I hope all you people out there are enjoying your long weekend. If you can find it in your heart, please spare a thought for those less privileged...those of us in the retail industry, by and large.
As I wrote a couple of years ago, this one doesn't count. Pretty much every store is open this Monday, for reasons that escape me.
For the most part I love living in Canada and consider this country to be one of the world's finest. But that doesn't mean it's perfect, and one of the ways it falls woefully short of perfection is its paucity of paid holidays. We just don't get enough of 'em. Not only do we have to go all the way from New Year's Day to Easter without a break, we only get two real holiday weekends in calendar summer.
Business types fret about our declining productivity vis-a-vis the United States, and occasionally you hear about our deficient standard of living (everywhere but in the Calgary-Fort McMurray corridor, where the average income is ten percent higher than America's average). I just want to slap these people senseless. So what if people here in Canada are much more likely to buy a Civic or a Corolla over an Accord or a Camry? Our smaller cars are better for the environment, especially given the distances many of us drive. (I know, I know, commuting is evil...but we have counties in Ontario the size of some U.S. states, and our country is so vast we usually measure distance in driving time.)
And it's not as if compacts and subcompacts have tramp chairs or something. Our Echo is quite comfortable, even over long drives.
There is an unhealthy emphasis, in my opinion, on materials over experience and environment when we rank standards of living. I could easily live in a double-wide trailer, so long as the view out its window included water. Most of the "stuff" I have I don't need and wouldn't miss overmuch if suddenly I didn't have it. This attitude is utterly foreign in many areas of the U.S., where, let's not forget, the first order of business post 9/11 was to spend! spend! spend! "or the terrorists win".
Debt is now a status symbol, not just in the United States but increasingly here in Canada, too. When did this happen, exactly, this going out in public with your financial fly down and bragging about how well you're hung? Let me tell you something, when the interest rates start to go up a lot of people will find themselves well and truly hung.
...And they will go up, trust me. The recent volatility in the stock market is a precursor of things to come: indeed some economists are forecasting that recession is not just possible but imminent. Granted, the same economists have been forecasting imminent recession for years now, and that wolf hasn't shown. But they keep on about it not out of some perverse desire to frighten, but because much of the economy, particularly in the U.S., is built on sand. Don't think them insane just because they natter on about insanity.
It may appear that I've wandered far away from where I started this post. Not so much. I work in retail, an industry that's inextricably tied to the wider economy. When food prices soar, disposable income (already at a premium) is reduced even further, an ill economic wind. But I'd argue that we could all do with a little less spending and a hell of a lot more saving. I won't mind: I work in a discount grocery store...my job is fairly recession-proof.
No, I'll go further: I'd like to see us redefine the economy. I'd like to see a decline in productivity (within reason) as cause for celebration, not alarm. In France, all workers are guaranteed 30(!) paid holidays a year. How many days are guaranteed in the United States? Zero. And in Canada, while at least we get some paid vacation, it's nowhere near what France enjoys.
Why? The article linked above makes a convincing case that it's because of rampant consumerism. People may claim to highly value their time off, but their actions show they're more concerned with one-upping their neighbours: bigger house, bigger SUV, bigger wide-screen TV...For that, they need money, and to get money they need to work. A lot. The average American male works 100 hours more a year than his father did; the average female, 200 hours more a year than her mother. The entire culture is geared around spending ever-increasing sums of money: it is widely reported, for instance, that it costs over a quarter of a million dollars to raise a single child from birth to age 18. There are families that barely make that much money in eighteen years, yet they manage.
If we really valued our time as we claim to, we'd have no problem, for instance, taking a 20% cut in pay in return for a three-day weekend every week. Nearly all of us could save 20% of our monthly expenses if we were honest with ourselves.
The coming market correction will restore some sanity to the economy. How's about we restore some sanity to our lives?
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