RECESSION: ARE WE BROKE...OR WORSE?

“Recession is when your neighbour loses his job. Depression is when you lose yours”…Ronald Reagan (1911 - 2004) 40^th President of the United States of America.

The Global angle!

Technically, when America sneezes, pretty much the rest of the world would catch cold, this is simply because they are the world super-powers with an average total annual budget of around $4 trillion, that simply blows the rest of the world out of the waters.

So if an American loses his or her job, perhaps you don’t have a choice but to be an entrepreneur, innovative for survival.

The world is definitely familiar with recession and depression just like the plague.

Some countries get destroyed by it; some only envisage it, while smart economies anticipate it and by implication prepare for it, but what is recession really?

A recession is when the economy declines significantly for at least six months. That means there’s a drop in the following five economic indicators: real GDP, income, employment, manufacturing and retail sales. People often say a recession is when the GDP growth rate is negative for two consecutive quarters or more.

Knowing this, how much recession trouble are we really in?

There will always be a business cycle and white-collar workers will get hit in the next recession like they always do in recession”…Robert Reich. (1946 - ) Former United States Secretary of Labor

Men: Unsung Heroes

Whether you like it or not, no matter how apparently superior or otherwise men may appear to themselves, they are equal and will continue to be drivers of the economy in their diverse ways, little or gargantuan.

Men due to the evidently scarce resources are naturally insecure, due to their good humane nature care in ways where so he gets misquoted, due to nature itself, lacks infinite power and longevity, therefore he not only has a diminishing point, he at some point passes away chasing a dream for himself or for others.

However, despite the fact that we realize how short life is, it just so happens in some way that man’s ego and greed still comes to play, and somehow manages to ruin everything.

Men began to embrace vanity and needlessly oppress themselves, forgetting to care about the one thing that mattered, advancement of the quality of life.

This is why philosophers spring up from different corners of the planet to remind the rest of the world of the imperatives of love, hard work and respect for principles that govern the earth.

“When women were excluded from New Deal programs, Eleanor Roosevelt fought to include them. Roosevelt was among a handful of leaders who realized the U.S. economy would not escape the depths of recession without the full contributions of women”…Lael Brainard. (1962 - ) Member; U.S. Federal Reserves Board of Governors, and served as U.S. Under Secretary of the Treasury for International Affairs in the Barack Obama administration.

Women: Untold Power

I’m a huge fan of National Geographic channel, and one thing that I’ve learned is that in the animal kingdom, the female creatures are more vicious and more will powered especially when hunting for prey, this is perhaps because they let the responsibility of the survival of their families rest on their shoulders. Within the Pride of Lions for instance, the Lioness does more of the hunting and even allows her king take the Lion’s share, literally.

Has a woman ever fought for you before? Is it your mother, your aunty, your sister, your wife, your female boss, your female counterpart or colleague? They go all out for you, and it is such a wonderful fight of love and sacrifice with unbelievable passion, trust me I’ve seen it happen countless times.

Permit me on this, even in the Garden of Eden, Eve thought she was doing Adam a favour by being adventurous eating the apple, if it was a good thing; at least she made the first bold step.

Women have indescribable power, and are probably one of earth’s most untapped resources.

If women are empowered to control a chunk of the universal wealth, you will see how money can be spent in compassionate ways to help heal the world by eradicating poverty and hunger, and safety will be improved, remember women invented the Kevlar, Ironing Boards and Fire escapes.

“The other thing is quality of life; if you have a place where you can go and have a picnic with your family. It doesn’t matter if it’s recession or not, you can include that in your quality of life”…Jim Fowler. (1932 - ). Professional Zoologist

Clear Solution

A school of thought blames recession on our level of education, exposure and lifestyle. 
Think about it, we are just humans trying to make the world habitable and adding to a prescribed or designed bottom line, which of course with time emanates to something much bigger than ourselves ranging from causes to corporations to Fortune 500 companies in proportion with government and her policies.

