Things have to change Rural Ramblings
No matter what the chest beaters, most of them who have never had to choose between feeding their family or paying bills, tell you about how great the economy is or will be, for many people, worldwide, the plain truth is that life is hard and getting harder.
Sure, there may be plenty of jobs out there but many of them are in low pay service industries where no matter how hard one may work or how many hours one does work, making ends meet is getting harder and harder to do and with rampant inflation may become impossible.
To the bean counters. Raising interest rates has only a limited effect and, to many, just makes things worse as mortgages and rents soar. For banks and those with a lot of savings it’s great. The rich get richer and the poor get poorer. Governments have to take great care here. When prices go up people cut back on what they don’t need, consumer goods, vehicles, holidays, dining out, meds and more. With many economies dependent on people buying stuff and services, a lot of stuff and services, when inflation becomes rampant then recession is usually not far behind it.
People are already angry over many things, not least COVID restrictions, which are being rolled back anyway, but there are other resentments too and this is playing out, again worldwide in demonstrations and worse. The genie of discontent is out of the bottle and you only have to look back through your history books to see just how bad things can get when the people take action, authorities can’t cope and sometimes regimes fall. I’m not saying that what replaces them ends up being any better but it’s a cycle that is best avoided.
I can’t ever see how economies can keep on growing forever dependent on, and I’m repeating myself here, buying endless amounts of stuff. Show people they have a chance to live, albeit modestly, and even better aspire to better things and a good deal of the discontent will likely be moderated. I’ve always thought that a Universal Basic Income (UBI) was a good concept. There are studies that show it’s really not that expensive and, I would argue, that taking into account social and administrative costs, which could be avoided. UBI could make all the difference for people struggling in low pay jobs. UBI could mean seniors on a fixed income could be independent for longer. Others may be able to afford to volunteer, start a business or improve their qualifications. If rich people don’t want UBI, donate it to good causes.
To governments everywhere. There have already been successful trials with UBI. Things really have to change. Be brave, be bold. UBI could be a very good place to start from.