OBELA Analysis

Record gold prices from 2019 onwards express the vulnerability of the international monetary system resulting from the US-China trade war and recently the impact of the COVID-19 on the global economy.

If the price of gold is linked to movements in the international financial markets and the expansive monetary policy of the US central bank: Does the current price of gold express speculation? Are there expectations of crises arising from the pandemic shock?

The current price of gold expresses the value of refuge in the face of a situation of uncertainty, channeled by investors through two large funds. The expectations of crisis were already in 2019 when the price began to rise as a reflection of the trade war and the fall in American GDP growth.

The first half of 2020 is possibly the worst since economic statistics have been published. We do not have the statistics of the first semester of 1872, but it is worse than the first semester of 1930; and it is much worse than the first semester of 2009 or the last semester of 2008.
The Latin American countries with the greatest fall in production were Peru and Mexico, while Brazil fell less. ECLAC reported that industrial production in April fell 14.1% in Chile, 15.1% in Brazil, 20.1% in Colombia, 26.4% in Argentina, 29.3% in Mexico and 40.5% in Peru.
The Asian countries seem to be recovering from a V-shaped crisis while those in Europe, North and South America are going through a U-shaped crisis or perhaps even one with a slower recovery and not reaching the original pre-Covid-19 level. This will have future implications for global economic leadership.

Standards related to environmental protection address much of the public, civil and criminal law domain. Currently, the issue of sustainability has been integrated to refer to all options to reduce the consequences of the consumption and production pattern on the environment.

Since the 1990s, German environmental policy has been exemplary in the quest to achieve the goals of reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

The issue of climate change is a global problem. In developing countries, as is the case in Latin America, many of the decisions regarding natural resources have been influenced by groups with economic interests without social or environmental responsibility.