Sosyal Medya

Economy

Covid-19 and the Global Economic Crisis: Who are the winners and losers?

With a third of the world population having been locked down, Covid-19 may have caused the biggest economic recession in history. Nevertheless, this pandemic has unarguably caused the most severe global economic recession in this last century.
27-10-2020 12:23
Boubacar Amadou Cisse
 
With a third of the world population having been locked down, Covid-19 may have caused the biggest economic recession in history. Nevertheless, this pandemic has unarguably caused the most severe global economic recession in this last century.
First observed in China in late December 2019, the Corona Virus was not thought of having the potential to affect globally what people of the world are experiencing today. China has been the first country to have been hit by the pandemic and right from there the effect could be felt in thousands of miles. For example, fishermen in South Africa witnessed remarkable challenges in exporting their lobsters to the Asian giant; China has the largest demand of lobster in the African country so far, which resulted in serious effects in that sector.
Obviously, this was just the beginning of a big recession. On 20th February, global stock markets started experiencing deep declines and one week later, it was the most severe stock market crash since the 2008 financial crisis. The great lockdown caused businesses to close and strive to continue their activities online. Thousands of workers have been laid off and many businesses have filed bankruptcy. On March 2020, global markets have become extremely volatile. 
Although markets contractions were in response to Covid-19 and the oil price war between Russia and the OPEC countries led by Saudi Arabia, the pandemic was playing the major role in this great recession. This further resulted in Black Monday, and three days later Black Thursday where stock in Europe and North American drastically felt. On April 14th The International Monetary Fund (IMF) announced that all the G7 countries have entered into a "deep recession" and that most emerging countries were already suffering seriously.
Covid-19 has affected, up to the beginning of the second quarter of the year 2020, majorly manufacturing sector. However, service sectors have also not been spared by the pandemic and very soon the situation was getting out of hand. Governments across the world were facing a dilemma of either letting people go to work, hence keeping their economies active or continue the general lockdown amidst the spread of the pandemic. One thing for sure, Covid-19 and the wearing of face masks have become a part of the life of the citizens of the world.
Furthermore, despite this economic turmoil, the situation seems to advantageous to some countries and even individuals. The general perception that China has planned this virus attack; nevertheless, considerable growth in the country's exports have been observed since the beginning of the pandemic. Besides, China is the first country to have controlled the pandemic before re-plunging in the spread later. 
On the other hand, American billionaires have seen their fortunes soar by $434 Billion during the US lockdown from mid-March to mid-May 2020. Amazon's Jeff Bezos and Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg have had the highest gains. The patrons of the two US firms added $34.5 Billion and $25 Billion respectively to their wealth during this period. According to reports from Americans for Tax Fairness and the Institute for Policy Studies in their Program for Inequality, the net worth of American billionaires grew 15% during the two-month interval. It has been noticed that tech-based companies are experiencing tremendous growth; besides, services-based companies would easily find their way out in this economic bubble. Elon Musk, the boss of Tesla and another big Tech giant has had the highest percentage gains of billions in the two months with his net worth jumping by 48%. 
Moreover, it would not be fair to assert that covid-19 pandemic has brought total deficit in the global economy. In some part of the world, a significant loss of lives and jobs have severely hindered businesses and countries' economies.  In other words, it is right to claim that the pandemic has been lucrative for some individuals, and most probably some countries. In any case, as all the previous crises, they are losers and also some winners.

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