‘Winter is coming’: IMF head issues ‘warning’ over inflation and central bank tightening

The global economy has so far shrugged off $100 oil. It won’t forever.

“Winter is coming,” Kristalina Georgieva, managing director of the International Monetary Fund said at Semafor’s Next 3 Billion event in New York, warning that prices will keep climbing.

The Iran war — and the energy shocks that have accompanied it — has elevated inflation globally since February, leading central banks around the world to raise interest rates. That raised their borrowing costs — the US will spend more money this year paying interest on the national debt than on its military — which leaves less to cushion the economic fallout.

While AI has turbocharged economic development globally, counteracting some of the energy shock, the tech falls short of compensating for the full effect of the Strait of Hormuz’s closure.

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