never support any government-mandated restrictions on what we can legally buy and sell — and from where.
However, I will also make no apologies for encouraging folks to use their purchasing power to strengthen our local economies, which we are quickly realizing serve a vital role in economic security.
Moreover, when given the opportunity, I love taking advantage of investment opportunities that can not only make me a lot of money, but also support domestic businesses that employ thousands of Americans. Like the three mentioned in this report, which collectively employ tens of thousands of people in the U.S.
Click here to learn more.
To a new way of life and a new generation of wealth…
Jeff Siegel
Check us out on YouTube!
@JeffSiegel on Twitter
Jeff is the founder and managing editor of Green Chip Stocks. For more on Jeff, go to his editor’s page.
Want to hear more from Jeff? Sign up to receive emails directly from him ranging from market commentaries to opportunities that he has his eye on.
