Paris (AFP)
A slow suffocation of global growth, under the effect of digitalization and climate change, at the risk of stoking social anger: this is the scenario that economists fear for 2020 and beyond, unless a frank relaxation commercial intervention.
The OECD forecasts that global growth will level off next year at 2.9%, its lowest level since the global recession of 2009. "We are in a worrying period", according to OECD chief economist Laurence Boone .
The IMF foresees a rebound to 3.4% in 2020, but this recovery "remains precarious", warned its chief economist Gita Gopinath.
- End of an era -
The pace of global growth next year will largely depend on the trade showdown engaged by U.S. President Donald Trump with China.
The two mastodons agreed in December to a truce in their customs tax escalation, pending the signing of a preliminary agreement. This does not resolve the substantive grievances for the moment, particularly regarding the rise in Chinese technological strength.
Beyond this short-term, longer-term unknown, the globalized economy is not only coming to the end of a cycle, but is approaching the end of an era, that of the surge in trade and high-speed industrialization in emerging countries.
It's hard to imagine a return to global diplomatic consensus around free trade, spurred on by Donald Trump. The president, anxious to preserve the insolent American economic health at the time when he battles against a procedure of dismissal, calmed the play recently with China. But he opened fronts with many other economic partners, including the Europeans.
Europeans also faced with the Brexit deadline, after Boris Johnson's victory in the legislative elections, another test for multilateralism.
Global finance is also turned upside down after years of largesse from the big central banks. The latter are struggling to wean the markets, some of which, like Wall Street, are flying from record to record.
At first glance, the absurd phenomenon of "negative" interest rates is spreading, compressing the profitability of banks and causing private debt to swell.
Steve Eisman is however categorical: "We will not have a systemic crisis" like that triggered by the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers in 2008, assures AFP this investor famous for having predicted the collapse of the American financial system.
For the financier, whose story inspired the movie "The Big Short", the economy could continue to grow sluggishly or enter "a typical recession with a slowing economy and people losing money. It will be quite painful enough like that. "
Ludovic Subran, chief economist of the insurance giant Allianz, sees a global "purgatory of growth". If there is one, "the next systemic shock will probably not arise in finance, but will be exogenous. For example a big regulatory shock on personal data, or related to the climate".
- American elections -
To watch also, according to him: the American presidential. Elizabeth Warren, who is running for the Democratic nomination, intends to tax the wealthy more, initiate a "green" economic shift, and dismantle the digital giants, much to the chagrin of Wall Street.
Fund manager and billionaire Leon Cooperman elegantly accused her of "pissing on the fucking American dream".
Unless Donald Trump is re-elected. "Either he makes a second American mandate, that is to say he does nothing. Either he doubles the bet against China", fears Mr. Subran.
Geopolitical tensions, income sharing, digitization, climate: these challenges will dominate the world economy far beyond the United States, and well after 2020.
The rise of technological giants seated on mountains of data calls into question the distribution of wealth and reshapes employment.
Faced with climate change, manufacturers and investors are correcting their strategies.
"We are not afraid of overcoming a cyclical crisis, we know how to do it," said AFP Ingo Kübler, staff representative at Mahle. This German automotive supplier, suffering from the disaffection of diesel, is cutting jobs.
- Social anger -
"The big subject is transformation, digitization, electric mobility. We fear (...) the loss of many jobs", he worries, when the first European economy comes to see its industrial workforce fall for the first time since the end of 2010.
In other countries (Lebanon, Chile, Colombia, or even in France with the "yellow vests"), social and economic anxiety has already resulted in outbreaks of anger.
Nicolas Achondo, a 33-year-old Chilean cook, had to close his restaurant, strangled by medical expenses after an accident: "I was put on the list of people in debt. (...) As a self-employed person, I did not was able to access credit and my business started to generate debt itself. This is very unfair. "
In a slow-growing world where, according to the NGO Oxfam, 26 billionaires had in 2018 as much money as the poorest half of the planet, the question of the distribution of wealth will be increasingly acute, including understood in developed countries.
"Even when people seem to have basic material comfort, they can still experience the same level of misery and unhappiness as the poorest," warned development specialist Esther Duflo and winner of the Nobel Prize in Economics.
© 2019 AFP