|
|
China’s economy righted itself to pre-crisis levels last year, the U.S.’s in this year’s second quarter, and with Europe’s 8.3 percent second-quarter expansion, the world’s economy as a whole has likely returned to pre-crisis levels of productivity, economists at Capital Economics and Oxford Economics told The Wall Street Journal.
Successful vaccination campaigns and massive government stimulus spending retrieved national economies from the brink, the WSJ said.
National economies have been restored in countries where vaccination campaigns and social restrictions were largely successful, the WSJ said, while areas without effective vaccination programs will continue to struggle, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) said in comments quoted by the WSJ.
About 40 percent of populations in developed countries have been vaccinated, the IMF noted, while the rate averages only 11 percent among emerging nations.
A tsunami of pent-up consumer spending has revived economies but also driven prices higher amid supply chains that still have not recovered from 2020’s shutdown and a labor market still reluctant to return to work.
Forces that continue to push up prices could accelerate inflation, causing central banks to raise interest rates, a move that would slow continued economic recovery, the WSJ noted.
TREND FORECAST: Beyond raising interest rates—which we had long forecast would bring down equity markets and economies as the flow of cheap money that artificially pumped them up dries up—the draconian measure being imposed upon citizens and businesses across much of the globe to fight the COVID War, will, if not reversed, trigger the Greatest Depression.