How to Take Advantage of the Recession

Recession. Scary word. Though not for everyone. Indeed, it can have some very distinct advantages for particular people. The fact I am not one of them does not make me bitter. Not one jot.

Retailers

This bunch would have us all believe they are at Death’s door about to ring the bell. Falling numbers of shoppers, lower spending per capita, and similar headlines appear regularly. Retailers are forced (on pain of death clearly) to reduce prices just to get people in the door. Except they only reduce prices of about 3% of their stock. So they see us coming through their big, glass doors, get us inside and tempt us with their merchandise. And their super handy store card with – just for today – 10% discount off any (non-reduced) purchases we make. Everyone wins. They get the sale(s) and the commission for selling us credit. And we get our bargains and do our civic duty trying to keep the economy afloat. Plus we have another credit card, very handy in these difficult economic times.

Banks

Banking: the only job in the world where you can completely mess up (while charging your customers and issuing them with more new credit cards) without fear of repercussions. Better yet, you can continue to pay yourself hugely ridiculous amounts of money while doing so. And even after that, you can rely on the government to come along and give you a nice, big hug and tell you everything will be ok. Gone are the cries about Big Brother interfering in the business of the private sector. Because Daddy’s home now. And he’s doling out the cash.

Media

None of us would know anything about a global recession if it wasn’t for the wonder of the media. They keep hyping it up and we all keep buying into it. Literally. We purchase magazines and newspapers to check on stocks, shares and companies in trouble, we deliberately tune into news channels instead of American Idol, and we spend hours surfing the web for INFORMATION. Fewer account charges, consolidation loans, cheaper insurance. Because knowledge is power, right?

Many of us (who do have debts but don’t own banks) are horrified by government bail-outs allowing these great institutions to keep running our accounts (and charging us) and underwriting the many credit cards us ordinary folks use to finance our lives (on the High Street). Where did the governments get all that money in the first place? Especially as they have not had ample funds in recent years to sufficiently finance education and health care.

I’m guessing I will never get to the end of that rainbow with its shiny, magical pot of golden cheques. So, I am off now to do some online research about which banks are recruiting and where I can buy a nice suit for a job interview. I will get my pound of flesh from this recession yet.