COVID is impacting everyone and everything. Whether we experience it as a boom or a bust is often uniquely personal, e.g., what industry we’re in (tech, good! hospitality bad!), our age, and ultimately, our comfort level with risk.

What is certain, however, is that the pandemic will be with us for a LONG time (years!). Even Fauci agrees, “there is no end in sight,” he said this past Monday.

And as this knowledge sinks in, I expect we’ll see an even bigger rift between people who buy into the lockdown and those who view it as a diversion to cover up the fact that there is “no plan” – just a waiting game until there’s a vaccine.

That said, people are adapting, adjusting, and occasionally even thriving.

Scroll down for this week’s TOP 10 (make sure you read #10).

1. BUYING RESIDENCY/ CITIZENSHIP IN COVID-SAFE COUNTRIES (Source: HindustanTimes)

You can now acquire the right to live, work, and study in New Zealand for NZ$3 -10 million, depending on the type of investor resident visa you choose.

And that’s exactly what the rich are doing through advisory firms like Henley & Partners, specializing in citizenship/residency in exchange for investment in COVID-19 safe zone host countries. When the next pandemic hits, people want to get on their private planes and head to safety without last-minute visa glitches.

“New inquiries jumped 49% in the first four months of this year, compared with the same period in 2019.”

Henley & Partners

2. Small businesses BOOMING on Amazon (Source: KomoNews)

“During the first quarter of this year, our third-party sellers have had record sales, they’ve continued to actually outpace our first-party sales.”

Joel Sider, Amazon Senior Manager

And Iowa tops the list of the states with the fastest-growing number of digital entrepreneurs, growing 57% over the past 12 months.

• Total sales from Amazon’s 2MM small/medium businesses surpassed $3 billion during the last 12 months.
• 3,700 of those smaller companies hit the $1 million sales mark for the first time ever.

3. Sales of sex toys up 65% in India (Source: MumbaiMirror)

This trend report comes from India’s ThatsPersonal.com website and is based on over 22 million visitors who purchased over 3 million products online.

Interesting tidbits:

• Favorite shopping time for women is 12 noon – 3 pm; for men it’s 9 pm-midnight.
• Most shopping is done by 25-34-year-olds but 18-25-year-olds spend the most time on the site.
• Most go online to buy condoms – and end up buying sex toys as well.
• Sex toys supposedly saved strained marriages in 33% of cases.
• Most first time buyers are male but women are heavy repeat buyers.

4. PAWN SHOP “sales” ARE up, “pawning” IS down (Source: News Advance)

Hot items include game systems such as the PlayStation 4 as well as laptops, lawn equipment, and guns (“Our guns are all sold out. Sales were crazy.”).

For those who are not familiar with the operations of a pawn shop:

• Generally, a pawnbroker provides a short-term cash loan to a customer, who puts up their own items as collateral, with the understanding they’ll pay off the loan soon with interest and get the item back.
• However, because of federal stimulus checks and increased unemployment benefits, pawnshop owners hardly see any cash loans these days. Instead, customers are looking to buy in-demand products for themselves.
• Pawnshops are considered “essential” businesses like banks since they provide small loans to customers.
• Interesting tidbit: Pawnshop online sales have tripled as more customers shop from home.

FYI: Guns are selling out across America as safety concerns drive more people to buy firearms. 40% of sales are now to first-time buyers many of whom had previously been staunchly anti-gun. (Source: BI)

5. This week with Joe Rogan: LOVED, LOVED, LOVED TRAVIS BARKER

Who knew Travis Barker was such a stellar human being? He’s kind, smart, altogether exemplary. A great reminder that it’s never a good idea to judge a book by its cover.

Other faves from this week: Steve-O #960, Russell Brand #1283, Bill Burr #1491.

Besides continuing to find Joe Rogan entertaining and informative, I am also learning how to be a better listener from him.

• It’s been a lifelong challenge for me not to interrupt people when they’re talking. I’m still not good at it but I’m getting better. Rogan also confesses to not always being great at it – and I have noticed that with certain guests when he gets stoned, all his conversational skills go out the window.
• And, by the way, as most of you know, I’m a big fan of Rogan’s video podcasts. Watching his interviews has replaced TV for me. And I’m clearly not the only one. Spotify just made it official that they will now provide both audio and video for all podcasts (Rogan is moving his podcast there in September).

6. Cool Artist-In-Residency Programs

With museums and galleries shut down in many parts of the country, curators are coming up with some intriguing ways to engage artists and the local community.

Green-Wood Cemetery, in Brooklyn, New York (Source: MSN.com)

Green-Wood is looking for its first artist-in-residence to work on a project that is inspired by the cemetery’s art, history, and nature.

