Recovery (or Not) and Spending Patterns in 2009
As a fairly recent semi-retiree, I have been thinking a lot about the lessons we are learning from this Great Recession that has hit us all. Fortunately, via at least adequate planning, cash reserves and current income will carry my family through for the next few years. So, I am not worrying about putting groceries on the table. My parents and in-laws all were through the Great Depression, and their lessons on frugality and making do were passed along to my wife and me. Maybe they are attenuated a bit, especially in me, and probably attenuated a bit more so in my son and daughter. I remember a phrase "its not how much you earn, its how much you hold onto that counts." So, for now, our discretionary spending is more carefully thought through then it has been since early in our marriage when were were saving for our first home purchase.
What discretionary spending decisions will my wife and I make this year? We do have a few frugal vacation trips planned, since life is unpredictable and one must enjoy it along the way. Education is another, with my son looking at grad school for an MS. Maybe we'll do some carefully chosen home renovations. Clearly we do not need a large screen TV. Our cars are fine given routine maintenance.
I hope all of you out there earlier in your IH careers get through this. I do have hope that we will see a turn-around of this economic mess this year, but it will be several years slowly climbing up and I am doubtful that recovery will take us back to the high level the economy had reached. I always felt that when a normal hard working family had trouble making ends meet to live in a normal home, something had to give. Well, the problem is too many people went too far beyond their means, and bubble after bubble burst.
Anyway, this is just the view of an industrial hygienist and not that of a professional economist. Of course, a lot of good THEY did us!
Do any of you others out there have insights on what we should be doing in these tough times as a group of professionals with concern for the well-being of workers throughout the world? Do we need to watch that corners are not cut on exposure control system maintenance? Is this a time for further pushing on "green industrial hygiene initiatives"? If yes on that, how could we undertake that? Are we already optionally involved in that? I'll leave these thoughts open to ponder over in later blogs.