General idea
We were still feeling the effects of the economic crisis of 2008, when suddenly a virus took hold of our society, bringing us into total and absolute confinement for more than two months.
What is happening?
The effects as we all know are going to be devastating, our economy has fallen beyond 100% of GDP. What does this mean? Well, it means that the whole of Spain would have to work for a whole year for free to make up for the public debt that Spain currently owes.
The worst is yet to come, and that is that the biggest fall in GDP has not yet been recorded, as it is calculated on a quarterly basis and, until March, all companies were generating revenue except for the last week, so it is clear that Spain’s debt will fall even further.
However, human beings have lived through much worse times than this and we have always come through it, so why not now?
Take the devastating Black Death, for example. After it, it was impossible to grow crops, there was a shortage of labour and many guilds disappeared.
Well, we are all familiar with the so-called supply-demand rule: when a good or service is in high demand, the supply increases, and vice versa.
In our example, after the Black Death crisis, as there was a shortage of labour, this sector was favoured because demand was higher than supply.
The important thing then is to identify what is going to be demanded and what we can do to satisfy this demand together with its adaptation period (related to the so-called “new era 4.0, which we will talk about later).
Do you remember that, until March of this year, in order to alleviate our debt, it was necessary for each worker to work for a year for free, well, experts predict that to get out of this economic crisis, each worker should work 2 years totally free for the state, that is, if this becomes true, Spain will have a public debt of more than 200%.
As for the current situation, there are many differences between the past crisis and the current one.
In the 2008 crisis, Spain was one of the countries most affected, but most of the eurozone countries did not feel it as radically.
In the current crisis, absolutely all countries are affected by COVID-19, so who do we plan to sell our products and services to?
If we talk about the business sector, many companies are going to find it difficult to survive, and not only the big ones, but especially the micro-enterprises (restaurants, bookshops, neighbourhood shops…), as well as the thousands of self-employed desperate to get help that is not coming.
This new crisis claims to be the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression, and in Spain, our economic engines are the worst off, the tourism sector and the automotive sector.
As a subjective point, we do not share the idea that, after this pandemic, we will change our way of seeing the world in a radical way. It is true that we will do so gradually, we will adapt, but on the basis of the needs that arise, and we can say that we will build the foundations to face future events as they occur.
Not everything is negative, every crisis generates a window of opportunity for those who know how to take advantage of it. Rahm Emanuel used to say “Never waste a good crisis”, referring to the fact that, at times like this, any small decision you make can radically change the direction you are heading in.
In the period of growth after this disaster, there is a range of opportunities that we can take advantage of. It is time to discuss economic models, where the role of the public sector will be much greater, the implementation of new systems such as universal basic income (which we have already talked about), and above all, the new era of digital transformation (which we will talk about soon).
Finally, Spain has some very serious problems that were not properly solved in the past, and if we add to this the biggest crisis since the Great Depression, it could be said that we are not in one of our best moments.
What do you think?
