Feb 25, 2021
When it comes to humans, and new technology, predicting the future has never been easier, so says noted futurist Rebecca Costa.
As the world comes out of its Covid induced coma, most individual behavior will stay the same, but societally it’s going to be a different ball game. What will happen to with the debt? Hyperinflation? Is allowing the economy to hyper-inflate a solution? As we know from history, the government’s best friend is inflation, until it isn't. They are out of options. As Rebecca says, there’s a long tail economic impact.
In an article she recently wrote about what the government can do about in the next 3-6 months to head off potential disasters in a number of sectors, she mentions individual credit ratings as having taken a hit. Of course it's not on government's radar at all, but to individuals it's extremely vital. Lower credit scores create a piling on effect Millions of people have seen their scores tanks, through no fault of their own. It's a government induced disaster. Lower credit scores mean higher costs of credit or the inability to obtain any credit at all. Fairness is lacking.
Government is reacting to the situation rather than getting out ahead of it. Perhaps a roll-back of credit ratings to pre-pandemic rates or a limit on the negative impact during this time is in order.
We need pragmatic problem solvers to lead us. People who will catch these things before they go exponential. The problems are known and yet nothing is being done. The result is too much uncertainty about their eventual response.
Rebecca sees subprime mortgage collapse 2.0 in the offing. The financial institutions were responsible for 1.0 and now they’re going to make the same mistake again. People should be permitted to rewrite their loans for a longer time period. Massive restructuring needs to be on the table. Make mortgages assumable so the property can stay in the family. Same with student loans. Simple elegant solutions that work.
Rebecca informs us that there’s a direct correlation between happiness and trust. People who trust their government are generally happier than those who don’t. We can’t wait for a time to governmental trust to be restored. We also don't see it happening in the near future.