John Linton
I'm not given to 'philosophical' views of the world I have lived in nor on any other aspect of 'life' but I can't help but be forced to consider whether the much promised "recovery" from the 'GFC' will in fact happen or whether the world I have known and the worlds that everyone else has known do in fact continue to exist or have they, unnoticed by each one of us, slipped away over the past few months and been replaced by something very different.
I read this earlier this morning:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123125518158857415.html
and wondered just how large a disaster it would have to be for one of the richest men in the EU to take his own life? Surely he would have been able to 'squirrel away' a few bill for a 'rainy day'?
Over the last few days I have read some truly surprising articles about how gigantic companies such as Woolworths in the UK that after being in business for 100 years just ran out of money owing over a billion pounds and just 'disappeared closing 800 stores and putting 27,000 people out of work on one day.
http://www.ausfoodnews.com.au/2008/12/24/woolworths-uk-closes.html
Their receivers just couldn't find anyone to pay anything for that huge business or any part of it.
Waterford in Ireland (whose products cram our glassware cupboards) celebrated its 250th anniversary of being in business and the declared itself unable to service its 850 million Euro debt and called in receivers with every likelihood that their 15,000 employees worldwide will lose their jobs before the end of February.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2009/jan/05/waterford-crystal-ireland
In this brief article:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123127612164858503.html
Alcoa announced that it was retrenching 15,000 employees on top of the 8,000 employees it had 'let go' over the previous six months.
Those four references are just a tiny fraction of the articles that appear every day naming more and more giant lay offs or total collapses of companies in virtually every part of the world. If you just take the smallest reference, to Waterford, what sort of effect is going to have on the entire town of Waterford and the surrounding district if Waterford Crystal ceases to exist after 250 years of employing local people? Will their 'world' now be changed beyond recognition? It's hard to see why/how that wouldn't be the case. Obviously similar effects will occur when any large local employer closes down and the media has dozens of references every day to such situations.
Its all very well to read about the 'bail outs' of the US or UK banking industry or more vitally the US automotive industry. But what does it mean when entire industries in some of the richest and most highly developed countries on the planet are so badly run that they actually reach a point where they can no longer exist? The UK Woolworths example of a company trading for 100 years and employing so many people reaching a point where it was so hopelessly operated it wasn't worth anything is only an example of what the US auto and banking industry is - a hugely impacting part of a huge economy on which hundreds of millions of people are dependent threatening the end of all of those people's lives (economically at least and then how many 'steps' before throwing the rest of the life in front of a train - assuming they are still running).
Apart from not being, in any sense of the word, a 'philosopher' neither am I an alarmist - apart from anything else I don't have the time. However I do read quite widely as part of the information gathering required to operate a small business and over the past 15 months it seems to me that more and more articles are being written, often by eminent and thoughtful commentators, that the 'civilised world's' "governments" have absolutely no qualifications, whatsoever, to be making the decisions they have made since the early 1950s. Not only that but as the world's population has trebled over that time the people making decisions on behalf of their various country's populations have become less and less qualified to make the sorts of decisions that grew ever more complex and required ever more base knowledge of an ever increasing range of issues.
I know how little I know about the ever changing circumstances required to run a small business in an industry I have been involved with all of my working life. I fully understand my inadequacies to hold the 'position' I currently hold and to make the decisions I am required to make every hour of every day.......and, in general terms, I am more qualified and knowledgeable than most people in my position because, apart from having a realistic level of education and intellectual abilities I also have long and detailed experience in the basics of the tiny part of commercial life I am involved in.
Have a look at the 'life time' qualifications of the current Federal Government decision makers and, irrespective of how you may have voted in the last election, consider, one by one, whether you believe that you are comfortable that any one of them should be making decisions on the responsibilities they have been given.
Then realise that the same scenario would most likely exist in every other country on the planet.
No wonder everything is in such a highly dangerous mess.
The vote is a precious gift - it should be used more wisely in the future than in the past.