Author: David Gow Date: 2010-07-29 Region: Memphrémagog
Well, it's been a while now that we've been hearing about the recession. For the longest time, like a nasty strain of flu, no one wanted to admit to having it, personally. But now, two years after the Americans admitted to it, we can no longer say in Quebec that we haven't heard about it or experienced it. Our businesses, our employers, our local institutions all have had some taste of it, and we along with them. Many of us have seen what I call our imaginary money disappear from theoretical RRSP values.
This loss has lead to a trend where Canadians are saving more than ever, refusing to spend willy-nilly, as they had for a good decade and longer. What does such sensible saving lead toward? Losses for service providers and a prolonged, perhaps growing, certainly unstable, sense of malaise mixed with optimism.
But have people actually lost money? Hard to say, when the money one has lost was not there to begin with, but rather an estimation or of theoretical value. Recessions and depressions are as much about how people feel as what their bottom line reality is. Stats Canada shows most Canadians have more "disposable income" this year than last. Teachers, government employees etc., and others with fixed-to-inflation salaries have not only not lost income, they have actually gained ground in terms of what their income will buy in housing, and in many critical areas. Meanwhile, many speak as though they have been decimated, and must now put water on the dinner platter.
So the question then, is when do we get back to normal? Or, do we get back to normal? Do we have to find a new normal? Demographics don't exactly support a return to where we were. An aging population is not going to be inclined to run out and spend, spend, spend. So, we may be in for a long haul of trying to hold ground and keep what business we have. A kind of postwar Europe pattern where things did get better, but after some initial fits and starts it moved forward relatively slowly, with Europeans not having, at that time, the expectations we in North America have.
Interest rates, usually a weathervane of sorts, blow up and blow down, month in and out, without much good sense. The truth is, no one knows where the economy on the whole will go. So, like the moods of people, the economy, a construct of people and their own desire to meter and quantify, we shall have to endure and wait and give full measure and witness to the weight and luster of the outcome of our gold's theoretical and seemingly actual worth.
Well, it's been a while now that we've been hearing about the recession. For the longest time, like a nasty strain of flu, no one wanted to admit to having it, personally. But now, two years after the Americans admitted to it, we can no longer say in Quebec that we haven't heard about it or experienced it. Our businesses, our employers, our local institutions all have had some taste of it, and we along with them. Many of us have seen what I call our imaginary money disappear from theoretical RRSP values. 
