The End of the Month: 31 Days of May

May 31st, 2011 Thomasso

Well, I should not knock down this month so harshly, after all I did recover from my financial disparity and kept myself debt free. I also won my dispute with Revenue Canada, not that I was ever truly guilty, but it is nice to have the letters and phone calls stop. Plus, I did manage to keep my living expenses and costs down past my tightly planned budget. The “positives” were few, but monumental–you know who you are.

But the month of May 2011 was also unusually cold and wet, and what should have been a month of seasonal spring, only ushered in more winter weather. Until last week, there were long periods of time where I thought it was still March, and only with the leaves sprouting on the trees, I would have been fooled into thinking that. Even with the days almost at their maximum length, It still feels like spring.

With the good and the bad, the month of May has ended just as it has started. I have lots of hope and expectation, but I also have to be lucid and realistic at the same time as the economic conditions of our times seem to be making it tough for people all around me. Sure, I may think positive, but there are many around me who are on the edge of disparity. I see fraid nerves and broken hearts from the people who live around me, and they are starting to show their dissatisfaction about that. Times are tough, and all you have to do is turn off the television and look around to see it. Pride may keep people from telling the truth about their money woes, but their actions speak louder than words when they go with out, or change drastically to compensate from their old lifestyle.

The lie. Everyone lies about money in Western cultures. Governments, organized religions, corporations, Banks, families and people, we all tell fibs about our wealth because that is how we are brought up in this world today. It took me a long time to admit it, that the line between being rich and poor is more psychological than material, like a social plague we are taught to “go big, or go home.” Living with enlightenment vis-à-vis education has also put me in a very extreme perspective of myself as my world is now different from these new lenses I now wear. In terms of existentialism, I have gone from living in a fear-based world, such as dad telling me that “if I’m not good I’ll end up in Hell,” to now instinctively analysing and applying both analytical and critical thinking to each problem and issue that arises. So now I embrace my richness of my life, and have come to my senses of what really counts in it. So far, the only people that I have pissed off are  a handful of theologians and every Bank in the land, a small price for prosperity and my happiness. But I do not plan to stop there. There are more roads to travel and more hills to conquer; thus, no more lies. Why even bother to lie—I do not care about economic prosperity—I say save that for the Conservatives thinkers?

The single most important thing I have learned in the past five months is how valuable friendship is. Friends are part of our social wellness. We need friends, and they are truly a valued commodity because without friends, we are not human. I cannot thank my friends enough as I have learned to appreciate them on so many levels. The power to talking and listening is living at the grandest level. It is friends that I think is the missing link of our social thought that can carry us through anything that nature has to throw at us. The month of May has granted me with so many friends, and because of that, I am so much richer then I was in March!

Posted in Diatribe, General, Social economics | Comments Off

So, Friday the 13th Eh?

May 13th, 2011 Thomasso

If you are superstitious, then today should have been a red-letter day. But, it was far from being a day when bad things should have occurred, or when everything should have went wrong, the opposite practically happened. The day went incredibly smooth, and was extremely productive. Yes, I was very tired when I got home, but I felt good about it.

There is something to be said about working, even if it is far from what one needs for a comfortable lifestyle. The mind is at ease when you are working. It is pure physiological. You have a goal, a purpose, and there is interaction with people which no doubt helps the human brain function better. Perhaps there is something to be said for the human need of working in a group, even as most seem to hate it.

So I jumped back into the fray, and from a standing position into a full out run, I went to work. Both Thursday and Friday were very laborious for me. Having to focus hard, remember, then regurgitate that information was stressful and punishing, but it quickly came back to me, like ridding a bike, the old neurons started to fire again. Once I got comfortable with the setup, I was able to start running again. All my previous training and experience quickly moved into action and became a natural reflex.

