Dear Sir,

Is there a benefit to an economic downturn? The answer should be, no one benefits, right?

One thing we probably know is that those who were at the margins having a glimmer of prosperity probably have the most to complain about, while those at the absolute bottom gained a few more friends offering shared misery.

An economist may look at a sagging debt equation where government expenses exceeds its earnings and foretell of crippling debt scenarios which hamper recovery. In the meantime, monetised manipulators use the accepted chaos to make their institutions more efficient, create new standards that previously would meet resistance. Staff layoffs which become entirely necessary are more palatable during recessions, which make companies fitter during recovery. In fact, recovery often is simply a readjustment of old formats that become retooled for the upswing and boom in productivity brought on by innovations made during recessions.

Depending on which hat one wears and how far one is away from the cliff edge, a leader recognising what is at hand may choose to ride out a depression.

The marble game has always been the case of how many marbles one ends up with. I’m sure it is damn disheartening when one of the children can play until the other loses all his marbles, the loser only to discover the guy he played against had a big gallon-size mayonnaise bottle full under his bed. Luck can take you but so far because soon it, too, will run out, but capital and resources have more certainty and will more likely prevail at the end of the day.

There are many who have had to tighten their belts and they constitute the majority.

Yet there is a minority who will have benefited exponentially because of the recession. Many persons would have lost business and market share, have had houses and properties lost, have made deals that they could ill afford. Simply trying to avoid one disaster, only to fall deeper. Policy follows the same pathway, a path of usury or a policy of relief, the policy of the elite versus the policy of pragmatism.

Sell off all the national industries such as transport, etc, is the policy of the elite. Why? Because the years of capitalisation it took for the public to acquire and develop those industries will be given away under the guise of recession and the buzzword “sustainability”.

Raising the fares to a sustainable level is the policy of pragmatists because future generations will inherit wealth.

Calling the mortgage is the practice of an elite who will go in and purchase at sub-prime. Extending the terms of the mortgage is the policy of pragmatists because yesterday’s good customer has not suddenly turned bad and, given proper comfort, will be a good customer tomorrow.

So we need to listen and look, and have a proper sense of what’s really going on.

KHALID WASI