The global economy is under pressure — but how bad is it? The experts share insights

The issues facing the global economy – which include inflation, climate change, and the war in Europe – have coalesced into what experts have called a ‘polycrisis.’
The global economy has been under enormous pressure and endured significant distributions before.
How bad is the situation today? The experts share their thoughts that can help policymakers grapple with the challenges of today.
The global economy is under pressure from multiple complex and interconnected crises.
These challenges—which include inflation, climate change, the war in Europe, supply chain disruptions , to name a few—have coalesced into what experts have called a “polycrisis.”
As the World Economic Forum’s Global Risks Report 2025 stated, “the return to a ‘new normal’ was quickly disrupted by the outbreak of war in Ukraine, ushering in a fresh series of crises in food and energy – triggering problems that decades of progress had sought to solve.”

Yet the global economy has been under enormous pressure and endured significant distributions before. So how bad is the situation today?

Ahead of the Forum’s 2024 Annual Meeting in Davos, Switzerland, two experts share their thoughts on the myriad of threats facing the global economy and detail historical parallels that can help policymakers grapple with the challenges of today.

‘The global economy is off to a rough start indeed in 2025.’

“With the most dangerous conflagration in Europe since WWII, the pandemic refusing to die quietly, slowing growth, and the highest inflation rates in four decades, the global economy is off to a rough start indeed in 2025.

“In navigating these risks, the biggest challenge for politicians and corporate leaders alike will be to adjust to the end of ultra-low, post-financial crisis interest rates. The era where debt seemed like a free lunch and could be used to solve anything is likely over, partly because global debt has risen so much, partly because many countries are now needing to sharply increase investment in both defense and in green energy investment, and partly because of looming fractures in globalization. The 2020s so far most resembles the 1970s.

“The good news is that central banks today far better understand how to deal with supply shocks that raise inflation. The bad news is that the supply-side reforms, which helped lift advanced economies in the 1980s and developing economies in the 1990s, have become politically unacceptable in many quarters. The risks the global economy will tip into recession in 2025 are high; if so, the financial fallout could be brutal.”

‘The world should capitalize on what has worked in the past.’

“The polycrisis today means that the challenges faced by the global economy are deeply interconnected with all global systems – the global political economy, international security, global health, education, and energy, among others. As the world recovered from the pandemic, the energy crisis from the war in Ukraine sparked new complexities in addition to inflation, climate change, mass migration, and inequality. Today’s polycrisis includes relationships between systems that include common drivers, domino effects, and vicious cycles interacting all at once, which continue to exacerbate vulnerabilities.

“Although the world has experienced interconnected crises before, including post World War I, oil shocks in the 70s, and the 2008 financial crisis, the situation now is unique given the interconnectedness accelerated by the Fourth Industrial Revolution. Going forward, the world should capitalize on what has worked in the past – dialogue, multi-stakeholder collaboration, and multilateralism. To do so, accountable and agile leadership is critical.

“The post-WWI period taught us that turning inward during times of global challenges only exacerbates problems leading to more violent conflict. Leaders must choose to meet unprecedented complexity with unprecedented transformation even if it means that power dynamics or relationships change. History has also shown us that digital technologies can be disruptive but they can also be powerful tools for reducing uncertainty and visualizing complex relationships.”

What is an economic collapse?
Simply put, an economic collapse, interchangeably used with the term financial collapse, is a series of very severe economic conditions. Many survivalists and preppers say an economic collapse is the one thing that they are preparing for, as it includes a number of symptoms that place a risk on our necessary needs, such as food, water, power, and safety.

One of the worst factors about a financial collapse is the fact that it doesn’t abide by a timeline. Natural disasters, for instance, while very destructive, are short, with their duration measuring only for days let alone weeks. This allows recovery efforts to commence almost immediately. Economic downturns, however, are unmeasurable in length and for most, will last a minimum of a year, with the aftereffects resonating for several years as a nation recovers.

