My World: June 2021…

This is part of a series of articles where our contributors describe how they think things will look a year from now.

We regularly underinvest in education, re-training, environmental policy, healthcare, research and various other measures that would limit the damage done to the next generation when confronting climate change, artificial intelligence, debt and other impending challenges. We must invest in efficient healthcare systems and promote research that will allow us to promptly respond to emerging threats. We were already aware that many more threats are around the corner. We were concerned by biological warfare. We trembled with fear about the melting of the permafrost, which, besides emitting large volumes of greenhouse gases, will release ancient viruses and bacteria. Micro-plastics are in every food chain being consumed. Global health crises are no longer “rare events”.

Undoubtedly, whether civil, international or sanitary wars all leave their mark on society, and despite all that what have we achieved since the previous crisis 2008/09 and where do we stand in 2020:

Both the private and the public sectors have a habit of creating far too much debt, but we are obsessed with reducing the public debt. If we want better schools, hospitals, bridges, roads, railways, airports, sewers and broadband, someone has to raise debt to pay for these investments. Simply transferring debt, and the investment risk, from the public to the private sector is not the answer; we must produce far, far more GDP to pay for this new infrastructure.