It appears that I have not actually posted in this Tohu Bohu a thing I have been saying for a year and a half now in various places and to various people: The economic crisis is rooted in the public health crisis. The economic crisis cannot be solved without addressing the public health crisis.
It’s true that the economic ‘crisis’ has changed over that time, as has the public health crisis that it is rooted in. At the moment, the economic problems, whether you consider them at crisis level or not, seem to be rooted in a supply-chain problem and some labor market tightening, both of which seem to me obviously rooted in the ongoing and ever-evolving global public health crisis.
This is, of course, on top of the global economic problems that I can’t really describe as a crisis at the moment: we’re generating massive climate change that we are not preparing to ameliorate, we are not preparing for the millions of refugees over the next decades which are predictable if not inevitable, and we’re ushering another generation into a complex of inequality and indignity that they have no reason to shore up. And, I suppose, we’ve set up a global economic system that is hugely susceptible to disruptions rooted in public health crises that we are unable or unwilling to address.
But in the short term, as prices rise and goods are scarce, as many Americans are expecting a Thanksgiving festival without a bounteous harvest on the table, it bears repeating: The economic crisis is rooted in the public health crisis. The economic crisis cannot be solved without addressing the public health crisis.
Tolerabimus quod tolerare debemus,
-Vardibidian.