For some time now, we have been weighing risks of a possible global economic recession. However, a new era has been ushered due in part to the novel coronavirus and the probability of a recession is now higher than ever. Some commentators now even regard a recession with near certainty. Could a virus be solely to blame for everything that’s wrong with the global economy?

Today, we are talking about the coronavirus impacting the global economy and recession fears that intensified due to the fast-spreading virus. However, COVID-19 is not solely to blame for this problem. Because we have not yet learned any lessons from the 2008 Global Financial Crisis, which posed the most serious threat to our understanding of the established global economy. How do you ask?

We are still blindly adhering to orthodox economic policies that claim that they can right every wrong with monetary policy during periods when the economy is contracting and the risk of recession increases.

We are still trying to cover up the problems inherent in capitalism by throwing money on them.

We still prioritize the financial sector, not the real sector, so we care about consumers, not producers.

We still continue to use derivative products.

We continue to borrow money not to pay debts, but to turn them into more debts.

“Morally bankrupt” credit rating agencies continue to operate using the same methodology and the same sources of funding.

The dollar is still wielded as a weapon, trade wars are marketed as if they were acceptable.

Still products such as ETFs increase the risk of balloon prices, especially in commodities, resulting in transaction volumes that are far above physical demand.

The IMF's policy recommendations deepen problems rather than producing solutions.

So instead of addressing the main problems that caused the 2008 Global Financial Crisis, we are only delaying the inevitable by applying palliative treatments to the symptoms of those problems. The coronavirus emerged at the end of such a shift period and now has the global economy in its chokehold. Just like in the Latin saying at the beginning of this paragraph; "Every hour hurts, the last one kills!"

There is a correlation between individuals and the economy. Because, as a social science, economy is the collective result of individual behavior. In other words, the individual's perception and decisions, combined with the decisions of other individuals, have an impact on the economy.

Meanwhile, developments in the economy also affect in the decisions of individuals. Thus, the economic situation is one of the main determining factors in individuals' decisions as voters. Looking at it from this standpoint, inequalities, which are the result of the established economic system, may illicit serious psychological reactions in individuals. Today, rates of inequality are higher than ever before. So is the global debt figure. According to the latest data from the International Finance Institute, global debt has hit 322 percent of the global GDP, amounting to approximately $ 253 trillion. A terrible figure indeed.

Scarier still is the fact that a significant part of this figure consists of government debts and is becoming increasingly difficult to restructure. Just like the case in Lebanon. A few days ago, the country announced that it would default on foreign debt payment.

One can easily find other examples of this. However, I would like to say that as the global debt and inequality increase, countries should expect dangerous street movements. In short, it is impossible to solve the problems caused by global debt and inequality by throwing money on them.