The Economic Tsunami

With global recession, decline in consumer spending, meltdown of profit margins, bold cost cutting and further looming of job losses, the world we know has now entered a new era of uncertainty and unpredictability. The biggest names in the game have called-out the cutbacks in all segments of their businesses. Economists say that this is the worst ever crisis to hit in decades and will make its mark in history as we move forward. Industry experts predict that the recovery may take as long as 14 to 18 months, some put this figure to 24 months or slightly higher. The overall impact this will create is profound. We have yet to experience the full impact which may emerge in the next six to eight months time. A country such as Sri Lanka is quite low in the global economic food chain. We will experience this hit a bit later, just when the developed world is hitting the lowest point or starting the recovery cycle. (provided the cycle is limited to not more than 24 months). The significance of this is that as you go down the global economic food chain (some may call it the supply chain) the issue gets compounded. In other words the lower you are, the harder you will be hit. This is just like a tsunami effect. Unless you find high ground, brace yourselves with alternatives, you will be wiped off when the killer waves of economic down-turn hits you and wipe you off… from the face of the earth.
I am sure I am painting a pretty grim picture. The question is what are we doing about it. We Sri Lankans are quite notorious of doing nothing. Worse, waiting to see what will happen rather than running like hell to avoid any damage. Take any instance. For example if someone tell you that there is a bomb in a parked bus down the road what will you do? You may want to go see if this is true and worse, hang around to see what is going to happen next. Some loonies may even board the bus to see if this is true!!.

The government and the political parties are on steroids these days. They are sucking the sweet victory of the war with the terrorist and puffing smoke of the provincial elections, both making them high and nice. The people too have fallen to the dope and living on hope of a better tomorrow that is promised ever so often by the cunning and deceiving animal called the politician. No economist in Sri Lanka has proposed an action plan to be proactive and negate the negative effects of an economic tsunami hit. Despite of all the early warnings, the government remains naive. Perhaps this is due to past experience. We had the bad experience of getting hand offs from the developed countries during the Asian tsunami hit. Which the government gobbled-up and used for their benefit. Only a small portion went to the benefit of the masses. The remaining relief was through private organizations.

The danger is that this time, when the economic tsunami hits, there are no volunteers that will come forward for an economic bail out. Cause they too will either be hit very badly or will not have the capacity to bail out anyone else. The question is what are we doing about it. Can we make a difference? Yes we can!!! Only if we have the will to do it!!