Nigeria for instance is literally swimming against the tide of recession in the most unrealistic way.

This is a nation with very massive potentials for tourism, mining, Agriculture, transportation, power, water sports and so much more.

Apart from the fact that we are not even maximizing our latent prospects, we have resolved to be a bunch of corrupt thieves, which robs us of our credibility and goodwill, yet we celebrate the shameful and expensive lifestyle.

Other intellectual gatherings also advice people to nullify the stereotype that it is government’s responsibility to create jobs, in truth, they are only meant to provide infrastructure to support employment.

We also need to be more accountable to our economy, we are materialistic for luxurious items that we really cannot afford, yet we acquire them at he expense of our economy, while a larger percentage of the population die of waning amenities, hunger and diseases.

If we truly need classy stuff in huge quantity we might as well make them in Nigeria and build an indigenous brand to give the Nigerian people a sense of belonging and confidence to grow in dignity of labour.

Our spending is way too high and we need to cut it.

“What are the odds that people will make smart decisions about money…if they can get rich making dumb decisions?...Michael Lewis. (1960 - ) American Non-fiction Author and financial Journalist.

Africa: A Black thing?

Many forums have featured controversial topics about Africa and the black race having poor financial management skills and commitment, which by implication has caused the obvious stunted growth and development we see in Africa.

Some people find the assertion insulting, while some have embraced the apparent theory with open arms, perhaps so that we can jointly solve an identified problem.

It’s a good thing that the world is becoming a global village where information flies at the speed of light and all races effectively interact constantly, so much that we are blind to skin colour, but for the mischievous folks amongst us that make it an issue, yet there hasn’t been any claim that an economy crashed due to someone’s race or skin colour.

Africa historically has always been rich in culture before she was substantially colonized by the western world that taught her western ways, which has not perfectly fit till present day.

For example, the white people have a reputation of conquering parts of Africa, forced the people to learn their ways, along the line killed some, shipped some away as slaves and put some in family ways. 
This is a deep wound that newer African generations cannot forget considering the significance of history and honour to the African people.

The western people see Africans in numbers especially when gathering data and recommending policies, while the African culture enables you see people as incredible and strong families with genuine love and compassion, which helps you consider lives over bottom lines of big corporations.

“As sure as the spring will follow the winter, prosperity and economic growth will follow recession”…Bo Bennett.(1972 - ). American Author

Fate: Uncharted Destiny

As they say, every cloud has a silver lining, and there is always light at the tunnel’s end, in the light of this, perhaps it is safe to say that there is hope.

I have also come to realize that things aren’t always as they seem.

There are things we neither know nor understand ranging from other realms to clandestine activities of government.

What if there was a classified pact that all nations signed which restricts others from their terrains in terms of water territory to trade?

What if a handful of powerful people simply force markets such as weaponry, drugs, porn and money laundering to thrive at the expense of the health and future of our kids?

Beyond working hard at manufacturing and development, perhaps we should be more humane and make the world a better place by ending wars, poverty and hunger by enlightening people about the perks of peace and love.

We need to teach people that real poverty is actually in the mind so that we can first be content by what we have, because contentment brings great gain, and will allow us to look away from the vanity infested and unnecessary material items of the world that seek to hurt and disappoint us before eventually withering away like smoke into the skies.

By the way, with the current global and economic trends, there are indications that America is about to sneeze again, and the only economies that won’t catch cold are the prepared ones, good luck with that though.

Thank you, and be awesome.

Akin Abimbola.

(akinzogee@yahoo.com, akinzogee@gmail.com)

Twitter: @akinzogee

Facebook: Critical Lyric by Akin Abimbola

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Sources: Brainy Quote, Google, Good reads, The Balance, The Big Short, Wikipedia

This article is an original piece, reasonably researched and contains considerable opinion and a unique style of the author.

The names in actual stories are not real and the stories in this write-up are usually fictional, consequently, people’s names appearing are purely co-incidental, except for quotes and news that are typically referenced.