Maybe here I will say this to all those employers who invited me in for an interview, but never called my back. Sorry people (employers), you lose, and you lost big time. As marketers and businesses gurus might have pinpointed you into believing that the pale, stale, males are obsolete, and the young, strong, hard-bodies are what your company needs, then let me say this to you: Take a look at the cost of loyalty, merit and skills versus the youth curve. If you cannot figure that out, then my only statement to you is, “how did you start running a business in today’s economy”? Survival of the fittest—and you are going to lose my friend.

Diversifying is a very old concept. In Canada we do it all the time. Throughout my life, shifts in income have always been the main stay of economic stability. My latest stint has taken me into new uncharted waters, and because of the niche market that I am playing, I will never mention it on my blog in order to keep the competition low. Although you need licensing and a huge amount of training, I still want to keep it low keyed because there are fraudsters and the fakes—people who are deviants and cause great harm to the public and I do not want to them multiply. But yes I have started changing both in terms of work and lifestyle.

My new lifestyle will effect many around me. Perhaps the greatest effect will be on the four levels of governments that are around me who need its citizens to feed it so that it can operate and function. They need capital, revenue, and the turn over in treasury bills diverted back onto cash via taxation. In this brave new world, very little cash will be generated and given back to the wheels of government. It is not that I will be hiding cash, no, it is simply that there is less cash to be had in the market economy.

For example, if Microsoft can buy Skype for something like seven billion dollars in cash, then this is proof that the trickle down effect in retarded, and is not a reliable means of theorizing what is suppose to happen in the real world (CBC News May 10, 2011).

So for cash strapped consumers, cash will still be used, as it is the standard for currency, but it will be kept liquid for as long as possible. Things like credit and loans will be the things of the past as the Banks tighten up too. Sure, Banks will always be there, but only for people who do not really need them for money, and as repositories to keep your money safe until litigation. As for the poor, Banks do not want their business–it is not profitable for them. I blame no one particular person or group, but I will say that this is a cascading effect, and I have changed with each on coming wave.

So I will be focusing on doing more with less. And I have a feeling that I am far from being alone. If every other person is doing this, then I can see the market place changing quite rapidly. In to what, I can only guess, but I think this new change is exciting and may change the “super structure” of “power” as we see it today.
What a Friday the Thirteen eh?  I am happy, glad that I have reach some sort of normality, but sad that my younger friends are going to have an even hard time of reaching the riches of economic success then I did. I am tired, and will not post this entry until Saturday. I am just too tired.

Posted in Criminology, Diatribe, General, Law and Order, Social economics, Social Justice | Comments Off

Gas – Nobody Rides for Free

May 10th, 2011 Thomasso

I have been hearing a lot of chatter on Twitter and the Web about gas prices lately, especially in the last twenty-four hours.  I, like millions of other motorist, are very familiar with the price of gas as it has been slowly creeping its way up on the price scale. Why now has there been a huge serge in fossil fuel prices that kicked in yesterday, and why now has the media, and everyone else, just started to care about it?

I think part of the answer is in the trend itself. It has been steadily climbing ever since the economic meltdown back on 2008. With this slow, or fast creeping rise, depending on how you look at it, this trend in the cost seems to be now effecting us disproportionately more so. This could be the breaking point?

Last night I heard that the flooding of the Mississippi River had “spooked” everyone who cares about the markets of commodities, and they then speculated that the cost of fuel should rise as a hand full of oil refineries along the river’s bank will be shut down. That, coupled with the unrest in the Middle East, are said to be what has caused this sudden drop, and then rise in prices are our gas pumps. This according to the CBC News.

We have food prices creeping upwards too, although how much of it is directly effected by fuel prices is uncertain to me, but the cost of some food stuffs is mind boggling. Tomatoes are a weird food commodity as I have seen a two hundred and fifty percent rise, while coffee has climbed about fifty percent. Then there are the smaller packaging by food processors too – to trick consumers that cost are normal. These are increases that I have observed at my local grocer here in Langley Township from comparing receipts over the last twelve months.

