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Take a look back to the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic with Tobias Baer where he asks us to imagine the positive impact to both the individual and the economy.

Amidst all the gloom and panic, I saw a light today. Grounded in Germany, I made a long bicycle ride through mostly empty countryside. All my worries about my family, clients, and own affairs notwithstanding, I couldn’t help feeling bliss and happiness, and it dawned on me that also this crisis won’t be the end of the world – and that we might be able to soften the blow and use it for something good. With a pause button.

As we look at especially elderly patients dying because of a shortage of hospitals and ICU machinery, shutting down the world makes sense. And spending one, two months at home with our families actually could be a boon in disguise – if it wasn’t for the world economy, our livelihood, fighting for its survival. And as I was gliding through the fields, I wondered if we could simply hit the pause button on the economy – if we, the ‘normal’ world (those lucky enough not to be fighting death in the world’s health systems), collectively could go on a 2-month vacation, like a meditation retreat, while the real world, our businesses and financial pressures, are frozen in time. And it dawned on me that in a world where already normality has disappeared and many businesses are shut down, such a utopia might not be far fetched at all.

Read the full article, Could a Pause Button Save the World Economy, on LinkedIn