A Shaky Foundation
And so castles made of sand fall in the sea, eventually.
– Jimi Hendrix
There’s a widespread belief out there that the U.S. and the global economy in general is on much sounder footing ever since the financial crisis of a decade ago. Unfortunately, this false assumption has resulted in widespread complacency and elevated levels of systemic risk as we enter the early part of the 2020s.
All it takes is a cursory amount of research to discover nothing was “reset” or fixed by the government and central bank response to that crisis. Rather, the entire response was just a gigantic coverup of the crimes and irresponsible behavior that occurred, coupled with a bailout designed to enrich and empower those who needed and deserved it least.
Everything was papered over in order to resuscitate a failed paradigm without reforming anything. Since it was all about pretending nothing was structurally wrong with the system, the response was to build more castles of sand on top of old ones that had unceremoniously crumbled. The whole event was a huge warning sign and opportunity to change course, but it was completely ignored. Enter novel coronavirus.
I’ve been concerned about the coronavirus outbreak from the start, and have been tweeting about it consistently for well over a month.
One thing I’ve learned from this coronavirus response thus far is institutions will never do the right thing fast enough in a situation like this to prevent a true global disaster when that day arrives.
We have no idea what’s actually happening with this thing, yet planes are landing from China all over the world. We may very well avoid a global disaster here, but if we do it’ll be because of luck.
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