Have we reached a crossroads?

Since the beginning of the year there is a rising fear of a global recession, with central banks resorting to unconventional monetary policies such as negative interest rates and quantitative easing. The IMF has just reduced the growth forecast for this year calling it " Too slow for too long ". A professor of economics writes that if 'conventional unconventional monetary policies' do not work it maybe time for 'unconventional unconventional monetary policies'. Paralysed by the fear of losing elections politicians are unable to carry out structural reforms which have " front-loaded costs and back-loaded benefits ". Quantitative easing " has benefited holders of financial assets, it has also fueled rising inequality ". A 70 year study, starting in 1946, has shown startling inequalities in British society. Even 67% of British Oscar winners attended expensive private schools as children. Inequality starts before birth and carries on throughout life. A study in the US shows how government policies and the tax system cause inequality. Authors suggest that lifetime inequality is more important than at one particular point in time. But ordinary people do not form opinions based on studies. Their decisions are based on perceptions and what they see is that politicians take a victory in elections as a licence to do whatever they like, which they see as a betrayal. The reason why Donald Trump is ahead in the race to be the Republican candidate for president is because white working-class Americans are becoming poorer and they see no one talking for them. Republicans take no responsibility for the plight of these people because they caused the problem in the first place by extending permanent normal trading relations with China, which decimated manufacturing in the US and resulted in low wages by creating a large pool of unemployed people. People would be even more angry if they understood that cheap goods from China kept a check on inflation, helping to keep interest rate low for a long period, thereby leading to the real estate bubble. Obama has been a polarising president and is despised by a large section of Republicans. His secretive nature and his paranoid persecution of whistleblowers has put off even liberal journalists. A leaked tape in Brazil showing the Vice President practicing an acceptance speech for the post of president is being seen as a sleazy betrayal by supporters of President Dilma Rousseff. People in Germany are furious with Angela Merkal for welcoming millions of migrants. In India we have no real debate because the government controls the press by being the largest advertiser and the wealthy do not support think tanks financially because they are making money from licenses and scams, with politicians and civil servants. To be fair, politicians cannot foresee sudden changes in other parts of the world or natural catastrophes but widespread anger is bubbling up all over the world. So much anger is cannot be good.