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What will the world look like in 6 months?

Donadea Leo

Well just a quick question amid all the current uncertainty.
There is no doubt we are on the precipice (if that's how you spell it) of the biggest
Most sudden change the world has ever seen in our lifetime at least. I hope as many people as possible make it through and we don't find ourselves where the poor Italians are at the moment.
How do you think it will impact the world and ireland.
I think Asia will gain greater economic importance (that was coming anyway this will just speed it up)
I hope that Europe will unite more and push the health and welfare of it's people to the forefront of government policy. I think that would be good news for health, environment, social justice but probably bad news for our pockets and we ll have a lot less disposable income. I think we can be at the centre of this and our government to be fair have done a good job at reacting to this crisis. I think the uk will rejoin the fold and Europe when they dump boris out on his ear in the coming weeks/months, I just hope they don t suffer too much for the crazy policies they re following.
I worry about the states with trump in charge, it's harder to see him being thrown out and he will do what he likes breeding more hatred, greed and protection of big money at the expense of normal people.
What influence Russia has on the world after this will also be interesting, how badly they re been affected is anyone s guess.
Scary times.

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blanch152

(1) Ireland will not be at the forefront of any new world order or reorganisation. As a small country, we are a taker not a creater.

(2) As a result, our influence within the EU will take on an even greater importance.

(3) The biggest economic question is whether this crisis will see a retrenchment in globalisation. At one level - food and manufactured products - it may well do so, yet at another level - online services - we may see further growth in globalisation.

(4) Health and welfare have been to the forefront of Europe's policies for decades. Europe has the healthiest people in the world and also the least amount of poverty and the highest living standards.

(5) The US has a problem because of an idiotic President. That may lead to many more deaths than is necessary from the virus. But what if he gets lucky, and they are all in Democrat states and the economy comes roaring back thanks to not shutting down while the rest of the world slowly recovers? That would be a very different situation.

(6) If the virus spreads in Africa or India, those poor people. Their governments do not have the organisational capacity to formulate a response and their health services are not up to the task. With the high density in the cities, there is a risk of unmitigated disaster.

Harry Palmr

The world might become more "socialist" for a while, people have seen massive takeover of the private by the public for the collective good. If it's seen to work the uber capitalists and right wing ideologues might have a harder time making their case for a smaller state and untrammelled capitalism as the key to private wealth.

Leonard Hofstadter

I'd imagine there will be an even greater emphasis on the environment, although maybe not what people are thinking in terms of climate change.

I'm sure I'm not the only person who has noticed how much cleaner the air has become the past few days and has seen the photos of how much cleaner the water in the canals in Venice are.

One would expect that there will be a greater emphasis on technology that stops or drastically reduces the pollution of nitrous oxide, particulates and other pollutants that impact on air quality. That will quite possibly take a greater emphasis than reducing CO2 emissions, though switching to cleaner technology has the obvious by product of reducing fossil fuel use and in turn cutting CO2 emissions anyway.

Having said all of that, this is our first taste of a low carbon future, will people want to make the kind of sacrifices that we've been asked to me the past couple of weeks and in the coming weeks ahead? I suspect most people are craving for some sense of normality to come back, we all want to have the nice meals with family and friends, go away on holidays, catch up and socialise like we used to.

Also, people won't have the money to pay increased carbon taxes or to switch to cleaner running vehicles - and no, the Government won't have the money to give out big grants unless they want to leave the next generation with debts they can't pay off, or no longer care about balancing the books and having low borrowing costs (the only reason we've been able to give the kind of money people rightfully need right now is because the public finances were in good order).

That in itself might be an argument that gains traction, and is undoubtedly an argument in favour of right wing economic policies - traditionally right wing economic policies were about balancing the books and not spending what the Government didn't have. Those very policies have enabled the current Government to borrow such vast sums of money - and nobody would dispute the necessity of doing this right now. It's precisely for events like this that we do need sensible right wing economic policies and a centre-right Government in charge of the economy - without a strong economy we don't have the money to pay for the very public services we need, or to give people some bit of a break in unprecedented times of economic hardship, like right now.

