There's persuasive evidence that high levels of government and private sector borrowing tend to precede Bad Stuff™. The World Bank published a detailed report

There's persuasive evidence that high levels of government and private sector borrowing tend to precede Bad Stuff™. The World Bank published a detailed report about precisely this topic on December 2019, right before the pandemic, at https://www.worldbank.org/en/research/publication/waves-of-debt https://www.worldbank.org/en/research/publication/waves-of-d... -- here's the first paragraph of that report, summarizing the findings: "The global economy has experienced four waves of debt accumulation over the past fifty years. The first three debt waves ended with financial crises in many emerging and developing economies. The latest, since 2010, has already witnessed the largest, fastest and most broad-based increase in debt in these economies. Their total debt has risen by 54 percentage points of GDP to a historic peak of almost 170 percent of GDP in 2018." That was written right before the pandemic. Since then, governments and businesses have borrowed aggressively. It's safe to say that globally, we are in uncharted territory. As to what happens next, your guess is as good as mine.