Crisis cycle: 1997, 2008, through 2020

By Lee Sun-ho           

Human history for anyone’s life span has known a series of adversities and hard-to-solve obstacles bringing into crises, even though there were neither full-fledged brutal devastating wars nor dangerous super-duper natural disasters.  Recalling the bygone three decades for a quarter century, we have experienced the 1997 foreign exchange dilemma in Korea, so-called the IMF incident, the 2008 world-wide liquidity problems, and the on-going COVID-19 pandemic appeared in Wuhan, China early this year, an extra-ordinary epidemic affecting on our entire world in its tentacles.  Day after day, reports have been sending news of misery and gloom from each corner of personal lives on our human communities..

The macroeconomic and industrial manifestations of the Korean financial crisis of 1997 extended through 1998, the heaviest after the Korean War, staggered on the verge of insolvency, eventually showed the successive rounds of policy and institutional measures that the government deployed in the process of onset, turnaround and thereafter for the recovery of the Korean economy.  The remedies to prevent future financial crises were of great impetus to keeping the Korean economy firmly back on track to the steady growth (Ref.: The Korea Times dated March 12-13, 2011).

The U.S. financial crisis of mid-September 2008 caused by the risk-taking by banks such as Lehman Brothers, the biggest economic downturn was the worst post World War II contraction on record and caused large falls in markets not only inside the U.S. but also in Europe and many parts of Asia including Japan.  Its impact proved that banks could not regulate themselves, and without government oversight, they could create another crisis.

Our prevailing worldwide fights against the seemingly-ubiquitous COVID-19 pandemic virus with every weapon we have are what make life serious, and overcoming them is what makes life meaningful as we go forward amid current challenges and future prospects for wishful outcome lying ahead of us recalling the Spanish flu pandemic lasting from January 1918 to September 1920, infected 500 million people, about a quarter of the world’s population at that time.  The death toll was possibly as much as 100 million, making it one of the deadliest pandemics in human history.

Even though the World Health Organization (WHO) officially said at least 20 coronavirus vaccines are in development in the global race for finding a cure for the new virus in 2020, overall emergency economic policy measures should be taken by the public sector with keen coordination and support on the part of the private sector as exemplified by widespread quarantine slogans, ‘staying at home’ and ‘guiding a social distancing.’

The seemingly ubiquitous COVID-19 at stake requiring comprehensive policy remedies for activating people is reminding us that this can be either an end or a new beginning as a great corrector, as Bill Gates commented late March this year,.  To be sure, it is reminding us that we are all equal, regardless of our culture, religion, occupation, industry, market and financial situation, and where we live or how smart we are.  Here and now, we have no choice to render every struggle to overcome this unprecedented catastrophic crisis cycle mingling with the lives of human beings for bringing the social safety nets and universal health care back to normal, by sharing hopes with others and embracing what we have.

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The writer (kexim2@unitel.co.kr) is a freelance columnist living in Seoul

Drafted on Saturday, April 25, 2020.