• The 9-month residency would last between January and September 2021 and includes private studio space in the landmarked Fort Hamilton Gatehouse.
• For those not familiar, Greenwood Cemetery is where Jean-Michel Basquiat and Leonard Bernstein are buried.

National Portrait Gallery in DC appoints its first Instagram ARtist-In-Residence (Source: DCist)

• The Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery has named Howard University architecture professor and sketch artist Brad Grant as its first-ever Instagram artist-in-residence.
• During his year-long residency, Grant will attend openings, lectures, and installations. He’ll make sketches based on what he sees and post his work to the museum’s Instagram account.

7. Is #CancelCulture Starting To Eat its own?

Even Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Hamilton (an Obama favorite) is not safe!

• Over the last year, I’ve noticed a staggering number of women (often startup founders) getting #canceled, e.g., Audrey Gelman of the Wing.
• Members of the LGBTQ community are also not immune, e.g., columnist Andrew Sullivan and curator Gary Garrels both #cancelled this month.
• And then this week, Jide Zeitlin, one of only five black male Fortune 500 CEOs, had to resign from his position at Tapestry (parent company of Coach) because of an indiscretion he had with a woman – 13 years ago!
• Yikes! Outrage has no limits.

8. COVID UPDATE: MASK WEARING (Source: NY Times)

This is for all the people upset and complaining about Americans not wearing masks. According to a recent survey from YouGov, 80% of Americans say they wear masks frequently – or always – when they expect to be within six feet of other people. (Details in the NY Times link above).

America’s mask use is higher than several other countries, including Canada, the UK, France, Australia, Denmark, and Sweden.

9. Sweden’s “Marathon” Strategy vs. California’s Lockdown “Sprint” (Source: BI)

Numerous cautionary tales have been written about Sweden for going off script with their more relaxed approach to the pandemic. This week, however, Business Insider took a different tack (see below). And then a few days later, CNN finally asked what went wrong with California’s lockdown.

Here’s the question: If we had been told at the outset that we had to go into a 2-year lockdown (based on needing a vaccine to safely reopen), would we have been so ready to comply and shut everything down or would the Swedish strategy have made more sense?

I have been (and remain) a fan of Sweden’s strategy because as a student of human nature, I believe them when they say lockdowns ultimately don’t work because they’re not sustainable for long periods of time.

Sweden’s death toll is substantially higher than neighboring Scandinavian countries but it’s much lower than Belgium, the United Kingdom, Italy, and Spain. Belgium, with roughly the same population, went into total lockdown and yet ended up with twice the fatalities of Sweden.

I don’t understand what outcome we can expect from year-long shutdowns besides economic devastation. The virus isn’t going away because we’re hiding out indoors. Eventually, we have to re-enter the world, and if there is no vaccine or cure, what exactly has been achieved? From my perspective, lockdowns, unless they last until there’s a cure, don’t prevent deaths, they just change the dates.

10. ‘Jaw-dropping’ global crash in children being born (Source: BBC)

THIS IS A MUST READ.

Researchers expect the number of under-fives to fall from 681 million in 2017 to 401 million in 2100 while the number of over 80-year-olds will soar from 141 million in 2017 to 866 million in 2100.

23 nations – including Spain and Japan – are expected to see their populations halve by 2100. Meanwhile, countries will also age dramatically, with as many people turning 80 as are being born.

• It is being driven by more women educated and working, as well as greater access to contraception, leading to women choosing to have fewer children.
• Japan’s population is projected to fall from a peak of 128 million in 2017 to less than 53 million by the end of the century.
• Italy is expected to see an equally dramatic population crash from 61 million to 28 million over the same timeframe.

“Most of the world is transitioning into natural population decline. It’s incredibly hard to recognize how big a thing this is; it’s extraordinary, we’ll have to reorganize societies.”

Prof. Christopher Murray

And that’s a wrap.

Have a good weekend everyone. Stay cool and hydrated!

It’s been blisteringly hot in NYC. I even got a touch of heatstroke yesterday while walking to dinner on the Upper Eastside. How I thought walking 20 blocks in sweltering heat without water was a good idea, is beyond me. Fortunately, a wonderful young couple stopped to help me. They got me water and hailed me a cab. I wish I had their names to thank them. The minute I got in the airconditioned cab, I felt better.

Tomorrow (Saturday) will be a bit cooler. I managed to snag a ferry ticket for Governor’s Island. I am missing travel so much that this 20-minute ferry ride looms like a great adventure.

And on that pathetic note I’ll leave you until next week.