A TIME FOR HOPE

I dread opening the business section of my newspaper these days. As consistent as a sunrise in the horizon, the paper reports with gleeful gloom the thousands of jobs that have been lost in the last few months and then predicts the thousands of jobs that are going to be lost in the next few months, including the rate of jobs lost/minute(for our convenience perhaps). This is grim news especially for me, for I am unemployed. The fact that might tickle your funny bone is the fact that I voluntarily decided to get unemployed. It was in the month of august of 2008 that I decided to quit my job of three years in the quest of money and fame in the glorious middle-east. I have been planning to descend upon the land of Dubai with the positivism of a pure breed Malayali. So the month following my resignation from the company, I decided to take it easy, living life as a procrastinating bum, after all what is the hurry, the money in Dubai isn’t going to dry up in a month, is it?

Pop! the bubble busted. The cracks began to show in the US of A. Slowly it spread through the world and with a dreaded certainty, the world economy crashed into recession. As if that wasn’t disheartening enough, Dubai, the land of my future dreams was selected for a greater fall, the real estate bubble which accelerated Dubai’s growth and reputation in the previous few years is no more. The wondrous man-made constructions like the Burj, Palm islands, ski Dubai which had stood testimony to the great new arrival of Dubai as a super star, trembled suddenly as reality struck.

So here I stand, jobless like many around this globe, staring at the paper and wishing that it was April 1st and this is all an elaborate joke by an editor with a wicked sense of humor. I was in denial, but hey! I am in good company. UAE, sensitive to the needs of people like me is considering legislation against publishing reports in the media which are detrimental to the country’s economic reputation. I completely support them and my motives are selfish, I admit. The last thing I want when I open the paper is further bad news. You may call it escapism; I dare to call it optimism. We all realize how bad the situation is! What I would rather find out is whether there are any ways out of it.

“Yes, we can!” exhorts the new president of USA. He has been left the shambles of a great country, in the worst economic recession since the Great Depression, a dirty and draining war in Iraq, and hatred towards his country from almost every person outside the US and quite a few within too. And what does the man say?.... Yes! we can! Now, this is the man I'd rather see as the editor of the newspaper I currently subscribe to. I can imagine the contents of the articles he write; positive, professional and pragmatic. The 3 P’s.

Have you noticed that there are significant elements of socialism ingrained in most of his plans. I wonder whether the commie-phobic majority of Americans realize that. His plan to levy heavier taxes on the richer segment of the populace, the restrictions on outsourcing of jobs, a focus on infrastructure and healthcare in order to maximize job creation, control over the major banks, they all have a great deal of socialism infused within. Some might criticize his restrictions on the free trade process, but for me, as long as he can revitalize the economy by any means possible, so be it. Hell, they started the downfall of the global economy; let them clean up the mess.

I guess he has realized that the Indian government is too spineless to oppose his sanctions against companies outsourcing American jobs. The handling of the Mumbai terror incident made it quite apparent that the tolerance level of the Indian government is comparable to zen masters. We had invented the word “Om” as Mr. Resul Kutty reminded us at the Oscars, so infinite patience is a cursed gift, I presume. If Obama has to succeed, he needs to choose his enemies carefully. The initial signs are encouraging. The manner in which he is working towards strengthening bonds with the Muslim world is heartening. My only peeve is the manner in which he isolated the Muslims by putting them in a different “world”. His speech identified them as the “Muslim world”, an instant creation of “us and them”.

Obama realizes and so do I, the fact that unconventional means are needed to get out of depression and recession. A World War might have been nice to restart the industrial machine. But in lieu of that unlikely event, a back to basics policy would be the key to revitalization. As I learned in economics some years back, the demand and supply equation forms the base of any market. If either element increases or decreases by a great margin, then chaos arrives. Just before the recession began in the US, the “wants” of the people were enormous, funded by borrowed money. You don’t have to be a genius to guess what will happen when you reach the peak of the demand curve. You fall with a resounding thud. What Obama is trying now is to admonish his subjects into tightening their belts, reduce the “wants” pile down to the level of the “supply” pile which he is simultaneously stimulating to grow with the trillion dollar budget proposal. There you go; a practical illustration of a lesson in economics. My economics lecturer will be proud of me.

Obama hasn’t put in a wrong foot wrong till now. However, it would be unrealistic to believe that he never will. As long as his intentions and plans remain as positive and noble as it is now, I wouldn’t mind the occasionally stumble and I would still look up to him for hope, await his moments of audacity when he says the three simple words, “ yes! We can!”