During an economic collapse, there are symptoms that affect large companies and industries, with very visible signs felt in the family home. For instance, common symptoms of a collapse are high bankruptcy rates, widespread unemployment, hyperinflation, a spike in death rates (attributable to depression or other financial causes), a social collapse and a high increase in crime.

A MONSTER FINANCIAL CRISIS is coming, but the plan is for The Fed and Central Banks to boost corporate/government partnership and then starve out the people, scare them into wearing a mandatory mask and receive a mandatory vaccine. The Great rest is being pushed by the power in the US Government. Owning a business, small business won’t be allowed. People will be oppressed and starved. Will have to sell the property then self to survive as a slave. People will be slaves.

According to The Great Reset, the government will forgive all your debt. The catch is that you will forfeit your right to own anything in the future (business, home, land, vehicles).

People will accept this deal by the hundreds of millions, if not billions. Making themselves forever slaves with only the freedom their government chooses to allow them. Central bank interest rates are all very low at the moment to try to stimulate the economies of the world. Governments seem to have forgotten that the other lever they have is taxes. Governments could lower taxes to stimulate the economy. At low borrowing rates, this isn’t as daft as it seems because repaying the current level of debt isn’t as urgent as it once was. Because the cost of government borrowing is so low, the debts most countries are carrying will not cost them much (or anything if the bank rates are less than inflation). Currently, we live in a world where punishing people and companies for being successful is seen as a good and virtuous thing to do .

Ways to Prepare to Survive an Economic Collapse

How do you prepare to survive an economic collapse? You can reduce the potential impact that an economic collapse may have on you and your family by following these simple principles:
Basic Staple Foods with a Long Shelf Life
Storing at least a year or two of basic staple foods that can last for 25-30 years in storage can sustain your family during an economic challenge whether it is hyperinflation, loss of employment, food shortages, or any other crisis. To learn what to store for your family, read our post, Long-Term Food Storage: Creative Solutions to Build a Critical Asset.

Basic staples like wheat, rice, oats, pasta, beans, sugar, and dehydrated or freeze-dried foods specifically packaged for long-term storage are great options. You need to learn how to package your food storage and more about the ideal storage conditions.

Shelf Stable Everyday Foods

A supply of short-term shelf-stable foods that you use every day will help minimize the impact when you are unable to shop at the grocery store as you normally do. We call this short-term food storage because while these foods are shelf-stable, they will not store for 25-30 years like the long-term staples will. It is important to have both to successfully protect against hunger.

Short-term everyday food storage includes canned goods, boxed mixes, packaged dinners, cold cereal, ketchup, and similar items. These foods will remain good for 1-7 years depending on the food, packaging, and storage conditions. Learn more about building a supply of short-term everyday foods in our post, 3 Months Supply of Food: Amazing Peace of Mind.
Food takes up a lot of space and it can be a bit challenging to find a place to store it all that still allows for good organization and rotation. Check out some ideas from our friends in our post, Ingenious Places to Store Your Emergency Food Supply.

Food storage is an incredibly wise investment. Let’s take the scenario of hyperinflation in Venezuela, where product prices (on average) have doubled every 19 days. That means that if you purchase a case of six #10 cans of rolled oats today for $24, that case would cost $12,582,912 in one year…crazy huh? Most importantly, you would have that case of rolled oats to feed your family when food is scarce or prices are outrageous.

Basic Non-Food Staples
Stock up on personal sanitation items such as toilet paper, feminine products, shampoo, soaps, contact solution, and other items that you use every day. What non-food items do you purchase regularly? This article on personal sanitation may give you some ideas of items you will want to make sure get put on your list.

Medication and First Aid Supplies

Are you on prescription medication for a chronic medical condition? You may want to talk to your doctor to see if you can work out a way to keep a little extra on hand. Most insurances will refill at 25 days. Take advantage of that 5-day buffer and refill as soon as you are eligible to build up a backup supply. Your doctor may also be willing to give you samples to help you build up your supply.
What over-the-counter medications do you use regularly? Stock a backup supply of over-the-counter pain relievers, allergy medications, cold and flu remedies, or whatever other medications would be appropriate for you to stockpile for your family. Stocking a supply of vitamin supplements may also be a good idea.