The really big factor is the recovering market from the 2008 meltdown. Growth is still slow in Canada, and the unemployment rate is still something to be concerned with. Corporations are said to be stock piling their cash reserves, so a good chuck of the “trickle down” effect is very slow in returning back to the mainstream according to CBC News. And of course, debt is the number one cause of consumers, businesses and governments from getting back on track with their austerity measures. This all seems to me to be the recipe of a very slow recovery, and possible the “double-dip” recession that everyone keeps talking about.

Since I love statistics, and like to graph out everything I find so that I can visually see the effects, I have put together a couple of charts, courtesy of GasBuddy.com. You can got to their website and play around with the chart, imputing your data ranges and compare your ranges to your heart’s content. The program is limited, but serves its purpose nicely.

Click on the chart to make it bigger. The above chart is comparing the Canadian average, in litres per CND Currency-60 month range, of gasoline prices, in Orang. The Blue line is Vancouver’s price rate compared to Ottawa’s same performance. Vancouver’s rate is higher due to taxation, so the difference compared the national average and Ottawa’s is almost relative. Also look at the huge drop in the middle of the chart, 2008, and the slow creeping climb from 2008 up to now.

This chart compares the USA average, in Blue, to the Canadian average in Red. Again, taxation and government subsidies are responsible for the relative difference. Note too how close together the lines match up together during the 2008 melt-down, and how much farther apart these two trends seems to be afterwards. Keep in mind that a $1.50 litre is almost equalled to $5.68 a US Gallon.

Posted in Diatribe, General, Social economics, Social Justice, Twitter | Comments Off

The Results of my Tsunami Poll

May 6th, 2011 Thomasso

I just added up my data from the March 2011 poll I posted regarding the feelings that people had towards the readiness of British Columbia, and by people in general, about a possible disaster such as the Japanese tsunami earlier this year. I know for myself, I live in the possible tidal zone that could swallow up my home if a tsunami swept up our coast. Not surprisingly, all of you who took my poll felt that no matter where we stand today, we are screwed if such a disaster occurred here along our coast as it did in Japan.

Here is the question that I asked:

Do you think that the West coast of British Columbia is ready for the next “Big Earthquake,” in light of what happened in Japan? Could Vancouver cope with a disaster of that magnitude?

Clearly, with one hundred percent of you in agreement, we are not ready for a disaster of this type. I guess if we feel this way about the Government, and any NGO that is responsible for taking care of us, then it is of the utmost importance that we also prepare for ourselves.

I really wonder just how many people have emergency kits at the ready if, right now, a huge mega earthquake ripped through your city right now! And how long would your survival kit need to last?

Posted in Art, Criminology, Diatribe, flood, General, Photographs, Social economics | 3 Comments »

Stupid Meaningless Numbers

May 6th, 2011 Thomasso

What set this diatribe off for me? This morning as I got the call that there will be no work for me to do today. Well looking at my browser, I just happened to glance at this news story from CBC News that spewed Canada had a lowered its unemployment rate. It is a routine for me to turn on the computer, connect to the Internet, then scan the news site in my browser just after getting up from a hard night’s sleep. So I was happy for about one-one hundredth of a second with this joyous news of economic upwardness. “Ya-hoo” I thought to myself.

CBC NEWS: Canada produces 58,300 jobs in April 58,300 new jobs push unemployment rate to 7.6%

The news story touted that Canada produced over fifty-eight thousands jobs in the month of April, 2011. And then below that it stated that it pushed the unemployment rate to 7.6 percent. So, I bet you are wondering why I was only happy for a very short period of time, right?

OK, first, Canada has almost forty million people in it. I would venture to say that roughly three-quarters of us need income to either support ourselves, or to support our dependants. Most of the thirty million employed are, or have, worked last year. Some have lost their jobs, and are unemployment, while others just simply vanished from off of Statics Canada’s radar. So there is a sizable dark figure in this number alone that is very significant.