If we had the hard left or the Shinners in power for the past few years, we simply wouldn't have the money, or else they would borrow recklessly and then leave us with a much larger mess to clean up in the years ahead.

As the old saying goes, the problem with socialism is that eventually you run out of other peoples' money - and we need the money to protect our fellow citizens in times of crisis.

Larbre34

With oil prices in the toilet, Russia's influence on the world will be no more than it is now.

And in 8 months, Andrew Cuomo will be elected 46th President of the United States.

Podge_irl

Leonard Hofstadter wrote: »

Having said all of that, this is our first taste of a low carbon future, will people want to make the kind of sacrifices that we've been asked to me the past couple of weeks and in the coming weeks ahead? I suspect most people are craving for some sense of normality to come back, we all want to have the nice meals with family and friends, go away on holidays, catch up and socialise like we used to.

My current inability to walk 300m to my friend's apartment to meet her has very little in connection to a low carbon future.

About the only aspect of this that corresponds to a "low carbon future" is the reduction in flying, and a lot of businesses are finding they are getting on ok via teleconferencing. If it leads to a long term reduction in business travel then great.

Larbre34

Podge_irl wrote: »

My current inability to walk 300m to my friend's apartment to meet her has very little in connection to a low carbon future.

Unless you or she are in specific isolation for symptoms, theres no reason not to rendezvous with your friend outdoors or at the door of her home, using the guideline requirements.

I went to my mother's house for mother's day, she put a chair about 10 feet from the front door before I arrived, we chatted for an hour and i donned my gloves and cleaned down the chair with dettol and left. Odd but effective.

Princess Consuela Bananahammock

I'm curious to know where all the money for the stimulous packages and financial help for people who lose jobs or freelance work becuase of this, as we are alking worldwide.

Will (can?) international debt between countries be simply written off? (Don't knoe much abotu world economics on this livel, so feel free to explain answers like I'm 5, as the phrase goes). Will counties with specific resources and raw materials suddenly find themsleves in much stronger positions?

Will things like backpacking and short-hop travelling being too expensive? Will festivals and large-scale sports events become a thing of the past?

Leonard Hofstadter

It can't.

The eurozone has rightly allowed the usual fiscal rules to be broken, but this is temporary, not permanent.

Devaluing a currency (which is what QE programmes do) is a short term fix; as well as making foreign holidays and imports from a non-eurozone country dearer, means we pay more for imports and thus pay more for things.

When this is all over we have to remember that we have saddled our children and grandchildren with an enormous amount of debt. Now nobody would begrudge the necessity of doing this right now, indeed for those of us still fortunate enough to be still in our jobs on our full salary (like me) they should tax us more, I'd be quite happy to pay more tax for a few years to help pay for this. But it's still debt and debt doesn't care that Covid-19 happened, it's still money that needs to be paid off otherwise borrowing costs become unsustainable and we're eventually back to calling in the IMF - which I'm sure nobody wants.

It's not in our interests to have an unnecessarily weak currency, it doesn't even give much of an export advantage, as the UK is showing us all, the pound gets you about 30 cent less in the euro than it did before Brexit yet the UK is barely exporting any more than it did; hardly surprising because they import things to export stuff, and those imports are now much dearer because their currency has been devalued.

If devaluing was that effective the UK would be walking all over the rest of the EU but that simply hasn't happened.

I would have thought that the current crisis is quite the reminder of how important it is to have sustainable taxation (in other words, no getting rid of things like the property tax and USC) and that Governments should not spend money they do not have.

Prudent management of the public finances, and no wasteful spending has never been more important.

If the Government didn't have the money put aside in the 'rainy day fund' then we wouldn't be able to give people the money they rightfully need to get them through this time of crisis.

Note that that does not mean I am against an increase in public spending, but I want the taxes to go with it and I want it to be on useful things that add value and generate money for the economy, like the Cork-Limerick motorway, house building to reduce property prices and rents, but we need to think about all the things we give for 'free', like free GP care for kids, free travel for so many, etc, etc.

