Surreal economics, fiscal stimulus, and the financialization of public health: Politics of the covid-19 narrative

Abstract

It's not surprising that the extent of the US's deficit financing is turning heads. President Biden's $1.9 trillion deficit stimulus package comes on top of Trump's stimulus of $2.35 trillion which doesn't include the Federal Reserve's estimated $4 trillion. The US Government has devoted over $6 trillion to banishing Covid-19 and economic recovery. These statistics dwarf anything in the past including the Great Depression and US participation in WWII. Calvin Woodward (2021) describes it as 'surreal economics' at warp speed. The only saving grace is that borrowing is cheap. Some critics with little understanding of the accumulated debt think that the current stimulus might see the US economy outpace China for the first time in 45 years (Chan, 2021).Although as Ceyhun Elgin et al. ( 2020) have demonstrated the US deficit financing and fiscal response to Covid-19 as a percentage of GDP is well below Japan, Luxemburg, Belgium, and Malta (all above 15%) and Austria, Qatar, Slovenia, Singapore and the Netherlands (between 10-15%). US debt held by the public as a share of GDP is about 107%. Andrew Van Damm (2020) suggests: 'This year, for the first time since World War II, the United States will owe more than its economy can produce in a given year, the nonpartisan committee estimates. That's expected to rise to 107 percent by 2025 and as high as 120 percent by 2030 … ' Elgin et al. (2020) have suggested that public health measures including 'closures, travel restrictions, and city lockdowns' have disrupted supply chains and led to lay-offs while monetary policies have increased liquidity to banks and included transfers to households, the unemployed and the public health system. They develop an Economic Stimulus Index (CESI) after a review of economic policies adopted by 166 countries as a response to Covid-19 pandemic showing significant correlations of for example, GDP per capita health expenditures with economic stimulus packages.The sheer size of the US's Covid-19 fiscal stimulus response indicates some qualms about the government underwriting of share markets still bubbling as though there is no problem indicating the extent to which these markets seem to have decoupled from the ongoing distress of civil society. Other economies have been concerned with preventing financial system risk while keeping an eye on the debt-to-GDP ratio. China, the only economy which grew in 2020, devoted an equivalent US trillion fighting the effects of the virus and Hong Kong, some $40 billion. Japan provided a trillion dollars in liquidity and four stimulus spending packages of over a couple of US trillion. The EU provided a raft of stimulus packages expanding its PEPP program to a total of $2.24 trillion while also increasing Central Bank liquidity. The world economy shrank by 3.5% and most governments around the world followed similar stimulus response packages with an accent of relief to households and the unemployed (Alpert, 2021). Cassim et al. (2020) of McKinsey & Company reported some $10 trillion rescue in first two months of ...

Resilience in the food sector – environmental, social and economic perspectives in crisis situations

“…It proved that one should return to primal processes of nature and disrupting them has much wider effects than we can predict. Environmental changes, social norms and institutions, and, consequently, the linkage of biology, information and society cannot be detached, also from their further financial consequences in all areas of human activity (Peters and Jandrić, 2021).…”