Second, We are dealing with rates, not a total number of employment vrs unemployment tallied up into a percentage. I know from having this discussion with my friends, “rates” are very misleading because not many of them have had advanced statistical training, or they simply have forgotten their high school math lessons. Rates are calculated as follows: The total number of employed, divided by the number of unemployed, multiplied by 1000 to give you the sum for your rate.

Sadly, there is one huge variable in this equation that does not satisfy me. How do you determine the number of unemployed?

My third problem. Statistic Canada has only has one real measure and that is the information it gathers from those who have filed for unemployment benefits. It does not, or cannot track those who are “off the radar.” In other words, there is probably a significant number of those who are simply not collecting it, or, for whatever other reason, do not qualify for it, and do not inform the various government agencies that they are unemployed. On the other side of the same coin, there are people who have more than one job, say two part-time jobs, and when they leave one employer, receive their separation papers, they continue to work for another, voiding out any claim(s) they have to the employment insurance benefits. When there are a huge migration of people from one area to another, or from one industry to another, there is an unknown dark figure when trying to account for the population.

And lastly, a drop of 0.1 percent in the unemployment rate is not something that I would run up and down the street celebrating about. In fact, for me, this does not generate any enthusiasm whatsoever because of the unknown variables and that dark figure that would essentially cancel out the variance.

There! I have probably spent more time typing this blog-post out than the time that it was worth reading  this news story. Sure, it is nice to know that our employment rate has dropped, albeit a very modest drop, but I know for some, this feel-good story might be misleading for those who take this as the gospel of economics—it is not. The real hope is that this becomes a trend, a statistical regression that will keep on climbing until we reach utopia.

Posted in Criminology, Diatribe, General, Social economics | Comments Off

It’s Over! Yay – Election 2011

May 2nd, 2011 Thomasso

I am sure happy all of this is over now. The results were nothing short of surprising. For myself, I am stunned on so many levels. Sure, the Conservatives get their majority government that they so gleefully cried for coming into this election, but to have the New Democrats as the official opposition? We are talking a Cow with holes in it! It think tonight many choices were made by the Canadian public, and results speak very clearly for themselves. I see it as “out with the old, in with the new.”

Now whether you agree with it, or not, as I am sure many are unhappy, or shouting hysteria with glee, tomorrow our country will have changed. Canadians have asked for this, Canadians will finally get what they deserve. With a majority government, change will effortlessly take place unlike the case with two consecutive minority governments of the past. We have forty-eight months to test this new machine out and see if it can deliver all those promises that were made during this election.

I will update this graphic tomorrow once the final numbers are in. For now the Conservatives have a clear lead, and a clear majority government, with the cut-off of 155 seats for that majority in Ottawa. This graphic has been updated on May 3rd, 2011. It appears that these are the final results from the election.

Congratulation to Stephen Harper as Prime Minister, with a majority government, and Jack Layton, who is now the leader of the official opposition, a first in Canadian history!

Posted in Art, Diatribe, Events, General, Socail Media, Social economics, Social Justice | Comments Off

Promising the World with Wooden Nickles

April 27th, 2011 Thomasso

Since my graduation, I have been on the quest for the ultimate dream job, the job to end all jobs, that pivotal career job that will be my final place of employment. Cue (scratching the needle over vinyl record sound). With the seasonal economy, high food and fuel prices, an election, and oh heck I will throw in the Royal Wedding too, the market economy has not being doing so well. Naturally, the best employer in Canada, the government, is not hiring as much at this time. So, I wait for that moment when my dream job floats across the frontiers of cyberspace, calling out to me “job opportunity.”

In the meantime, it is remedial, labour type jobs. The sad truth is, with my education and experience, I am doing a lot better than most, so therefore, I consider myself not doing as well; then there are a lot of hurting people in this country. I now have first hand proof.

