The global pandemic hurt many of us in many ways. However, the lockdowns and government actions taken during this time, alongside modern monetary policy, will likely lead to further calamity.
Below is a graph of the money supply of US dollars printed by the US government. (Graph supplied by fred.stlouisfed.org)
As you can see, the money supply drastically increased after the quantitative easing following the crash of 2008, and this was almost doubled in a very short period during the pandemic. It is no wonder cryptocurrency markets boomed during this time.
Expansion of the money supply leads to manipulated business cycles, bubbles, and eventual collapses. The 2000 and 2008 stock market collapses were examples of these market corrections from artificially adjusted interest rates due to the printing of money.
Below is a chart of the S&P 500 via SPY stock, images provided by Yahoo Finance.
The bubbles are clearly visible. Stock market booms up until 2000, then pops. The same occurs until 2008, then pops. Notice how the peaks of the two bubbles are at the same height. Now notice how our current bubble has peaked way above those levels, likely due to the unprecedented amount of printed money created between 2008 and now.
With the Evergrande debt crisis underway, supply chain issues, and rising raw material costs (due to inflation of monetary supply) leading to energy shortages in China and India, it is not hard to imagine that the next economic collapse is coming soon. This one may be the worst to date.
This issue all stems from modern day monetary policy, where governments have control over our money and print it at will. The solution is clear: blockchain and cryptocurrency.
People argue that digital money isn't 'real money'. I argue the opposite. Fiat currencies are not real money.