Feb
10
Doom and Gloom Virus
February 10, 2009 | 1 Comment
Recently every person I see just talks about how bad the economy is. Reality is, it is terrible. However, I am beginning to feel that people are just talking about how bad it is rather than spending time finding ways to improve it.
The economy doesn’t heal by itself. The government can’t heal the economy either: it can apply a patch here and there (which we will pay dearly in the future — in a way that will be costlier than what it fixed). People seem to be so passive, that it sickens me. Everyone used to be expecting Bush/Paulson to fix something. It seems the didn’t. Then they where praying to Obama to fix something. Today it seems those prayers where not answered. Few people are actually doing something to fix it by themselves.
An economy moves when people exchange value (sometimes equated to money). Granted, our exchange system was broken. We where sending worthless promissory notes to China and other countries in exchange for their goods, services and money to build homes here. It all collapsed when they didn’t wanted our worthless promissory notes: can’t blame ‘em. But then, the only problem here was the worthless debt-collateral notes. Everyone else was a good person trying to provide value (albeit most where comitting the sin of getting more value from the system than they produced).
Big corporations in financial distress are laying off people now — some are just cleanning the house and increasing productivity, while others are cutting deep to the bone, reducing the value they can provide. Such big animals are difficult to understand, and I will not even try to address them in one article. Some of them are even hiring: preparing for when the economy improves.
However, at the individual level, there has to be a more positive spin on the situation. I myself have lost a fortune in this situation. I had my moment of despair. Today I feel as if there is some kind of dichotomy: the economy gets worse by the minute, while my own business has shown signs of placing itself in the right path — albeit not enough to sustain the economic growth it enjoyed on 2007 and beginning of 2008 and still under risk. Some of it has been related to re-training and expanding the types of services
An acquaintance recently posted a blog entry that I found of particular interest and is a lot more eloquent than my current blog entry. He expressed the following things (read blog for details):
- Number 1: Recessions are personal
- Number 2: Recessions always end
- Number 3: When offered help, take it.
- Number 4: Use your short term dilemma to start thinking about your long-term plan
The one that I found the most intriguing was the first one. It is a personal matter. If you are growing economically/financially, then you are not in a Recession. If you are not-growing, then you are the Recession. Getting yourself out of the recession situation is the best way to contribute to the world’s stability.
Also, recession implies lack of growth. A period of time of recession puts you in a lower financial standing than the original one. But once you are in that lower standing, any improvement from that point essentially takes you out of the recession and puts you into a growth path. The month or quarter where someone was fired from a job was a recessionary moment for that person, as much as a month without contracts for me. However, the moment you get out of that lower standing, even if it was from $0 a month to $1 a month, you are on a growth path.
I think it is time for most of us to put ourselves in a growth path, even if it doesn’t recover us to our starting points in a short time frame.
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Nice writing style. I look forward to reading more in the future.