Don’t expect the world economy to resume its prior growth pattern after COVID-19
Most people seem to think that the world economy is going through a temporary disruption, caused by a novel coronavirus. As soon as COVID-19 goes away, they expect the economy will be back to normal. I think that this assessment is overly optimistic. The way I see the situation, the world economy was already having severe growth problems, caused indirectly by resource problems, even before COVID-19 hit.
In a growing world economy, a person might expect that workers would be getting richer, so that they could afford an increasing quantity of goods and services. What we really see is something very different. The number of new automobiles sold was falling in many major countries long before COVID-19 hit, even as population was generally rising. Clearly, something was seriously wrong.
As I see the situation, the world has a resource problem. Resources of many kinds, including fresh water, energy products, and minerals of many kinds were becoming more difficult (and expensive) to extract, even before 2020. Substitution might have worked if the problem were only one or two resources, but not with several major resources. Cutting back was the only answer.
Thus, the shutdowns for COVID-19 came at a convenient time, allowing economies that were already doing poorly to shut down. Needless to say, there was no world leader who was willing to explain this hidden issue to the world population. Instead, world leaders used standardized code words such as “we need to move to renewables” or “we need to reduce carbon use by 2050 to prevent climate change.” Unfortunately, the ability to move to alternatives in this time frame is simply an illusion, allowing world leaders to avoid mentioning the serious resource issues that the world economy is really facing.
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