Question

1. Has the global pandemic permanently hurt globalization (global trade, investment, and the movement of people across national borders)? Explain your answer in one paragraph.

Answer 1

There is every reason to think that our future post-coronavirus will see not an end to recent decades' globalizing trend but a new chapter in that story. The abrupt pause in commerce and transport precipitated by the epidemic will not snap back immediately, and for countries we will mean a re-nationalization of certain sectors over the next few years. Even as this crisis ends, we are likely to see fresh proof of what we already know about globalisation: that it is easy to dislike, simple to threaten and difficult to avoid.

The lack of any real capital controls and the massively expanded demand for spending everywhere is why financial markets began collapsing after China's coronavirus jumped out. It took the epidemic itself weeks to travel from South Korea to Europe to the USA, but it just took days to spread the financial contagion. This is the agony of the moment for creditors, but as it happens it also gives a glimmer of the potential speed and size of the economic turnaround. In a second, money will evaporate, and float in an instant