I also think our health staff well deserve a pay rise for their Trojan efforts in keeping people safe, and having been in hospital myself a few times recently, I have seen first hand just what an incredible job they do even outside times of crisis. But a lid on public spending is absolutely necessary, the problem with socialism and freebies for everyone is that eventually you run out of other peoples' money.

Podge_irl

Larbre34 wrote: »

Unless you or she are in specific isolation for symptoms, theres no reason not to rendezvous with your friend outdoors or at the door of her home, using the guideline requirements.

I went to my mother's house for mother's day, she put a chair about 10 feet from the front door before I arrived, we chatted for an hour and i donned my gloves and cleaned down the chair with dettol and left. Odd but effective.

Be that as it may, the point still stands. This current situation bears no resemblance to a "low carbon future".

[Deleted User]

Princess Consuela Bananahammock wrote: »

I'm curious to know where all the money for the stimulous packages and financial help for people who lose jobs or freelance work becuase of this, as we are alking worldwide.

Will (can?) international debt between countries be simply written off? (Don't knoe much abotu world economics on this livel, so feel free to explain answers like I'm 5, as the phrase goes). Will counties with specific resources and raw materials suddenly find themsleves in much stronger positions?

Will things like backpacking and short-hop travelling being too expensive? Will festivals and large-scale sports events become a thing of the past?

Wealth taxes are coming in some breed or shape....too much wealth is accumulated at the top and theres not enough low-to-middle income earners the world over to pay for the econmic decline/,welfare that has been necessitated by coronavirus

Debt can be wrote off,i remember bono leading a charge for debt write of for african countries with some limited success (possibly 2004/5 ish??)

Back-packing and festivals will still be about,though prob see alot more long distance cycling and living in tents etc to get to places,the call of seeing the world wont ever leave for subset of population

BanditLuke

Debt will be written off and a massive effort to cut ties with China will be made worldwide. UK will announce due to the emergency Brexit will not be followed through on and the UK populace will be too afraid and tired to oppose. Trump will be removed from power either by a bullet or by a new democratic candidate (Biden looks like he's lost his mind).

BonnieSituation

BanditLuke wrote: »

Debt will be written off and a massive effort to cut ties with China will be made worldwide. UK will announce due to the emergency Brexit will not be followed through on and the UK populace will be too afraid and tired to oppose. Trump will be removed from power either by a bullet or by a new democratic candidate (Biden looks like he's lost his mind).

They have already left the EU. Shame.

ArthurDayne

It’s an interesting question. I think this event has shaken the collective confidence of capitalism — whereby for years we have tended to view the world in terms of economic phenomena and ‘the market’, yet now we have been sorely reminded that we are little more than organic material at the mercy of nature. The true forces of Earth are natural, not economic or political and, as Fintan O’Toole quite profoundly put it, Covid-19 has reminded us that we are not the kings of this world. We have been brought face to face with our ultimately pathetic fragility within the organic world we inhabit, which many of us subconsciously believed we had detached ourselves from and placed under the control of our supposed ingenuity and technological savvy.

Positives and negatives can be taken from that epiphany, and much will depend on just how severe the now inevitable recession is going to be. I would hope that following all this, people will realise that ‘globalisation’ is not merely an economic phenomenon, but an opportunity for humanity to understand that the true threats to our prosperity are global ones requiring global co-operation to overcome — climate change, disease, the nuclear threat, the depletion of resources. This need not be seen as ‘hippyism’, or even a call for socialism. This pandemic can instead be seen as a living lesson that the corporate world gearing its talent, innovativeness, and financial might towards — not merely sustainability — but an appreciation of the profit-making power of commercialising solutions to global problems might actually be the future of capitalism.

Alas, the vision that this pandemic might usher in a new era where businesses see the profit making potential of solving, or at least combating, global threats seems like an optimist’s dream. The sadder probability is that the coming recession will yield only the same bitterness, hatred and finger-pointing towards vulnerable scapegoats that every recession before it has yielded.

