The world has not seen a Capitalist economy anywhere for decades, it's has Crony Capitalism.
Crony capitalism is an economic system in which businesses thrive not as a result of risk, but rather as a return on money amassed through a nexus between a business class and the political class. This is often achieved by using state power rather than competition in managing permits, government grants, tax breaks, or other forms of state intervention[1][2] over resources where the state exercises monopolist control over public goods, for example, mining concessions for primary commodities or contracts for public works. Money is then made not merely by making a profit in the market, but through profiteering by rent seeking using this monopoly or oligopoly. Entrepreneurship and innovative practices which seek to reward risk are stifled since the value-added is little by crony businesses, as hardly anything of significant value is created by them, with transactions taking the form of trading. Crony capitalism spills over into the government, the politics, and the media,[3] when this nexus distorts the economy and affects society to an extent it corrupts public-serving economic, political, and social ideals.
What we are about to see is akin to the 1890's depression in Melbourne:
The depression, which saw real GDP fall 17 per cent over 1892 and 1893, and the accompanying financial crisis, which reached a peak in 1893, were the most severe in Australia's history. The overextension of the 1880s property boom and its unravelling led to an abrupt collapse of private investment in the pastoral industry and urban development and a sharp pullback in public infrastructure investment. A fall-off in capital inflow from Britain, adverse movements in the terms of trade and drought in 1895 accentuated and prolonged the depression.
Which was socially horrific.
By 1890, a spectacular crash brought the Land Boom to an end. Banks and businesses failed in large numbers, thousands of people lost large sums of money, and tens of thousands of people lost work. It is estimated there was a 20% unemployment rate at the time, and immigration halted. It was quite lucky then, and also indicative of the support for engineering, that by 1899, the government joined Kernot in making £15,000 available for a new engineering building. The building, designed by Reed, Smart and Tappin, cost £4402, and was placed in a small clump of pine trees, distanced from the university so the noise, heat and smoke caused by engineering works should not annoy the other departments. It included a 70ft high tower that held a tank to provide a head of water for pumps and hydraulic devices, and by 1901 the building was ready for students.
CORONA VIRUS. Is it out of control?, page-6418
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