Howard Marks Memo - The Winds of Change

• The pandemic made working from home commonplace and the requirement to work in an office five days a week less of a default solution.

• Millions of people have left jobs over the last year as part of the “Great Resignation”: 4.4 million in September alone.

To sum up, many workers experienced a “timeout” during the pandemic – not working, working parttime, working from home, and/or certainly not traveling on business. For many, this may have occasioned a reset, giving them an opportunity to conclude, “You know, my career isn’t everything;

Before I move on, I want to spend a minute on exactly what Cathie Wood said: technology will prove deflationary, and its positive impact on productivity will contribute to a jump in GDP. But GDP is the product of the number of hours worked times labor productivity per hour. Thus, if technology produces a big increase in output per hour worked, GDP ... See more

it did in the past. And investments made on the assumptions that tomorrow will look like yesterday must be subject to vastly increased scrutiny.

everyone a living wage. But can we afford to support growing numbers of unemployed workers and their families? And how will we replace the non-monetary benefits from work: things like having a place to go each day and satisfaction with a job well done. Is sitting on the porch really a viable substitute for a job? I believe the opioid epidemic, for ... See more

Today, unlike in the 1950s and ’60s, everything seems to change every day. It’s particularly hard to think of a company or industry that won’t either be a disrupter or be disrupted (or both) in the years ahead. Anyone who believes all the firms on today’s list of leading growth companies will still be there in five or ten years has a good chance of... See more

family and quality of life count for more. I’m going to reorient my life and put less emphasis on work.”

We don’t hear much these days about the possibility of deflation, and it certainly seems unlikely to arise. We also don’t hear much about the deflationary impact of technology, but we shouldn’t dismiss the idea