---
title: "The second wave and a global dystopia | Tuomas Malinen | Negotiator 43"
titleOriginal: "Koronan toinen aalto ja Globaali dystopia | Tuomas Malinen | Neuvottelija 43"
episodeNumber: "43"
guest: "Tuomas Malinen"
datePublished: 2020-10-29
duration: "46:12"
youtube: "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FWaB5021tOg"
captionsVtt: https://www.neuvottelija.com/podcast/episodes/ep43-koronan-toinen-aalto-ja-globaali-dystopia-tuomas-malinen/captions.en.vtt
captionsSrt: https://www.neuvottelija.com/podcast/episodes/ep43-koronan-toinen-aalto-ja-globaali-dystopia-tuomas-malinen/captions.en.srt
originalLanguage: "fi"
topics: ["finnish_economy_policy","investing_markets","free_speech_society"]
subtitleMethod: "none"
provenance: "Owner page assembled from the MacWhisper SBV transcript, which carries speaker labels, together with YouTube metadata and the neuvottelija.fi episode record. Chapter timecodes are taken from the transcript; no caption files are published with this page."
fiCanonical: "https://www.neuvottelija.fi/fi/episodes/49-neuvottelija-43-koronan-toinen-aalto-ja-globaali-dystopia-tu"
canonical: https://www.neuvottelija.com/podcast/episodes/ep43-koronan-toinen-aalto-ja-globaali-dystopia-tuomas-malinen/
---
# The second wave and a global dystopia | Tuomas Malinen | Negotiator 43

## Chapters

- [00:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FWaB5021tOg&t=0s) The second wave arrived as the Spanish flu model predicted
- [02:31](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FWaB5021tOg&t=151s) Why there will be no V-recovery
- [05:05](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FWaB5021tOg&t=305s) Two lost windows of preparation
- [07:35](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FWaB5021tOg&t=455s) The economy has already collapsed — the carpet over the chasm
- [10:05](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FWaB5021tOg&t=605s) A banking crisis in spring and Italy's recapitalisation need
- [12:36](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FWaB5021tOg&t=756s) Central bank digital currency and gosplanisation
- [15:08](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FWaB5021tOg&t=908s) What central bank money actually is
- [17:38](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FWaB5021tOg&t=1058s) If banks fail, the accounts move to the central bank
- [20:08](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FWaB5021tOg&t=1208s) Bank runs and the 'are you in the circles' game
- [22:40](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FWaB5021tOg&t=1360s) The central bank cancer and the pricing of interest rates
- [25:13](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FWaB5021tOg&t=1513s) The Soviet lesson: a service economy cannot be planned
- [27:45](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FWaB5021tOg&t=1665s) Too big to fail becomes Gosbank
- [30:15](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FWaB5021tOg&t=1815s) Bretton Woods 2.0 and what currencies would be pegged to
- [32:45](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FWaB5021tOg&t=1965s) How the IMF's role changed
- [35:15](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FWaB5021tOg&t=2115s) SDRs, ECU-2 and Keynes's Bancor
- [37:46](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FWaB5021tOg&t=2266s) Churchill, Dunkirk and what liberty cost
- [40:19](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FWaB5021tOg&t=2419s) When fear dictates the answer
- [42:50](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FWaB5021tOg&t=2570s) A hundred years of liberty
- [45:20](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FWaB5021tOg&t=2720s) What citizens should actually do

## Summary

GNS Economics' Tuomas Malinen and Sami Miettinen work through the economic consequences of the coronavirus second wave and arrive at the episode's central worry: every solution being offered to the crisis is a centralised one. The economy already collapsed in the second quarter, and that collapse has been prevented from realising through bankruptcy moratoria. The core of the discussion is central bank digital currency and the Chinese model, in which private payment systems are forced to settle in central bank money, opening a path where the commercial banking system becomes unnecessary.

## What is discussed

- **The model held.** GNS warned of a second wave in May on the basis of University of Minnesota modelling of the 1918 Spanish flu. The difference: in 1918 the second wave was the deadliest, whereas mortality has now stayed below the spring peak.
- **Two windows lost.** GNS warned clients in late January on the asymptomatic-carrier share; The Lancet published its modelling on 31 January; Malinen emailed the Finnish government in early February. Neither that window nor the summer one was used.
- **Already collapsed.** The fall happened in Q2 and is being prevented from realising by moratoria — Finnish creditors cannot file debtors into bankruptcy, Italian banks cannot pursue customers. A carpet has been laid over the chasm.
- **Unmeasurable banks.** With Basel requirements suspended and stress tests not run, the banking system's condition cannot be assessed. Italian recapitalisation needs have gone from an estimated €400bn to perhaps €600–700bn.
- **Gosplanisation.** The FT's coinage, from Gosbank, the Soviet central bank that decided which projects were financed. China now requires AliPay and WeChat to settle in central bank money — leaving a record of every transaction.
- **Central bank money explained.** Interbank settlement as a change of counter in a database. Consumers have no access; Telia and Siemens do. Remove the WeChat layer and consumers would hold it directly.
- **The Gosbank scenario.** If banks fail badly, accounts could simply be moved to the central bank, making the rest of the banking system redundant — a dozen people then deciding rates, loans and collateral, with China's social credit system as the darker variant.
- **Bank runs, enabled.** Cash queues are what has restrained runs. One-click transfer to a central bank account invites a bureaucrat deciding who may move to safety, turning a market mechanism into a question of connections.
- **Bretton Woods 2.0.** The IMF chief economist's proposal, with SDRs or a basket of central bank cryptocurrencies as the likely peg. Miettinen favours basket thinking (ECU-2, Libra, Keynes's Bancor); Malinen disagrees.
- **The closing argument.** Churchill at Dunkirk as the analogy: freedoms roughly a century old, bought with tens of millions of lives. Malinen — among the first Finnish economists to demand a lockdown — warns not against the virus response but against every answer to it being centralised.

## Watch

The recording lives on the Neuvottelija channel: [Koronan toinen aalto ja Globaali dystopia | Tuomas Malinen | Neuvottelija 43](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FWaB5021tOg).
A Finnish edition of this episode is published at [www.neuvottelija.fi](https://www.neuvottelija.fi/fi/episodes/49-neuvottelija-43-koronan-toinen-aalto-ja-globaali-dystopia-tu).

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Cite as: Sami Miettinen, Neuvottelija — The second wave and a global dystopia | Tuomas Malinen | Negotiator 43, https://www.neuvottelija.com/podcast/episodes/ep43-koronan-toinen-aalto-ja-globaali-dystopia-tuomas-malinen/, 2020-10-29. For quotes include episode 43 and timestamp.