Something was wrong. We must be honest and admit that many things were not right. The oceans were full of plastic, the winter was slowly disappearing, the fires were devouring huge chunks of Amazonian forests in one year, the vegetation of Australia in another… Something was wrong.
Text by Corneliu Bodea, CEO Adrem
Things weren’t okay in business either. As you moved away from production, the margins shrank, and huge sums of cash were concentrated alongside profits in businesses that served industries far from essential needs. While farmers lived on subsidies or were suffocated by credit, fintechs or other no-asset bases invented unicorns. The financial environment seemed to add more value to a product than its manufacturer and so on…
I don’t know, but it seems to me that some things weren’t going so well. We arrogantly moved away from basic values and found the best explanations behind our gestures.
There are countless conspiracy theories about the appearance of this virus, from science fiction to religious or thriller-worthy super spies, and I allow myself to ignore none because I don’t think it’s that relevant.
I am also firmly convinced that the situation is serious and that we must fight this virus and the associated disease in the first place. Then let’s think about the economy, because in the situation of getting out of control we can lose control over the economy and even a political life almost normal. Imagine reaching an infection rate of 50% and an associated death rate of 2-3% of that number in 3-6 months. To what extent, in such a situation, can we still talk about the economy and the world as we know it?
As inhabitants of this universe, I can’t help but think that we are under the weight of laws such as entropy and I can’t help but relate to the fact that the exacerbation of the volume of information (eg 90% of the data created in the world was created only 2 years ago) is associated with the order and that this is done in accordance with the above-mentioned law at a cost. Is the disorder brought about by this pandemic related to the payment of this cost !? Maybe still irrelevant
At the moment, I think it is relevant to do what needs to be done to overcome the health crisis with as few losses as possible and then to focus on the period after its passage. It is obvious that Romania is not caught by the development of this situation in a privileged position as are countries with a solid state budget, without deficits. Of course, there is talk that the state’s loan level is well below the European average and that puts us in a good position to borrow, if we have where. It seems that I would have preferred to have a higher percentage of borrowers, but that money had been invested in the health system.
The crisis is deeply affecting and hitting the economy, being clearly different from that of 2008. We notice that in Romania already at the time of writing this article we have over 500,000 suspended contracts and in my opinion starting April 1 we will have about 1 million contracts in this situation. It is commendable the state’s effort to take over the payment of technical unemployment, as well as other facilities and except for a deficiency in communication (people are not very good at it) and a latency of decisions, so far we seem to be doing well. The problem of the growth curve of cases of disease and its aggressiveness remains, because I consider that in an aggravating situation (eg Italy) we do not have the adequate response capacity.
Now, the crisis will surely pass, because humanity has been living in contact with these microscopic parasites for many hundreds of years and we have the weapons to win the battle. How it will pass and when it is something that will strongly affect what it will leave behind from a social and economic point of view.
I believe that this crisis generated by the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic will leave us:
- More aware of who we are in the universe and even on this earth, less arrogant;
- More responsible for our actions and the impact we produce;
- More information about the role of the state and its importance;
- More demanding of our leaders. Pay more attention to the ability and leadership they show;
- More respectful of the health system and the education system;
- More rigorous about the value system.
Recovery could be long and painful and I am sure that none of us feel personally guilty for this crisis and will be overwhelmed by the feeling of persecution. One way or another we have to think that no one has ever promised us that we will not have crises to overcome, attempts to face. We are facing a struggle and we must first win, then learn and correct. We will prevail and we will return stronger and wiser!
Article published in Revista Biz
