Pundits and political leaders alike, after the initial surprise – and having been caught off base by the Covid-19 pandemic – started to reach for references in an attempt to cope with the situation. Comparisons to the aftermath of WWII and the Marshall Plan have become common. To be sure, the orders of magnitude are entirely different. But the pattern and the occasion show decisive similarities. In both cases, the historical moment is an inflection point in the middle of a technological revolution (the mass production revolution then; the ICT revolution now), between a first traumatic phase of installation of a new set of technologies, and a second phase of deployment when the benefits reach broader sectors of society. This turning point is usually a financial crash followed by a major crisis. Four months into the Covid-19 pandemic, the ensuing worldwide recession has been so far the biggest since the Great Depression of the 1930s. For those thinking the worst is over, signs are that we may only be at the end of the beginning....
Pundits and political leaders alike, after the initial surprise – and having been caught off base by the Covid-19 pandemic – started to reach for references in an attempt to cope with the situation. Comparisons to the aftermath of WWII and the Marshall Plan have become common. To be sure, the orders of magnitude are entirely different. But the pattern and the occasion show decisive similarities. In both cases, the historical moment is an inflection point in the middle of a technological revolution (the mass production revolution then; the ICT revolution now), between a first traumatic phase of installation of a new set of technologies, and a second phase of deployment when the benefits reach broader sectors of society. This turning point is usually a financial crash followed by a major crisis. Four months into the Covid-19 pandemic, the ensuing worldwide recession has been so far the biggest since the Great Depression of the 1930s. For those thinking the worst is over, signs are that we may only be at the end of the beginning....
The collapse of the economy was going to happen anyway. The irrational bull market in the NYSE was completely decoupled from the real economy. Besides, world debt had reached equally unmanageable heights. However, I think it’s good that, instead of a pure financial crash that makes governments rush to save the banks, we have a wide‐ranging economic collapse that forces governments to think more broadly about how to save businesses of all sorts and the vulnerable people without a proper safety net...