I was talking to a group of young adults in Langley City on Tuesday. Each one of them are in their mid twenties. All live at home with their parents and guardians. None have full-time work, or a job, and they all claim to be earning little bits of income from doing various jobs, and favours that come by every so often. They scrounge bottles, collect scrap metal, and do the odd acts of labour for profit that they can find. They are very good at the “Con” game.

In a way I feel bad for the world. Everything that could not happen to the market economy has happened. Greed is flourishing well, and I blame that squarely on most of the troubles we see today with large over extended corporations, and people who spent beyond their means. For the young adults that I met with back then, they dreamed of having credit cards, driving around in expensive cars, and having a magazine model as girlfriend. Reality is a far off distant land for these guys. But, they are also trapped in the land of promises.

They too want that dream job, that career where they are boss, and they bring home the mountains of money, and never have to worry about where the next meal is going to come from. They even play the lottery regularly, spending what little money they have, after buying cigarettes and beer, on these bets. All for that single dream chance—that dream.

Here we have a case of the Cons, being Conned in the great cycle of disparity. There is tragedy and humour all wrapped into one emotion for these guys. I sit, and all I can do is listen.

One of the best dialogues that has stuck in my mind over the years came from a short story called “Daemons in Middle Town America” by R. R. Brendon (spelling?), circa, 1950s, which was mandatory reading in one of my English courses. The story is told from the first person point of view of a young boy who encountered a preacher selling trinkets that would ward off evil beings. The boy was on his way into town to buy a hammer for his father who needed it to finish fixing the family wagon. The preacher noticed that the boy had money was trying to “con” the boy out of it.

The fat man in the white suite stood up said, “Behold, I give you the Sun.”

“But the Sun is not yours to give.” I answered.

“Only the pure in heart can see the Sun for what it means…” the fat man snapped back.

“The Sun shines equally everywhere on the Earth,” I replied back.

“You do not believe! You dare question that what is right, as the nose plainly on your face!” yelled back the fat man, pointing upwards at the Sun. “Then you will forever live in darkness….” as the fat man looked down and shook his head.

“Um, Nope! The Sun looks as bright as it did this morning. And I know this, dad said it is going to be Sunny all this week. Are you sure you are not getting confused with night time?” I then mounted my bike and continued onward into town.

I am sure these young men will grow up to be great and wonderful people. Perhaps one or two of them will survive this economic depression and leap forward and make their mark on the world. The sadness is in the talent that is being wasted as each of them claws their way through each day to get by.

Posted in Around Town, Criminology, Diatribe, General, Social economics, Story Telling | Comments Off

What Ever Happen to the Albion Ferries?

April 23rd, 2011 Thomasso

Do you ever wonder what happened to the Albion Ferries, the ones that took passengers from Fort Langley, BC (the South side) and connected them to the Maple ridge side, across the Fraser River? Every time I walk down to the old terminal site, I see them, and then shake my head. Why? Because I see the cost, as they sit there and rust away.

The ferries are up for sale, but no one wants to buy them becuase they are rather expensive. And no wonder, with the economic downturn and recession, whose got money to spend on ferries?

The Albion Ferry was shut down after the Golden Ears bridge was build just a few kilometres down stream about two years ago now. There was no point in keeping the ferry service going with the new crossing completed. However, it should be noted that the Ferry was free to cross for anyone, while the new bridge is a toll bridge, and is a rather expensive one at that. It seems many are making the long trip around through the none-toll Port Mann bridge instead, judging by the low usage of the new bridge, according to the Langley Times News paper. As it goes, there is politics, and then there is consumer demand, as ultimately it is the people who vote with their feet-the demand is there, but the costs are still too high for the masses to make that transition, according to the Langley Times News Paper.

So, the land that once docked the Ferries now sits abandoned.

