At the height of the Great Depression almost 80 years ago, unemployment was more than 20 per cent in Canada compared to the six to eight per cent we’ve seen in recent years. While that means 80 per cent of people were still employed or earning some sort of a paycheque, a return to those past employment figures would triple the number of people on our employments rolls. If there are 18 million workers in Canada today, a 15 per cent drop in employment would represent about 2.7 million people, or more than four times the population of the City of Vancouver.
While the recent financial crisis has been compared to the Great Depression, some experts are skeptical. People will lose money and jobs, certainly, and it could take a decade for people to recoup the money they’ve invested, but it’s a different world. Our savings are insured, up to a point, and we have the Bank of Canada lowering interest rates to ensure that people who need loans and mortgages can still get them. Savings are safe, and credit is out there.
Our biggest problem is confidence. Right now people are afraid for their jobs, their savings, their investments, the financial well-being of parents and grandparents, the future opportunities for their children, the value of their homes. When people are afraid they stop spending money, and the economy — which was already slowing before the crisis hit — sometimes stalls, and can even start to roll backwards. At this point a recession is inevitable.
When people are assured that life will go on pretty much as usual, then confidence returns and they start spending again. Businesses start hiring, and it’s business as usual once again.
What this means for Whistler is anybody’s guess. Tourism Whistler is looking to the regional market in the short-term to shore up an expected loss of U.S. visitors, and the Olympics are expected to open up new markets and opportunities until our bread and butter customers get back on their feet. In the meantime, half the houses in town and most of the hotel rooms are owned by people who, if they can’t rent them out or sell them, will still come up for the odd holiday. We will survive.
But it could get tougher for a lot of individuals and a lot of families. Businesses that already run close to the wire may be forced to close, people could have their hours cut or be laid off. Some business owners may have less money coming in. Consumer goods and necessities could go up in price even further, pushing up our already high cost of living. It could be a lot harder to get mortgages and loans.
And even if none of this happens, the fear that it might will have an impact on the spending decisions we all make in the near future.
The web has actually become a pretty good resource for people looking for financial advice or just encouragement from others going through the same things.
Sites like Zen Habits (www.zenhabits.com), Lifehacker (www.lifehacker.com) and The Consumerist (www.consumerist.com) regularly have articles about people paying off their debt load, or making lifestyle changes that allow them to save more or purchase big ticket items like vacations and homes. These sites emphasize breaking the consumer cycle that is ingrained in us all, our need to shop, and to own the latest clothes and gadgets.
I’ve also been a member of Wesabe (www.wesabe.com) for the past six months, and that has allowed me to track where virtually every penny I spend goes and to make and keep a realistic budget. After trying everything from spreadsheets to keeping my receipts, Wesabe is the only thing I’ve tried that really works. It also makes it easy to compare spending from month to month, and to get advice from others on a wide range of topics.
Another site I’ve taken to using recently is the financial dictionary at The Free Dictionary (http://financial-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com) that I use to make sense of all the financial terms that I’ve had to come to terms with lately purchasing a mortgage, researching education savings plans for my daughter, investing in an RRSP, and taking out another rapidly failing investment in a dividend fund that, if nothing else, I should be able to write off my taxes.
Another website that has scads of useful financial advice is the Finance section at MSN.ca (http://finance.sympatico.msn.ca). Some recent articles include “Put your debt on a simple diet” and “The Recessionista Survival Guide”. They do a great job putting complex financial ideas into layman’s terms, and when they don’t there’s always the Financial Dictionary.
While most of us don’t deal directly with the Bank of Canada, all of our savings are more or less insured by our central bank. They set interest rates, monetary policy, and other rules and regulations that govern banking while keeping detailed statistics. While the information on the site is of more use to bankers and investment houses than average Canadians it’s a good place to get government reports and a big picture view of finances in this country without all the panic of the financial media. Somehow I find all this data reassuring.
