Paying the price for greed and idiocy

Those who talk of pending disasters are doomed no matter what. If they are right then their predictive powers are never applauded, but remembered, if at all, with bitterness. If they are wrong they are pessimists, trouble makers, and fools. It may be this knowledge of "no win, guaranteed loss" that explains our leaders" present inability to confront the possible, or probable consequences of the global economic meltdown in our own Canberra backyard and around our nation.

Think back to the response to the Canberra bushfires, the World Trade Centre attack, and the tsunamis that swept away whole neighbourhoods.

There was an immediate organised reaction which put to use skills and resources, both paid and volunteer. At the local, national, and international level there is a capacity (sometimes inspiring, even if later criticised as inadequate) to respond quickly to a specific crisis event.

How different are our reactions to those more gradual crises that creep up on us. Diffident, sometimes grudging reactions build slowly until what was a suggestion for response becomes an imperative for organisations. Good examples are the HIV-AIDs crisis and climate change.

It's hardly surprising that whether the disaster is a red splash of instant terror or a recognised long term threat to our survival we crave the quick fix. Nothing is more attractive than the miracle vaccination against the disease, an army of carbon credit traders and regulators to make us feel good about our part of the solution to global warning, or laws which lock up terrorist suspects and keep them out of sight and mind. We want to believe in solutions.

The global economic disaster has some features which reflect our experience of HIV-AIDs and global warning. It began far, far away. It has grown out of our sight and control. It has reached our shores, and its effects are now rippling out across the land, marking the doors of some and sparing the doors of others.

"Wealth creation" is on hold, but the needs of our marked jobless neighbours and unexpectedly poor retired are not. We need to confidently measure and provide for much more assistance in the basics of food, clothing, shelter, access to health and education services.

And then there is the challenge of supporting businesses which will fail without assistance, and the related challenge of substantial job creation as people well trained and wanting work scramble for the little that is available.

"This is all an exaggeration”, they say. “There are successful bankers, politicians, industrialists all saying that we’ll ride through this. There is no need, no reason to be alarmist.” True it is that we as a community will ride through this (though the rich and powerful will have a much easier ride), but we can take steps to minimise the harm, to have that sense of community and useful compassion which characterises our response to the short, sharp disaster.

What if we keep denying this economic and community disaster on the basis that the market will do a U-turn tomorrow, next week or in the new year? In 1929 there was much dithering about what to do when the global markets crashed. It was a dithering that caused a lot of avoidable suffering. The U-turn was years away.

In 1929 life ran to a different beat. In suburbia bread was cooked in the bakery around the corner, there were mail deliveries six days a week, and a few egg laying chooks shared the back yard with the dunny and a vegetable patch. The non producing birds might run headless for a while when the kid with the axe didn't truss them properly. Free range and very organic.

Nostalgic? Not a bit of it. Less than a dozen years after the War to end wars, a decade after the flu pandemic, and about to dive into a decade of economic depression in which those who had jobs clung to them.

Skinned rabbits were sold door to door. Many wondered why they were paying the price for the alleged greed and idiocy of others. There was much talk about what should be done, and a lot of it was rubbish.

Public works was the engine of recovery and hope, not only here but for Roosevelt" New Deal in the USA. In parks around this country there are miles and miles of walking tracks laid down by Depression crews.

Those who now lose their jobs or can't get jobs or who are living on suddenly reduced pensions might like to spend idle days walking those tracks - that is if they can afford the petrol to drive there.

2009 could be like 1929, at least to the extent that there will be a lot of grim talk and precious little certainty about what happens next.

There’s a volatility in the markets which makes short term predictions highly unreliable. It will all be quite clear to the economic historians and the finance and treasury experts in 2019 but that’s a mite too late for most of us.

Remember how recently we were encouraged by experts and government to save for our retirement by shifting our savings into superannuation, the funds that this year have been sending worrying notices of plummeting value with short cover notes to the effect that in the long term it will be OK.

The "grey nomad" concept has been transformed. It did mean the happy superannuants, new or near new glossy white caravan hitched behind the powerful four-wheel drive, taking off on trips near and far, with the neighbours or family clearing the home letter box of advertising.

Soon it could mean those same baby boomers living in the caravan parked in the driveway or round the back with a bright orange power cord snaking across the dusty lawn to that house which was their home.

Inside the caravan they’ll surf the net looking for signs that the market is recovering and that they might be able to afford a trip later in the year. Inside the house their adult children will be surfing the net for more job openings and at least one with frayed nerves will be saying to the other just before the lights go out, "I do wish your parents kept their noses out of our business!"

The clubs should do very well, not just on the poker machines, but at the bingo. The weekend organic markets will have to compete with the fresh vegetables grown in the back yard and those distributed at bingo and in raffles. Providing it rains the nurseries will enter a new age in which seeds and seedlings take back their rightful space and push out the multitude of huge ornamental pots and garden sculptures. Those who yearn for menus which follow the seasons will be so pleased.

Thank goodness that a mandatory retirement age has been abolished for many of us. How can we retire if our pension plans are ruined and our adult children can't get jobs? What use is a law degree if law firms aren't hiring? What use is a commerce or science degree if business isn't hiring and schools aren't recruiting new teachers? What use is an engineering or design degree or a trade qualification if the cranes sit silent and the readymix stays dry in the bins?

What we have seen and heard this last month or so are the newsworthy stories of huge amounts of money being pledged to hold up financial houses of straw. The rapacious wolves continue to blow, the houses still totter, more money is pledged, more guarantees given to make us feel safe. This quick fix can't last: we know that from the fairy story. There’s only so much money in the national cookie jar.

We need to build something more solid. Responding to imminent disaster requires many hands, many minds, much wisdom and experience, good organisation and inspired, courageous leadership. That’s a big ask, but it’s possible. It is, for all of us facing disaster, rather more attractive than being some of the statistics mentioned in hindsight. So what to do?

We didn't know it at the time but the national "feel good" summit earlier this year was a trial run for what we need now: a "get your hands dirty" summit for all those with a real interest in identifying the scope of the economic disaster and the capacity to creatively, effectively respond to it.

Such a summit has a special attractiveness: it negates the risk of anyone being considered a Cassandra, of anyone being doomed. Rudd, Turnbull, and our local leaders and “wan a bees”, along with their support teams might like to think about that and then act as leaders should.