Type: Neo-Paris history The economic crisis had grown systemic since the late 20th century, and profits from the manufacturing sector had declined since 2014 despite a steady reduction in labor costs. As a consequence, over nine-tenths of the world’s wealth was virtual, mainly comprising financial derivatives. Aggravated by the ecological and energy crises, this process continued and broke down completely in 2020 when there was not enough "real" economy left to sustain a world of wild, speculative trading. The downward spiral continued during subsequent years, and never again would the world’s industries produce as much wealth or abundance of goods. In his acceptance speech for the Nobel Prize for Economics in 2051, Professor Linus Åkerfeldt from the University of Stockholm was the first to call it, ironically: the "global production spike". The term would come to define this pivotal year, which heralded the great catastrophes of the first half of the 21st century. |
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Global production spike (2020)
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