Well, this is one of the most difficult pieces I have ever had to sit and write. It is right up there with the 'Lehman Apocalypse' that presaged the full horror of global economic meltdown that we were about to endure in October 2008, and the occasion I had to try to write something the day after the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center had come crashing down on 9/11.
At times like that, times like this, it feels somehow dishonest and dirty to be worrying about our beloved international motorcycle industry, when potentially hundreds of thousands of people are losing their lives - for some of us right in our own neighbourhoods or families.
But worry we must, because part of any recovery from the health emergency, whenever and however that materialises, will be getting our lives, our communities, our workplaces and our economies back on their feet again.
Just as we all have a role to play in keeping ourselves and our families, friends and co-workers safe, so too we will all have a role to play in trying to get the global economic juggernaut inching forward again.
One of the biggest problems we face though is that we do not know when either of these things will be - when our lives may be safe (or at least safer), or when industries like ours may be able to switch the lights back on and start the machines up again. We just don't know - and the not knowing is one of the hardest things about this emergency.
However, one thing we do already know (and I am writing this on April 3rd) is that the outcome isn't going to be trivial.
wake up Berlin
Another thing that we all by now must know and realise is that while society as a whole may return somewhat to normal, our industry, the humble little backwater of global capitalism we make our livelihoods from, will never be the same again.
Most people are concatenating the two issues of health and financial emergency. Viewing them as one and the same, as solvable in the same way and at the same time. There is an entirely erroneous assumption that just as soon as the spiralling death toll is under control, people will start spending again and all will be right with the world.
How naïve. How wrong. While the two issues are clearly connected in that the health crisis has given rise to the economic downturn, the only enduring relationship between the two will be time - the time it takes for the health issues to tamp down sufficiently for us to be able to switch focus back to the economic issues. But doing so is simply like first gear on a bike. A mighty and powerful mover of a heavy inanimate object, but not one that will produce the kind of results needed in the timescale needed.
The economic downturn created by the health crisis has had its umbilical cord snipped and it is now out in the wild on its own, maturing quickly and taking on a life of its own. The economic crisis that has been set in play is going to cast a long, dark shadow over our lives - even if we are lucky enough to emerge from the health crisis personally unscathed.
Many people are pointing to factors like globalisation and international interdependency as putting us at a greater risk, of making us more vulnerable to viral and fiscal shocks like this. In fact, that view couldn't be more wrong.
Those who point to our dependency on an international just-in-time supply chain as being proof that barriers need to be erected, manufacturing be brought home and perspectives turned inward are simply perpetuating the very problems that 70 years of post war international progress and cooperation have done so much to allow history's horrors to disappear in the world's rear view mirror.
Far from proving our vulnerability, the international system of trade that sees China (at the West's request) placed at the centre of a newly imagined global supply chain has proven to be remarkably robust. In the scheme of things, the global free trade order that has fuelled growth and prosperity from the 1980s onwards, is still a relatively juvenile product.
Sure, it clearly needs fine-tuning, but the stability and reliability that a global system of commerce needs is one that needs more cooperation, not less. More freedoms and opportunities, not less. More acceptance and adherence to the established principles of intellectual property ownership, regulatory equivalence and equal business opportunities, not less.
What these twin emergencies point to is not the weakness of a world of interdependency, shared values and common goals, but its strengths. If countries pursue a 'my country first policy', we will all be last.
Far from pointing towards the desirability of increased national isolationism, the fact that we all got into this together points to the fact that we will all only be able to get out of this together. Only by deploying concerted, coordinated efforts to 'put the band back together again' can the economic order that had been serving us all so well prosper again. We need to work more closely together - politically, economically and socially - not less.
There is emerging evidence around the world that failure to work together has already made the damage done by the coronavirus way worse than it needed to be. From deciding to isolate entire countries from the international self-help and shared resource health provision networks that could have made more respirators, tests and PPE available sooner and faster, through to the misguided, outdated soviet era social control and news management that totalitarianism thinks was ever a good idea.
Yes, China - I'm looking at you, and the time, lives and money your lies cost us, your customers, around the world. Time for a reboot, yes? Wuhan will likely go down in history as Chinese communism's Chernobyl. I hope it does. It deserves to.
Meanwhile, if the ECB isn't allowed to emerge butterfly-like from its chrysalis, the indecision and introspection that keeps EU financial policy makers in the slow lane is likely to cast the Euro Zone 19 into a financial abyss that will make Japan's lost decades look like a dress rehearsal. Wake up Berlin and show leadership!
What is happening to our world, to our economies, is the ultimate stress test of all that we have achieved and built. We can only pass that test by reducing the influence of amateurs (aka Politicians) and adopting the twin pillars of Good Governance - transparency and honesty - as our touchstones.
