New fault-lines are likely to outlast war and plague — leaving the global economy smaller and prices higher. Falling trade barriers and hyper-efficient logistics produced an age of abundance for many. But the last four years have brought an escalating series of disruptions. Source: Bloomberg The ties that bind the global economy together, and delivered goods in abundance across the world, are unravelling at a frightening pace. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and China’s Covid Zero lockdowns are disrupting supply chains, hammering growth and pushing inflation to forty-year highs. They’re the chief reasons why Bloomberg Economics has lopped $1.6 trillion off its forecast for global GDP in 2022. But what if that’s just an initial hit? War and plague won’t last forever. But the underlying problem – a world increasingly divided along geopolitical fault lines — only looks set to get worse. Bloomberg Economics has run a simulation of what […]