A reader responds
17th April, 2020, 11.30pm
I can't pretend that Kristalina Georgieva is a familiar name to me, but she obviously reads this blog. What else can make the Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund say almost exactly what I did only two days ago. Let me just hit you with her headlines from her interview with the BBC earlier today.
The world faces the worst decline since the 1930s depression.....
We are projecting 170 countries to see income per capita shrinking during 2020 - 87% of the atlas of the world....
Epidemiologists are now helping us making macroeconomic projections. Never in the history of the IMF have we had that....
And tellingly: "I want to stress this may be actually a more optimistic picture than reality produces,"
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-52326853
What makes Ms Georgieva's comments fresh and new, is not just their candour about where we are now and what is needed now, but her acknowledgment that the entire global economy, based in well-worn habits of mind, and the fundamentals of capitalism, needs to change its ways, and get its priorities right.
"Saving lives and saving livelihoods go hand in hand with stopping the pandemic," she says.
At last, a political and economic figure who recognises that saving lives HAS to come first, because everything else flows from that, including the economy. This very simple message will stun our own politicians. Its screaming obviousness only highlights that their priorities are not our priorities.
She says other interesting things. By which I mean things you don't hear from the mouths of our politicians until it is too late. She points out, for example, that you can't beat a pandemic unless you beat it everywhere. You can't exercise "pandemic protectionism" and sit on medical equipment because you need it domestically. "When we are all hit by an epidemic...we need to act together."
But her mind is not just focused on the appalling gut-responses of the worst politicians we have produced for several generations and who are (they tell us) the leaders of the free world, but on what is going to happen to the poorer nations of the world – a point I raised only two days ago. She points out that such nations are hit 'multiple times'. They are hit by the virus (several waves of it), they're hit by the consequences of 'economic contraction' elsewhere, they're hit by the flight to safety, they're hit by remittances drying up. And, of course, those that are exporters "are hit by prices of their exports dropping."
Finally, and rather ruefully she ends by saying: "We need each other. It is a moment testing our humanity and being together acting with solidarity. We will get to the other side of this."
I think that last bit is a pious hope. Everything she says before that does not lead to that hopeful conclusion. But, as I have said before, we need to hope it nonetheless.
I can't pretend that Kristalina Georgieva is a familiar name to me, but she obviously reads this blog. What else can make the Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund say almost exactly what I did only two days ago. Let me just hit you with her headlines from her interview with the BBC earlier today.
The world faces the worst decline since the 1930s depression.....
We are projecting 170 countries to see income per capita shrinking during 2020 - 87% of the atlas of the world....
Epidemiologists are now helping us making macroeconomic projections. Never in the history of the IMF have we had that....
And tellingly: "I want to stress this may be actually a more optimistic picture than reality produces,"
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-52326853
What makes Ms Georgieva's comments fresh and new, is not just their candour about where we are now and what is needed now, but her acknowledgment that the entire global economy, based in well-worn habits of mind, and the fundamentals of capitalism, needs to change its ways, and get its priorities right.
"Saving lives and saving livelihoods go hand in hand with stopping the pandemic," she says.
At last, a political and economic figure who recognises that saving lives HAS to come first, because everything else flows from that, including the economy. This very simple message will stun our own politicians. Its screaming obviousness only highlights that their priorities are not our priorities.
She says other interesting things. By which I mean things you don't hear from the mouths of our politicians until it is too late. She points out, for example, that you can't beat a pandemic unless you beat it everywhere. You can't exercise "pandemic protectionism" and sit on medical equipment because you need it domestically. "When we are all hit by an epidemic...we need to act together."
But her mind is not just focused on the appalling gut-responses of the worst politicians we have produced for several generations and who are (they tell us) the leaders of the free world, but on what is going to happen to the poorer nations of the world – a point I raised only two days ago. She points out that such nations are hit 'multiple times'. They are hit by the virus (several waves of it), they're hit by the consequences of 'economic contraction' elsewhere, they're hit by the flight to safety, they're hit by remittances drying up. And, of course, those that are exporters "are hit by prices of their exports dropping."
Finally, and rather ruefully she ends by saying: "We need each other. It is a moment testing our humanity and being together acting with solidarity. We will get to the other side of this."
I think that last bit is a pious hope. Everything she says before that does not lead to that hopeful conclusion. But, as I have said before, we need to hope it nonetheless.
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