We have long since discovered that the world of certainties of the pre-Covid era would take, in the best scenario, many years to return. Today we find ourselves permanently crossing a minefield and in the midst of too much turbulence. A result of being shown by the coronavirus not only that you have to keep your foot planted on the accelerator but also that the struggle is much longer, more exhausting and difficult than had been imagined. If this situation, which injects an instability into medium-term predictions and complicates the ability to work with firm forecasts, is added to the increases in food prices and the rampant instability in energy prices, the perfect storm for the loss of wage-earners' purchasing power is assured.
The latest inflation figures released this Monday have risen to a 29-year all-time high. Spain's Consumer Price Index was 5.6% higher in October compared to the previous year, raising a question that at the moment can only be responded to badly: how long can the CPI continue to rise? It's been eleven months of uninterrupted growth so far. Germany shows a similar figure, 6%, at a time when, in addition, that country faces the replacement of chancellor Merkel by the winner of the election, the Social Democrat candidate Olaf Scholz, at the head of what has been called a "traffic lights" government, since the combination of the Social Democrats, Liberals and Greens will colour a new experience in German politics.
These poor economic numbers have now collided with the Omicron effect, through the arrival of the new Covid variant that is alarming authorities despite the calming remarks made by different states as they implement sudden shock measures for travellers on that continent. The Moderna pharmaceutical corporation has been the first to warn that Omicron might not be held back by the immunological protection that the vaccines provide and that there is a potential risk that it will accelerate the loss of immunity already predicted, as it has more mutations than any of the variants known up till now. This, at the moment when the first case has already been registered in Spain; the WHO has warned that it presents a very high risk of contagion and the G-7 calls for an urgent response.
In this worrying context, the Catalan government will do well to have contingency plans for an increase in poverty levels in Catalonia due to the loss of purchasing power of wages, the uncertainty about the consequences of Omicron on the economy, the ERTOs that remain in place and are still, in many cases, future unemployment subsidies in disguise, and the shortage of basic resources coming into industry. 2021 is ending in a worse state than we thought it would back in summer and 2022 doesn’t have any definite course at the moment, and that situation is always naturally bad.