This article lays out a comprehensive panorama of the global economic situation as it was on the eve of the COVID-19 pandemic and points out major weaknesses and crises brewing in the public and private sectors of the world’s biggest economies. Although many of the problems predate the 2007— 08 financial “great recession”, they have become more acute in the last ten years. The current health emergency has compounded them and accelerated the looming breakdown of the economic and financial system. Thus, today there is a greater need for the creation of a new global monetary architecture.
