Noun: collective term for interlocking and simultaneous crises of an environmental, geopolitical and economic nature
Shortly before October’s IMF and World Bank meetings in Washington DC, former US Treasury secretary Lawrence Summers surveyed the global scene. “I can remember previous moments of equal or even greater gravity for the world economy,” he said. “But I cannot remember moments when there were . . . as many cross-currents as there are right now.”
Galloping inflation had set in across the developed world, Summers noted, forcing central banks to tighten monetary policy more or less simultaneously. Meanwhile, an energy shock caused by the Russian invasion of Ukraine was hitting Europe particularly hard. And concerns were growing about the direction of Chinese policymaking, notably the country’s handling of Covid-19, not to mention Beijing’s designs on Taiwan.
Summers thought the term…
