The Fix Is In: IMF Warns It Will Downgrade Global Growth Due To Omicron
For the past week many had speculated that more than anything else, the Omicron variant conveniently emerged just as the slowing global economy was set to enter stall speed and would be used by authorities to push through a fresh round of stimulus packages. Well, it appears that this cynical take was accurate because the fix now appears to be in: according to Bloomberg, the IMF's disgraced pro-China Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva said that she expects the organization will pare back its expectations for the global economic rebound as the number of Covid-19 cases attributable to the new omicron strain picks up.
“We are likely to see some downgrades of our October projections for global growth,” Georgieva said at conference hosted by Reuters Friday.
New strains of the coronavirus “very rapidly can dent confidence,” she said.
That this is happening even as nobody really has any idea just how dangerous Omicron will end up being (and according to some, such as Marko Kolanovic, it will even precipitate the early end of the covid pandemic as the "extremely mild" but highly transmissible variant displaces much more dangerous strains), confirms that the strain would be used purely for political purposes and - once the lockdowns are in place - will enable politicians to demand trillions more in fiscal (and monetary, since we now live in an MMT world) stimulus.
The Washington-based IMF in October predicted that the global economy would expand 4.9% next year. For 2021, it had trimmed its outlook to 5.9%.
Meanwhile, problems that pre-date the emergence of omicron are now entrenching, including a deepening divergence between some countries recovering faster from the pandemic and others falling behind, Georgieva said.
In the meantime, “new problems are stepping forward for policy makers -- in particular, inflation,” she said.
Of course, more lockdowns and more stimulus will only make the inflation problem worse, but that's of secondary importance to placating a world that is now habituated to getting Universal Basic Income from its benign authoritarian rulers. And in exchange, all the world's population has to do is hand over its last shred of independence to the world's globalist rulers.
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