Is there a train-wreck coming?
Scared there's a train wreck coming.
I think society's basically got two parts: a state and an economy. They're inter-related. The economy is how we make our material lives together. The state, more or less, helps make sure that material life stays a certain way over time.
Seems like there are *big* problems in both parts of society and that they might run into each other, at least in the US.
In the economy, the biggest issue I see is the severity of unevenness. It's been a 'global' economy where countries work together really closely, but some countries are okay and others really aren't. The difference between Europe, Latin America, the US and China, eg, in terms of the virus, is wildly uneven (both within those regions and between those regions).
Remember that the pandemic crisis puts us between a rock and a hard place. If you flatten the curve and solve the health crisis, the economic crisis gets worse (albeit for a limited time--Europe has done well on this score). If you try to solve the economic crisis first by opening things up then the pandemic gets worse, which makes the economic crisis worse.
In this situation, in the US, still trying to make its way out of the first big shutdowns, the stock market as undergone 'quarantative easing'. The Fed has pumped so much credit everywhere that stocks are quarantined from the rest of the economy to preserve the stability of the ruling class's hold of the formation. This impacts bonds, hold, and currency. Who knows what's a good loan anymore?
But the economy itself is sick with unemployment, low production, and weird consumption patterns. Demand is through the roof on tech, real estate, and groceries and through the floor on services and leisure.
Now think about what happens when states need to shutdown again because they didn't do it right the first time.
That economy train is headed for some kind of wreck, or at least is running at a dangerous speed. I don't know what exactly will happen because I don't know enough, whether it's some kind of wacky change in prices or wages or rates, but it'll come. You can't quarantine finance from the production that gives it value in the first place without some kind of consequence for both.
And that consequence may come from what's going on at the level of the federal government in the US, specifically the elections coming in November. That train is fast and dangerous too. I read that foreign exchange markets are seeing higher volatility because there's uncertainty about whether the outcome of the US elections will be clear, respected, or easily settled in November. People don't know whether to trust the government itself, so they don't know how to treat currencies.
Think of the dislocations an illegitimate election result will cause, just for the presidency alone. It's hard to imagine, but you could see the rebellions against police brutality as a precursor. It'll be exponentially bigger if the election result is disputed. If there's no legitimate result, whom to do the armed services follow? How does that ripple through state and local governments and police forces? What happens between the differing constituencies--the Trump supporters and Biden supporters?
The economy and the state don't work in parallel, like two different trains. They rely on one another. They're on the same track and have to work on the same schedule. Seems like these two trains are headed right for one another.