Now, from someone who lives in Fort Langley, the shutting down of the Ferry was a blessing, albeit not for the businesses who demanded the flow of traffic for their patronage. I now love that I can cross Glover Road without having to deal with speeding traffic surges every fifteen minutes! My friends who run the local coffee shop swear that they have lost business ever since. Of course they cannot tell me for sure if it is just the economic downturn causing all of this instead, but they are, after all business people – they think only in terms of profit margins, not reasoning.

So, if you know of anyone who wants to buy some Ferries, they are parked (docked) on the Maple Ridge side of the Fraser River. I have no idea how much they are asking for them, but I am sure you could swing them a deal. I do know that the asking price is far more than they are worth for the scrap metal.

Posted in Around Town, Diatribe, General, Humour, Photographs, Social economics, Story Telling | Comments Off

Construction

April 21st, 2011 Thomasso

For the last three days the ground had been shaking in irregular intervals, marking the onset of construction across the tracks from where I live. Like the play, “Death of a Salesmen,” gentrification has crept into my neighbourhood, slowly choking the view, sounds and peace from obscurity. As my windows rattle and the noise of the machinery sends shock-waves across the yards, the birds and squirrels are absent now.

My view of the Fraser River will be gone soon as our once prime real-estate now gives way to those who have paid a hundred times more than us to have it in their front windows. The sound the train which travels down the twin tracks almost once every hour will be much more louder as the sound now will have a multistory building to bounce off of with. I will have people gazing down at me for the first time, as opposed to me gazing down at those who walk the shores of the river.

Our era of quietness and privacy will be broken for the first time as the North side of the tracks will become the new new.

Oddly enough, the very reason why so many wish to move here, is the very thing that is leaving us at exactly same the rate. Numbers have a way of doing that. You take one, then you loose one. Very simple mathematics. It is the simplicity of the universe. There is no mystery or supernatural force, just plane and simple mathematics.

It has been three days since the vibrations of construction started on the North side of the tracks. It does not bother me, as it is all done during daylight hours, but it is a warning, a reminder that soon we too will have to uproot ourselves because the land must give way for development.

In the play, “Death of a Salesmen,” gentrification was only one piece of the message presented in that fictional story. Growing old, and loosing your usefulness as the twilight of your life approaches is perhaps the main thesis of that classic masterpiece. The home you build, out in the suburbs, then becomes the new mecca of development, but your time has run its course, and fighting it is no longer an option as the value of the home is only as good as the development that needs its space.

I have made this connection between the play, and the little town of Fort Langley before. The old must give way for the new. And like the laws of mathematics, the new will eventually out number the old, whether through attrition, multiplication or migration, the change is inevitable. The hardest part for the old is to accept the new and understand that it was once the new, as the old before it had to give way to make room for them.

The play has taught me to embrace the change rather than fighting it. I have learned never to attach myself to the land, as the land will always look after itself. Instead, I must look after myself. By the power of mathematics, so to will it play directly into my being. As the buildings become erect, and the people move into them, causation will demand that the value of the space I currently occupy must increase as well. So, then I must accept two dilemmas: First, stay and live with the new new which entails more cost for the privilege of living in my home in lieu of higher taxes and public utilities. Or, second, relocate to somewhere to the equivalent of what I have today, interfering with the same mathematical equations  elsewhere. There is no irony on this ironing board!

These are my thoughts currently rattling around inside my head. Pay them no mind.

Posted in Around Town, Diatribe, General, Social economics, Story Telling | Comments Off

Inflation, Recession, Economics and You

April 19th, 2011 Thomasso

On a very serious note, the inevitable has finally started, the much anticipated crescendo of any upheaval of business cycles goes, the inflation period has started. I want to know what people are doing about it in terms of dealing with the world wide problem of rising costs? The Canadian Broadcast Corporation, CBC posted a news story on the numbers of this latest period that have been released from “Bloomberg,” that originally estimated the rate of inflation to be at 2.8 percent, but the actual numbers came in at 3.3 percent instead. However, some items have risen a lot higher than others such as gasoline and some food items like broccoli. Overall, this month, April 2011, we will see the sharpest so far for price increases in Canada. The new economy keeps changing.