Be prepared to treat minor injuries without medical help. Keep a well-stocked first-aid kit with all the supplies that you may need.

Make good health a priority. The people of Venezuela are suffering greatly due to a lack of medical care. Exercise regularly and eat healthfully. Get adequate rest, fresh air, and sunshine. Stay current with medical and dental appointments, and do the other things that build health and resiliency.

• Medicinal Garden
• With your seeds kit, you’ll also receive a FREE Medicinal Guide that shows you how to turn these 10 plants into tinctures, ointments, salves, poultices, decoctions, infusions, essential oils —all in minute detail so you can follow our guide even if you’ve never made an herbal medicine in your life.

Stockpile Valuable Tools
Basic tools can make a huge difference in your ability to provide well for your own family during an economic collapse. The time to purchase these tools is now, while they are available and you have the financial resources to purchase them. Let these ideas help you brainstorm a list of tools that you may need:

Kitchen Tools
Kitchen tools suddenly become highly valuable when you are making meals from scratch instead of picking them up at the drive-through window. Make sure that you have a couple of good quality can openers to open all those precious cans of food you have stored.

A good grain grinder is a highly valuable asset if you have stored wheat or other grains. You may also want the ability to grind corn or beans. I use an electric grain mill in my pantry for grinding my flour every day, but I also have a nice Country Living Grain Mill, a bean auger that will grind both corn and beans into flour. My grinders are stored in my kitchen pantry. A cheap hand grinder takes a lot of energy to grind a small amount of coarse flour. We encourage you to invest in the highest quality grinder you can afford.

Garden Tools
Growing your own food requires some basic quality gardening tools. We grow much of our own food and go through shovels like crazy. Don’t buy cheap garden tools, they break and are useless. Invest in quality tools that will endure abuse. Keep them protected from the elements and they will last much longer.

At a minimum, I recommend a couple of heavy-duty shovels, a square-mouth shovel, a turning fork, a rake, a wheelbarrow, a small trowel, a small garden rake, large pruners, medium pruners, and small hand pruners. Store lots of good work gloves! T-posts, t-post pounder, and twine are important tools to help grow vertically and produce more in smaller spaces.

General Handyman Tools
General auto and home repair tools such as a cordless drill, a variety of saws, ladder, hammer, screwdrivers, pliers, chisel, level, utility knife, tape measure, a ratchet set, socket set, flashlight, safety glasses, gloves, and a variety of other tools. Remember to keep a stash of spare blades, bits, nails, screws, fasteners, glue, and other important consumables to get the job done.

Grow Your Own Food
Make growing even a small amount of food part of your daily life. It takes years to build your soil and your skill set to the point where you are able to produce a reliable, abundant crop. Even if your busy life will only allow you to grow a few potted tomatoes, it is a good place to start.

Incorporate Fruit-Bearing Perennials into Your Landscape.
One easy way to produce a reliable crop of food is to plant food-bearing trees, bushes, and vines right in with your landscape. Many edible plants can be stunningly beautiful in your yard.

Take an apple tree for instance. It can be pruned into a wide variety of shapes and sizes. It is absolutely gorgeous in the spring when the showy blossoms emerge. Do not underestimate the beauty of well-cared-for fruit and nut trees.

Bush cherries are delightful shrubs that are hardy and productive. Goji berries are showy and can easily be incorporated into the landscape while fixing nitrogen into the soil to help other plants grow better.

Many medicinal herbs such as lavender, chamomile, feverfew, hyssop, bee balm, and coneflowers provide beauty and variety to the landscape while secretly doubling as herbal remedies.

Raise Chickens
Raising a few laying hens to provide needed fat and protein can be easy if you have the right setup.

Prepare to Provide for Yourself or Do Without
During an economic collapse, it is important that you do everything that you can to take care of your needs without depending on others. In addition to the resources you have stored, you may need to be creative and make do with what you can make yourself. Create a personal reference library with valuable books that you can refer to when Google fails you.

