The Coming Age of Disorder Will Favor Commodities
A return to the stagflation of the 1970s would be bad for stocks and bonds.
It’s not their world anymore.
Photographer: Mike Sargent/AFP/Getty Images
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Is it time for a New World Order? Ever since the double shock of collapsing oil prices and the advent of the pandemic six months ago, it has looked as though the existing order cannot hold. That order, associated primarily with the names of Paul Volcker, Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan, was built around independent central banks and aggressive globalization, and oversaw some two decades of impressive growth, then another two decades marked by repeated crises and deepening inequality and discontent. Covid-19 appeared to administer the coup de grace.