For the first leg of my quest, I turn to the website called wise bread, which seems to be one of the most viewed sites out on the world wide web as a guide and source of news regarding recessionary and inflation issues and lifestyle. I turn particularly to a post it featured on December 28 2007, which does seem like a coincidence being that that was right after the holiday period when the economic meltdown was expediently cascading down hill across America. The advice in this post is very good and well written in terms of any period of economic downturn. So I will analyze it.

In the post the author explains rather well how the cascading effect of how a rescission works, and how the trickle down effect spills into all facets of the economy. In really good terminology, the whole process is explained in a down-to-Earth manner. Then the Post goes into some of the many options that both consumers and businesses can do to weather the downturn out. In particular, I love this quote, “Resist the temptation to rely on credit as your emergency fund” (Wise Bread, Dec. 28 2007). These are words to live by because once travelled down this road of using your credit to support your lifestyle with the absent income it will only prolong the inevitable and end up making your financial situation worse.

As for the news post from the CBC, Banks and other economic forecasters are the equivalent to the weather forecasters, as they can predict very well in the near future, but once they move beyond the short term window, it then becomes anyone guess. Predicting inflation is really like predicting a game chess between two champions because there are so many moves, and the amount of time until the endgame varies, no one  could ever accurately predict the path and outcome of the game. The markets are exactly like that. We can guess that Gold will preform very well during the economic downturn as it is traditionally viewed as a good investment to hedge against inflation, but no one can predict how it will actually perform during that period of increase in terms of time and levels. As Gold is but only one of many commodities out in the market being publicly traded, but it is special because it act like a commodity and currency all-in-one.

For all of us, food and gasoline are going to contribute to our daily costs. The almost 4 percent inflationary increase spelled out by this news story in the CBC website is only an average calculated out in terms of overall outlooks. In other words, it will effect everyone differently, and with varying degrees. If you are truck driver who hauls goods over large distances, the cost of gasoline will greatly effect you as compared to single person who uses public transportation in the same period of time. Some commodities have risen more sharply than others, so the balance how the rate of inflation effecting you will vary from you, as compared to say your neighbour. Where you live also plays an important factor in the rate of inflation. Because Canada is a resource based economy, bringing in finished goods is going to cost more than say someone living in the Untied States will pay.

So, tips on surviving the inflationary period of the recession:

• Save, stock up on good deals, and do not over spend on unnecessary items. Money will be tight.

• Reduce, or eliminate personal debt. Guaranteed that as inflation creeps in, so too will the rise in interests rates from any Bank. Perhaps one of the biggest traps in any economic downturn will be the debt to income ratio.

• Live within your means. You will have to continually adjust your living expenses and exercise a live lean proactive lifestyle with reduced income versus increasing costs. For example, the days of going out to a restaurant will need to be scaled back, or if not completely stopped altogether.

• Your Bank will not be your best friend. This ties into the concept of living on a promise.  To quote the Wise Bread web site, “If you live on promises, remember that promises get broken–especially in a recession.” (Wise Bread, Dec. 28, 2007).

• Take on more work, or increase your income. For single income households, this could mean the stay-at-home spouse getting back into the work force, or you taking on extra work.

• Living in a cash world. I know this topic gets little air play, but if you really think about it, with cash in hand, you know exactly where you stand in terms of your daily finances. The amount of cash will always remind you of where you stand at every moment between pay periods. The bank account does not have that same psychological effect.

Sources:

Wise Bread Website: Preparing for a recession – by Philip Brewer on 28 December 2007

CBC NEWS: Inflation rate highest since before recession – Posted: Apr 19, 2011

Posted in Diatribe, General, Socail Media, Social economics | Comments Off