As of the current scenario, things can be foreseen to be as good as a World War or the situation before Green Revolution. COVID-19 has affected the world economy, not to ignore the economy of every individual for a living. World is in the fastest, deepest and widest recession since 1930s.
Martin Wolf, a noted expert on world economics, spoke at the India Today E-Conclave, “If people can’t go out and work, they can’t be expected to stay at home and starve to death. The first priority should be to support their living standards. The second focus of governments should be to support companies.” He also estimated that the world economy will drop by 3% this year. That is already the case in the developed countries. The forecast also states that the shrinkage could reach to 6%.
Great point made, Wolf!
There have been complaints and requests to support the point of degrading nation. Every person is soon to be jobless, every parent is saving penny is educate their kid, every household is trying to seek for ration.
“My view is that governments should put a hold on all bankruptcy proceedings and encourage banks to support companies,” pointed out Wolf.
As people are losing their jobs, Martin also suggested to the Government to atleast save the companies before asking them to save their employees. “At the end of this, there will be some businesses that will be completely devastated and the government will have to look at those industries and see what sort of bailouts are appropriate,” he said.
Wolf said India’s focus should be on maximum utility of healthcare resources, considering the nation is under the lockdown for a period of more than 40 days. “First, you have to use all medical resources you have and can create to deal with the medical side of the crisis. We know India has a relatively limited healthcare system so this is going to be quite a challenge,” Martin Wolf said. As the situation is taken into consideration, doctors are also getting into the clutches of this virus, some are being sweeped into the cruelty of few stubborn patients and related people.
“Then, you have to protect people who are dramatically affected by the crisis. In the developed countries, we have rightly put in place systems to protect people’s salaries. This is aimed at people’s welfare. That’s what you have to do but this is an enormously expensive process”. “Public debt will rise. I think India needs to run a large fiscal deficit,” he said.
He states how every country has to cushion its own sufferings during the pandemic.
Surely, to get out of this loop, it is a need of a cooperative, imaginative and innovative government and government policies.
