Gee, You Think?

An interconnected world is one which is more vulnerable to disruptions, so, when Christine Lagarde, the head of the European Central bank is warning that COVID-19 could trigger a bigger meltdown than the Great Recession of 2008, she is merely stating the obvious:

The president of the European Central Bank has warned that the coronavirus outbreak will spark an economic downturn in Europe similar to the 2008 financial crash unless EU governments provide financial support for their economies.

Christine Lagarde held a call with EU leaders on Tuesday night to urge them to take action and raise spending in order to counter the economic effects of Covid-19, a source with knowledge of the matter told Bloomberg.

The eurozone’s central bank boss reportedly added that Europe would otherwise be at risk of a “scenario that will remind many of us of the 2008 Great Financial Crisis”. Lagarde said the ECB was considering all of its options before its meeting on Thursday, when it is widely expected to cut interest rates and expand its quantitative easing programme, according to Bloomberg.

The downside of globalization,  is that you creating a system which is more vulnerable, and more more likely to suffer from catastrophic cascading cascading failures.

This is exactly what happened in 2008.