It's been coming for a long time, now, sure as the turning of the
worlds. Now it's here, and people are starting to suffer. And this is
only the beginning.
One of my roomates works in construction. He came home today and
announced that he had been laid off. Big surprise, that. In a
recession, construction jobs are usually among the first to go.
The company I work for, in order to be able to delay having to lay
people off as long as possible, implemented a 1.5% pay cut all across
the board, from management all the way down. That didn't come as a
surprise, either. I still consider myself lucky. It could have been a
lot worse. I've heard tell of local companies that have cut wages as
much as 5%. And I still have my job.
North America has been very fortunate for a very long time. But some of
us still remember the last recession, and the lessons it taught us.
First and foremost was to count your blessings. Be thankful for what
you have because it can be taken away from you in the blink of an eye.
The second lesson is to do whatever it takes to keep a roof over your
head, clothes on your back, and food in your belly, because you won't
always have the luxury of holding out for the job that you want.
We've all got some tough times ahead, but how long those tough times
last depend entirely on how our governments handle the economy. Now,
I'm not an especially well educated man, and I sure as hell ain't no
economist, but I do know when something doesn't feel right. Governments
the world over are spending money hand over fist to try to hold off the
negative effects of the credit crisis and the recession, which doesn't
seem entirely logical to me. But then, I suppose it depends entirely on
how that money was spent.
In the States, President Obama has signed into law the single largest
appropriation of borrowed money in the history of the US. This giant
package, which adds up to several hundreds of billions of dollars that
the American Government just doesn't have, is touted as an economic
stimulus package, the injection of vast sums of money into various and
sundry projects intended to pump money back into the economy. Sounds
like a good plan, right? Sure, it does. The problem is that I can't
really find any source that will tell me exactly where that money is
going. Not all of it anyway. We know that billions are being set aside
to construct the framework of a socialized health care system similar
to what Canada and Great Britain have. We also know that some money is
being set aside for infrastructure projects like roads and bridges.
That's a good thing, exactly the kind of project that generates jobs.
But still, vast sums of money in this package are completely and
totally unaccounted for.
Here in Canada the Conservative government of Prime Minister Stephen
Harper was pressured by the opposition parties into tabling a budget
which drives Canada into a defecit the likes of which hasn't been seen
since the last recession. Granted, most of the things that I know of
that were included in the budget were good things, like money for
infrastructure projects, money for short term loans to struggling
industries, changes to the Employment Insurance system, and the like.
But I still question the amount of money involved. Was it really
necessary to go that far.
Economic performance depends entirely on confidence. It's a con game.
Always has been. When people are confident in their country and their
position in the world the economy soars. We go through periods of
seemingly unstoppable growth. But the thing of it is that the economy
also works in cycles, and the law of gravity tells us that what goes up
must come down. For every boom there is a bust, and as soon as the
bubble bursts people start losing confidence, and that's when the
economy tanks. All of this has happened before, and it will happen
again.
Obama and other liberals tell us that the solution to the financial
crisis is government. I'm not entirely sure I believe that, since it
was government that got us into this mess in the first place, but I'm
willing to accept that liberals believe it. I'm also willing to accept
at face value the proposition that President Obama is taking the
actions he's taking because he believes in his heart that it's the
right thing to do, and the other world leaders are following his lead
for the same reason.
But I have a question: Why do we need to spend billions of dollars to
restore peoples confidence in the economy? Why can't we simply say,
"Look, there are some tough times ahead, and we're not going to come
through this entirely uscathed, but if we tighten our belts and act
responsibly then we can weather this storm and come out stronger on the
other side."?
But what do I know? I'm just a manager.
![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif?v=92.2){kind=small}
