Our New Great Depression: Are We There Yet?

It's looking a lot like it

We really aren’t far off from this. Once the U.S. economy crumbles, the rest of the world will stumble along with it. That’s why my Prime Minister is rushing to shore up new trade and defense pacts with other countries. | Photo by The New York Public Library on Unsplash

We’re expanding our ability to preserve food in my household.

We’ve got a vacuum sealer, freezing cubes for food, and all kinds of new sealable tupperware to keep food fresh longer. We’re changing what we buy to make sure we can stretch meals as long as possible without it going bad.

We’re expanding our garden, researching which crops can be preserved, and we plan to get better at pickling. I’m a sucker for saurkraut, so I look forward to working that one out.

My spouse and I are both living with our respective parents until he’s able to immigrate here to Canada — that way we can save money on rent and put as much of our paychecks aside as possible so we won’t be caught flat-footed by the rising cost of living.

We’ll have a safety cushion to fall back on until he’s able to find work here. We’re planning carefully to make this work.

We have the luxury of being able to do these things. Others aren’t so lucky.

I know people working two or three jobs to make ends meet, eating nothing but peanut butter sandwiches for days at a time, and scrambling to keep up with their debt, much less pay it off.

Everywhere I look, I see more lines at thrift stores, at the clearance sale section of my store, at the section for nearly-expired food at the local grocery that sells for dirt cheap.

There’s even an app where people can buy recently or nearly-expired food and drinks from stores in grab-bags for reduced prices. My store just joined it. We get people running in every day to claim them.

It’s a lot better than throwing it out just because the ‘best by’ date is passed. It’s not healthy food, per se, a lot of it is snack food, candy and soda. But it’s something that can make people happy and it’s better than throwing it out. Less waste is good.

The job market is a nightmare, there’s a marked rise in homelessness and young people living out of their cars because rent and debt make apartment renting impossible.

Things are rough. It’s getting bad.

And everywhere I look, I see people asking the same question; are we in a recession?

Honestly, I think we’re a little worse off than that.

---

More and more of the world looks like this. It’s disturbing. Ecological destruction went hand in hand with the last Depression, too. | Photo by Urban Vintage on Unsplash

Here in Canada, we’re feeling the rising cost of living. Basic survival is getting harder and harder every day.

I can’t imagine how tough things are to our south in the U.S. My friends, family and spouse down there have been keeping me updated on the cost of food and medications and the struggle to find basic staples amidst shortages.

They have the added burden of medical costs that I don’t need to deal with.

They talk about watching the cost of ‘cheap’ foods shooting through the roof, and the hollow sense of dread building on the margins as they budget and work through their taxes for last year.

I keep hearing the same refrain over and over again. “The world feels different now.”

Someone I know just told me that if she could go back in time, knowing what the world looks like now, she wouldn’t have had kids. She’s afraid for their futures. She wants them to live good lives, but now…

I get it. I feel the same fear. I don’t have kids — I worry about my own future, and my spouse’s. I worry for our little nieces and nephew.

We’re all swimming in anxiety now. We don’t have a guarantee of good food, clean water, or peace. We don’t have a guarantee of a roof over our heads. Last year’s brutal drought and outrageous fire season cut a swathe through my country that left us all terrified.

I remember spending every day checking the fire maps, worried one might spark near my house and force us to flee our home. Would we lose everything, like so many people had? Would we need to start over from scratch?

Would my family members lose their jobs in the mass layoffs following Trump’s trade war? Would I, once I finally managed to find one?

Thus far we have been ridiculously lucky. But the prices on our needed goods have hit us, too.

So, we practice preserving food and making everything last as long as possible. We need to. Because at any moment, things could get worse.

They will get worse.

I’m a sucker for soups and stews. Easy to make out of any scraps you have in the fridge, and it tends to be very filling. | Photo by Nathan Dumlao on Unsplash

My late grandfather loved nothing more than to feed people. Especially the kids in the family.

