EP 442 Is the Stay at Home Economy Here to Stay?

The pandemic has locked us in our homes and unlocked the delivery economy.  Many times a day we can look out our windows and see delivery trucks stopping to deliver all manner of goods from groceries to toiletries, from a cooked meal to a new pair of jeans.  Now that we are growing accustomed to the convenience, and the infrastructure to deliver essentials has been put in place, will we get back in our cars and troll the brick and mortar stores that have survived the pandemic?  It’s an open question.  More intriguing to our guest, Michael Mandel, the Chief Economic Strategist at the Progressive Policy Institute, is how productively we will use the time afforded us not having to tool around town now that companies, like Amazon, are geared up to more conveniently attend to our every need.  He acknowledges that we might want to get out and about again with a pent up demand to sense the aliveness of the experience.  It’s an intriguing question we posed in our title of this podcast and we explore it in depth with him.

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