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Rightwing governments have denied the problem and been slow to act. With coronavirus and the climate, this costs lives• Coronavirus latest updates• See all our coronavirus coverageThe coronavirus pandemic has brought urgency to the defining political question of our age: how to distribute risk. As with the climate crisis, neoliberal capitalism is proving particularly ill-suited to this.Like global warming, but in close-up and fast-forward,...

The Covid-19 outbreak is forcing politicians and central bankers to set aside ideology and orthodoxy to prevent a global collapse Coronavirus – latest updatesSee all our coronavirus coverageIt is as if the lights have been switched off. The global economy has been plunged into darkness as countries hunker down in response to the Covid-19 pandemic.Most recessions develop gradually over time. When the last one...

Buoyed by fire sales of public assets, a tiny minority of Greeks are thriving. Everyone else is mired in hopelessnessSpring is already in the air across Greece. Even in the bleakest of times, nature’s renaissance renders hope irrepressible. But this one is proving a cruel spring for a people caught up in a decade-old crisis yielding one ritual humiliation after another.Costas runs a small...

Kristalina Georgieva compares today with “roaring 1920s” and criticises UK wealth gapThe head of the International Monetary Fund has warned that the global economy risks a return of the Great Depression, driven by inequality and financial sector instability.Speaking at the Peterson Institute of International Economics in Washington, Kristalina Georgieva said new IMF research, which compares the current economy to the “roaring 1920s” that culminated...

£395m trade boost is aimed at countering China’s spending on the continentBritain has unveiled plans to channel part of the £14bn aid budget through the City as it seeks to exploit the global reach of the finance sector to boost investment in Africa.Details of the £395m package were announced by the international development secretary, Alok Sharma, ahead of a high-level UK-Africa investment summit next...

Prospect of crashing out of EU leaves UK more exposed to global financial risks, thinktank saysThe UK’s GDP growth rate will slip to 1% next year even if a no-deal Brexit is avoided, according to the Organisation for Economic Development and Cooperation.The OECD said the economy would slow down from growth of 1.2% this year if parliament passes Boris Johnson’s Brexit deal before the...

Past crashes spawned new thinking and reform but nothing has changed since 2008 banking meltdown, says former Bank of England bossLarry Elliott: The global economy needs to change fastThe world is sleepwalking towards a fresh economic and financial crisis that will have devastating consequences for the democratic market system, according to the former Bank of England governor Mervyn King.Lord King, who was in charge...