[Deleted User]

BanditLuke wrote: »

Debt will be written off and a massive effort to cut ties with China will be made worldwide.

Massive pressure will come on China and other East Asian countries to get a handle on these wet markets. Even after SARS and now the Coronavirus. They are a disaster waiting to happen.. again.

NSAman

China will loose a few of its manufacturing markets.

Simple things that need to be manufactured in each country will be done in each country. Basics in the healthcare industry will be manufactured in each country. Supply assurance.

USA... could go either way. Depending on how this plays out, Trump will either loose massively or win massively* (my own feeling at the current time is that he will loose massively).

Biden should be replaced with Cuomo (who has been fantastic in all of this)

Europe will go into a deep recession. America will be seen as the place where business continues and thrives. China will be seen as the enemy of the world and people will become less dependent on manufacturing from there depending on Trumps future (see above *).

Business will see that working from home is viable and many cuts to offices will occur.

Air travel will be much more expensive (depending on who survives)

My own hope, is that social improvements like taking life more on a personal level (rather than money being king) will happen.

Social influencers and vacuous individuals will disappear..(I can only hope... Karadashians)

Shefwedfan

Nothing will change....people will forget in about 2 days and move on

The media is filling people with this cr*p about the world won’t be the same etc

Load of rubbish, after 1 day of “ oh corona will hit our numbers” in our company the next day was, that’s no excuse .....

hmmm

I'm very concerned about authoritarianism and the future.

You can see the celebrating going on in the Covid threads. The people celebrating don't really care about the virus, they care about getting one up on someone else - they are reporting people willy nilly, they are celebrating people's lives being constrained, thrilled to see joggers & cyclists miserable. They love this, you can feel their happiness.

The increasing restrictions mean that citizens will have to justify to the Guards what they are doing. This is not how it should be in a democratic society.

I appreciate there is an emergency and needs must for the next few months, but this is a dangerous place we are in. We can't allow this to become the new normal.

[Deleted User]

hmmm wrote: »

I'm very concerned about authoritarianism and the future.

You can see the celebrating going on in the Covid threads. The people celebrating don't really care about the virus, they care about getting one up on someone else - they are reporting people willy nilly, they are celebrating people's lives being constrained, thrilled to see joggers & cyclists miserable. They love this, you can feel their happiness.

The increasing restrictions mean that citizens will have to justify to the Guards what they are doing. This is not how it should be in a democratic society.

I appreciate there is an emergency and needs must for the next few months, but this is a dangerous place we are in. We can't allow this to become the new normal.

Nonsense, we are trying desperately to save lives. You will have your freedom back in time.

bizidea

People and countries will learn to be more self sufficient the whole money system will come under pressure

[Deleted User]

[Deleted User] wrote: »

Nonsense, we are trying desperately to save lives. You will have your freedom back in time.

Those rushing to tell on everyone for little things (like jogging alone),are forgetting a golden rule....when all this settles down,the gaurds will forget them,their neighbours they tried to get arrested wont

Alot of people digging holes for emselves,for sake of a few online likes...is peak social media generation

Sand

The problem with predicting the future is that often people will project whatever is happening presently as continuing forever. George Orwell noted this 80 years ago. German victory in WW2 was inevitable. Until it wasn't. Then Soviet victory in WW3 was inevitable. Until it wasn't. No one expected a Chinese flu to shut down economic and daily life in Europe 6 months ago. Have we suddenly become better at this? I think a lot of posters are simply projecting out their own biases as revealed truths.

For my own part, what I expect to come out of this crisis is that all political perspectives continue to believe that GDP growth and their own individuality is more important than 2.5% of our people. This isn't a new development. The belief that our GDP is more important than our people has underpinned, directly or indirectly, our political course for the past 80 years. I'd hope that people would finally notice that the strategy prioritised GDP over their grandmothers up until PR consultants forced a rethink and this would prompt a far reaching review of our societies, but I'm more cynical than that. Like post apocalyptic cockroaches, the same old nonsense will emerge to dominate our political discourse.

