After the Deluge

May 2021
Think Pieces

The flood of monetary and fiscal stimulus is the environmental equivalent of a break in the Hoover Dam, unleashing a torrent of liquidity on a global citizenry parched by the COVID-19 pandemic.

 

A public health pandemic last raged 100 years ago, that of the 1918 Spanish Flu.  Environmental and financial crises have been less disciplined in observing the century mark, choosing instead to shatter norms every couple of years.  Hurricane Katrina and Superstorm Sandy were separated by seven years; 100-year storms are passé.

 

Twenty first century catastrophes – the unspeakable terrorist attack of 9/11, the Great Recession of ‘07/‘08, the rapid collapse in global GDP coincident with a provincial epidemic surging to a global pandemic – have exhibited distinct origins.  Remedies have been less unique: money, money and more money has proven the common elixir.  And never have the currency presses cranked with such omnipotent intensity than those administered to counter the harrowing effects of the public health calamity of our lifetime.

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