He grew up during the Great Depression, so he knew what it felt like to go hungry. He never, ever let it happen to us while we were under his roof. That man lived frugally in almost every way, but he refused to skimp on food.

He would make chicken smothered in butter for our breakfasts, giant plates of ham and potatoes for lunch, and he started cooking dinner as soon as we left the table.

He had a whole freezer full of nothing but ice cream sandwiches. He cooked extra and made sure the neighbors knew they could stop in for a takeaway box whenever they needed a hot meal.

I learned a lot from him. I learned a lot from my other grandparents, too. The ones who weren’t quite as able to provide full meals as he was.

We grew up relatively poor in a very small town, and my relatives all had their tips and tricks to stretch the pantry as far as it would go. They pickled eggs and hot dogs, they made thin soups out of cabbage, chicken and rice, and taught me the value of a spice cupboard.

You can make the same thing over and over again without getting bored if you know how to change the flavours. Beans and rice are cheap and filling, and they can taste like anything.

I have a head full of old family recipes — what we would call struggle meals today, but which I consider comfort food. It’s what I’m used to.

I’m re-learning a lot of their old tricks. Not just for food, either. I’m trying to learn how to mend torn clothing. I’m learning how to repair broken things and re-use materials I can recyle at home.

I’m looking for ways to cut down on waste, and being very choosy about where I shop. I’m taking advantage of write-offs and clearance sales whenever I possibly can to get cheap household supplies.

I know how to survive on very little when I need to. That’s going to come in very handy.

I’m worried. | Photo by Nishaan ahmed on Unsplash

It’s fire season again.

I’m thrilled and relieved every time raindrops fall, and I am constantly praying as the weather warms up that no raging idiots hit the forest and light up a camp fire in spite of the warnings against burning this season.

I know, I miss the scent of a campfire too, but it’s too dangerous these days.

One wrong move and our whole province could go up in smoke. Towns could be wiped off the map like Lytton, British Columbia. The last thing we need is death, loss of property and a mass of climate refugees fleeing the blaze.

With the way things are, I don’t know if our local infrastucture could handle it. I don’t know if people would financially recover — and that’s assuming they made it out alive and unhurt.

Our doctor shortage makes an already frightening scenario seem hopeless.

It’s not like we can depend on aid from our southern neighbor now. If anything, I’d bet that Trump would use it as yet another reason to call for us to become the 51st State.

Climate destruction and economic struggles go hand in hand, as we saw with the last Great Depression and the infamous Dust Bowl. These issues compound, and with the state of the world right now, we can’t afford another calamity.

I wouldn’t say we’re in a recession, but it feels like one. I’d say we’re on the way there.

I’d say we’re on the edge of the abyss and standing on shaky ground, just waiting for one of these wars to tip over, one more crisis to shudder the earth under our feet, one more nightmare on the horizon to drive us over the precipace into freefall.

That’s how I feel, anyway. I’m sure it’s how a lot of us feel.

But are we in a new Depression yet? I don’t think so. Not quite.

Honestly, I don’t think we’re there yet. I think we’re headed in a very bad direction and we badly need to course correct, and the largest economy in the world is in the hands of a raging lunatic who has no idea what to do with it.

As long as he’s in power, we’re all in danger. Every single one of us.

I think this could become a recession very soon, if it hasn’t already. Red alarm lights are flashing, and a crash is not out of the question. We all see it coming. But however bad things are right now, they’re still survivable.

There’s still a little bit of time to prepare and try to nip it in the bud. It’s just a question of will.

It’s a question of whether the people in power can be made to listen to reason, or if they’re going to choose poorly. Historically, they’ve chosen poorly. We have to be prepared to apply pressure. More than just protests, although they have their place.

Strikes. Union bargaining. Boycotts. Harassment of political figures, business owners and major corporations. Be a nuisance, demand change, and prepare to vote. Help your fellow citizens as much as you can.

Be an ember of democracy.

There are a lot more of us then there are of them. It’s easy to feel like there’s nothing you can do. But don’t you ever forget who holds the real power.

Solidarity wins.

---