[Deleted User]

hmmm wrote: »

I'm very concerned about authoritarianism and the future.

You can see the celebrating going on in the Covid threads. The people celebrating don't really care about the virus, they care about getting one up on someone else - they are reporting people willy nilly, they are celebrating people's lives being constrained, thrilled to see joggers & cyclists miserable. They love this, you can feel their happiness.

The increasing restrictions mean that citizens will have to justify to the Guards what they are doing. This is not how it should be in a democratic society.

I appreciate there is an emergency and needs must for the next few months, but this is a dangerous place we are in. We can't allow this to become the new normal.

This would be my main concern too..

sandbelter

I think for all the noise about Corona it is distracting us from the "big" unknown...namely that it has given Iran time to quietly develop its nuclear weapons program. This is an anathema to the US, Saudi Arabia and Israel. At some point one of these three will move.

The assassination of Qasem Soleimani was supposed to be the opening shot, the US is using the sanctions strategy it perfected against japan in the 1930 which a view to triggering a provocative backlash (think Pearl Harbor). So far it has failed, Iran is playing chess whilst the US plays monopoly using sanctions. My suspicion is that Iran is closer to nuclear weapons that we can imagine and also has a secret defense pact with a major power that can only be activated in the event of attack (think Italy and France in 1914), as you read this there have been two significant war games this week, UAE and US and US and Israel.

This is, and remains, the largest flash point on the planet and the proxy oil war between Iran supporting Russia and Saudi Arabia needs to be seen in that context.

One big trend trend that will have seen is "locals first"....when the chips are down that you need manufacturing base that can make critical goods and services...the consequent pull back from globalisation could hit Ireland hard over the long term if the correct choices are not made. That China controls key mineral sand used in the production of high technology, as well as the basic building blocks of the Pharma industry hasn't gone unnoticed.

Everything else is an acceleration of existing trends, they will only be magnified over the next six months, provided there is no oil shock from an Iranian US confrontation:
1) It laid bare to the West what Russia and Asia Pacific nations already know, its all about China;
2) The UK will be stumbling towards a no deal exit;
3) The fault lines in the EU remain unresolved;
4) The US' biggest enemy remains itself and looks remarkably like a Crisis clinic on a "Far Side" cartoon; and finally,
5) The economy won't recover really until there is a vaccine, but make snap back quicker than anticipated when it finally over.

Harry Palmr

I'd like to think the world will pause for thought with regards to outsourcing the world to China.

[Deleted User]

I'm worried the next disease that will hit it is a massive swing to socialism. Even the President is muttering about it. After the crisis is over, the insiders of the will use it as a reason to have a bigger and bigger State while feathering their own beds.

Already mention of it in this thread. Healthcare workers should get a pay rise. Why? On what basis, or is it just because ?

Nurses are just after getting a pay rise and new increased pay offers have been offered to the consultants.

If we were able to go back to how we were going - with a new focus on local manufacturing - it would benefit all, public and private industries.

[Deleted User]

salonfire wrote: »

I'm worried the next disease that will hit it is a massive swing to socialism. Even the President is muttering about it. After the crisis is over, the insiders of the will use it as a reason to have a bigger and bigger State while feathering their own beds.

Already mention of it in this thread. Healthcare workers should get a pay rise. Why? On what basis, or is it just because ?

Nurses are just after getting a pay rise and new increased pay offers have been offered to the consultants.

If we were able to go back to how we were going - with a new focus on local manufacturing - it would benefit all, public and private industries.

Lad nurses and doctors are literally putting their lives on the line for us

If they ask for gold plated toilets and half-day fridays after all this is over, only most entrenched of lunatics will place their political future on saying no to them

Good loser

Deleted User wrote: »

Lad nurses and doctors are literally putting their lives on the line for us

If they ask for gold plated toilets and half-day fridays after all this is over, only most entrenched of lunatics will place their political future on saying no to them

Overstatemant there. Those who will pay for these things will have less, rather then more, money after 'all this is over'.

