The state of the global economy is … not good

Ian Explains: The State of the Global Economy Is … Not Good | GZERO World

This year, the annual fall meetings of the World Bank and the IMF were all about global economic doom and gloom.

The IMF has cut its global growth prediction for this year by half compared to 2021. And next year will be the worst since COVID and the 2008 financial crisis.

Meanwhile, inflation is still very high — and efforts by rich countries to tame rising prices are going to hurt poor nations.

And what about climate change? That may be the one silver lining for the IMF, which believes that the present energy crisis may accelerate the green energy transition.

Watch the GZERO World episode: Can the world avoid a global recession?

More from GZERO Media

Argentine President Javier Milei speaks to the media while standing on a vehicle with lawmaker Jose Luis Espert during a La Libertad Avanza rally ahead of legislative elections on the outskirts of Buenos Aires, Argentina, on August 27, 2025.
REUTERS/Agustin Marcarian

The campaign for Argentina’s legislative election officially launched this week, but it couldn’t have gone worse for President Javier Milei.

US President Donald Trump, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum and Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., attend a Cabinet meeting at the White House in Washington, D.C., USA, on August 26, 2025.
REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst

The Trump administration is divided over its approach to Venezuela, according to Venezuelan journalist Tony Frangie Mawad.

A Ukrainian soldier is seen at a checkpoint at the road near a Crimea region border March 9, 2014. Russian forces tightened their grip on Crimea on Sunday despite a U.S. warning to Moscow that annexing the southern Ukrainian region would close the door to diplomacy in a tense East-West standoff.
REUTERS/Viktor Gurniak

60: Ukraine will allow men aged 18–22 to leave the country, easing a wartime ban that kept males under 60 from crossing the border.