Underestimating the Damage

Thoughtful commentators on the economy are noticing big changes afoot: less dining out; more 'value' shopping; and so forth. So far, they are being rather conservative in their estimations of how far the citizenry is going to be cutting their spending on consumer items. For example, people speak of dining out in the USA being reduced from 50% of the food budget to 40%, returning to the level of 2000.

We believe this is ridiculously over-optimistic. In 1955, dining out was 25% of the food budget. Remember, 1955 was a time of prosperity. Since the world is sinking into a Depression that will last for ten years or more, it would be more realistic to see the luxury of dining out returning to a very low proportion of food spending - say 10%.

In a nutshell, we expect to see this collapse in restaurant and other luxury spending because making it through the next ten years is going to be increasingly a matter of economic survival. More and more of the population will be feeding themselves primarily by way of government food assistance (which does not allow for prepared meals) - as long as such assistance lasts, and most of the rest will sensibly economise by eliminating dining out.

For households not to commence draconian economisations at this point is an invitation to poverty and potential destitution. Such economisations will become more and more evident on a survivor basis. Functioning households will be economical, non-economical households will be dissolved or become economical.

In spite of increasing awareness of deterioration, there is an almost ubiquitous fantasy that recovery is nigh, and when it arrives the population will return to its consumeristic ways. Such a recovery is simply never going to materialise. When, and more importantly if, something akin to economic progress resumes at some point in the increasingly distant future, the economic landscape of the world will be utterly and permanently changed.

We intend to survive this transition and, more than that, experience as much as we can of our idea of the good life. We hope, Reader, the same for you. The severity of the Depression and its consequences must not be underestimated if you wish to be a survivor.

Consider the lessons of the survivors of the Great Depression (1929-1939): pay for everything with cash; make do, mend, use it up, do without; throw away nothing that could be put to use. Our progenitors were altered (often traumatically considering most survivors became compulsive hoarders at least to some extent) by the experience. And remember these are the survivors! Think how much worse it was for the non-survivors!