Princess Consuela Bananahammock

salonfire wrote: »

I'm worried the next disease that will hit it is a massive swing to socialism. Even the President is muttering about it. After the crisis is over, the insiders of the will use it as a reason to have a bigger and bigger State while feathering their own beds.

Already mention of it in this thread. Healthcare workers should get a pay rise. Why? On what basis, or is it just because ?

Nurses are just after getting a pay rise and new increased pay offers have been offered to the consultants.

If we were able to go back to how we were going - with a new focus on local manufacturing - it would benefit all, public and private industries.

How much are professional football players getting paid at the moment? And how much work are they doing?

You pay people as much as you value their contributions to society and maintaining the status quo. Or you don't and see what happens to the status quo.

I'll go with paying people extra, thank you very much. Small price to pay given the alternative.

Leonard Hofstadter

salonfire wrote: »

I'm worried the next disease that will hit it is a massive swing to socialism. Even the President is muttering about it. After the crisis is over, the insiders of the will use it as a reason to have a bigger and bigger State while feathering their own beds.

Already mention of it in this thread. Healthcare workers should get a pay rise. Why? On what basis, or is it just because ?

Nurses are just after getting a pay rise and new increased pay offers have been offered to the consultants.

If we were able to go back to how we were going - with a new focus on local manufacturing - it would benefit all, public and private industries.

I agree with you about socialism, there needs to be a big campaign to highlight the fact that the reason we were rightly able to afford to give those who lost their jobs at least €350 a week for the next three months is because we had sensible centrist economic policies.

The problem with socialism is eventually that you run out of other peoples' money. Imagine if we had had the Shinners or others on the far left in power the past few years. The money to do the right thing and allow businesses to survive and people to still obtain a somewhat decent income wouldn't be there. Or else we'd be paying 65-70% marginal tax rates not the 49% we pay now on incomes below €70,000, which is just a no-no in terms of attracting high paid jobs to fund the public services we need and it's no incentive for anyone to work harder.

So I agree that we need to balance the books and we are all going to have to accept that the €10-20 billion (depending on how long this goes on for) is going to have to be paid somehow. I am normally completely opposed to paying more taxes but I am one of the lucky ones, I have my job and my salary is unaffected, so I deserve to have to pay more taxes for the next while (not 65-70% obviously but certainly I'm quite happy to have to pay a few per cent more for the next few years to pay off the debt we're racking up). They should increase the property tax also and some of the largesse on the various freebies we get from the Government, like free GP care for all children (I have no issue with subsidised GP care and a modest charge of even €5 because nobody should have to choose between a GP visit and food on the table, but completely free is just an incentive to clog the system up and waste our money), €15 dental visits, and so on, needs to be severely curtailed also so we can balance the books.

I also wouldn't for a second begrudge the doctors and nurses and the healthcare staff a pay rise of at least 5%.

They more than deserve it for quite literally putting their lives on the line for the rest of us.

I have had a few experiences myself recently with our public hospitals (before Covid-19 happened), and while I know it's cliched to say they are fantastic people, it's simply the truth. So even if it wasn't for how brilliantly they are handling Covid-19, they well deserve a pay increase anyway.

AMKC

There will be less airlines and flying will be more expensive which is only right as it was too cheap anyway. I have seen some people take 3 or 4 holidays a year because it was so cheap. That will be no more. People need to learn to appreciate things more and how lucky they are. People have taken a lot of things including there lives for granted and hopefully that to will have changed. I also hope people will be nicer and more respectful to others after this regardless of their, sex, gender, sexual origination etc.
Our high streets will be changed dramatically. Some will survive and some will not. There will be new business and new idea's from all of this.
People will be sick of social media for a while at least as most will not have seen their family's for a good while and will value been closer to family more.
There will be a new organization set up to watch out for anything like this again who will be able to warn countries if they need to shut there borders and stop flights into or out of there country to stop something like this ever happening again. There should also be a task force set up that finds news ways of making vaccines for unknown virus's quickly.