Prepare to Live with Little or No Electricity
You may or may not have access to power during an economic collapse. Even if you do have power, you may not have the financial resources to pay for it. Prepare now by taking steps to reduce your energy consumption. Look at alternative energy resources (such as solar electric, solar thermal, propane, etc.) as a possible part of your plan. Be prepared to survive with little or no heat.

Light is essential. When it comes to non-electric lighting, we highly recommend good quality renewable light sources like those produced by HybridLight. We have used the same HybridLight flashlights and lanterns for years. We keep them charging on a window sill so they are always ready to go.

Remember… back in those days, there was no electricity… no refrigerators… no law enforcement… and certainly no grocery store or supermarkets… Some of these exceptional skills are hundreds of years of old and they were learned the hard way by the early pioneers.

Today is your chance to be part of saving The lost super food . I wanted to make this information available to every family out there without having to spend years of their lives or thousands of dollars.

So I came up with this great idea to edit all my manuscripts and to turn all this lost knowledge into one of the greatest books of this century:

The lost super food
Saving Our Forefathers’ Skills

Here are some of my favorite canning recipes. I guess they are my favorites because I grow many of these items myself in my garden and orchard. You can also find literally hundreds of canning recipes, and more information on canning techniques in The lost super food

Strengthen Your Financial Status
There is no way to completely protect your family against the effects of a financial collapse, but it is possible to reduce the impact it may have on you. One valuable lesson that will help you build your financial resilience is to learn to live without. You do not need everything that you think you do. Learn to live on less and be happy.

Avoid debt
Whenever possible, avoid debt like the plague. We had many friends who struggled, and some even lost their homes, in the 2008 housing market crash in the United States. We even had a family member who lost a lucrative business and was left penniless.

Those who had not overextended themselves before this crisis were able to withstand the challenges much better than others. Get out of debt and stay out of debt.

Build up a Financial Reserve
Learn to live on less than you make and save money to protect yourself when financial crises arrive. A financial reserve of 3-6 months (or more, if possible) of expenses can buy you time to come up with a solution to fix whatever is causing the stress on your finances. This might include finding new employment, recovering from illness, paying off medical bills, unexpected car repairs, etc.

Keep Cash Accessible
Cash is a powerful tool in most situations. Make sure you keep a good supply of readily accessible cash in the bank that can be withdrawn immediately. It is also a good idea to keep some cash in small bills safely secured in your home.

Invest in Precious Metals
The value of the dollar, or any type of paper money, is subject to rapid devaluation as we have witnessed in Argentina and Venezuela. In contrast, the value of precious metals such as gold and silver tends to retain value and may be a wise investment.

Books can be your best pre-collapse investment.

Carnivore’s Bible (is a wellknown meat processor providing custom meat processing services locally andacross the state of Montana and more. Whether your needs are for domestic meator wild game meat processing)

The Lost Book of Remedies PDF ( contains a series of medicinal andherbal recipes to make home made remedies from medicinal plants and herbs.Chromic diseases and maladies can be overcome  by taking the remediesoutlined in this book. The writer claims that his grandfather was taughtherbalism and healing whilst in active service during world war twoand that he has treated many soldiers with his home made cures. )

Easy Cellar(Info about building and managing your root cellar, plus printable plans. The book on building and using root cellars – The Complete Root Cellar Book.)

The Lost Ways (Learn the long forgotten secrets that helped our forefathers survive famines,wars,economic crisis and anything else life threw at them)

LOST WAYS 2 ( Wordof the day: Prepare! And do it the old fashion way, like our fore-fathers did it and succeed longbefore us,because what lies ahead of us will require all the help we can get. Watch this video and learn the 3 skills that ensured our ancestors survival in hard times offamine and war.)

 

SOURCE : https://www.prepperfortress.com/robert-kiyosakis-last-warning-whats-coming-is-worse-than-a-recession/