Doom thinking
W.D. Valgardson on the economy

Auther: W.D. Valgardson, Victoria, BC

I try not to give into doom thinking. I’m not by nature a doomer. I believe in being positive and finding the positive in life. That has let me navigate a strange but rewarding life.

I’m not rich but when I turn in returnables at the bottle depot, I can send the money I get for them to Our Place. That’s why they get some strange amounts and why it is so irregular. I know, because of having been a writer and a teacher, a poverty-stricken student, how hard life can be.

That’s why, even at my age now, I pay attention to the economy. I watch for omens. Not falling stars or unexplained events in the heavens but omens that presage economic changes, impending disasters. Lately, what I’ve seen is the fallout from tariffs. I pay attention when people say they’ve lost their job. I pay attention when another small business closes.

I pay attention when realtors – many realtors – have changed from rah rah rah to doom doom doom. If you check out Bill Ferguson’s site about Vancouver real estate, the change is profound. House sales in every category are down. House prices have been stubbornly high, but they are coming down. I have family in Kelowna. It has been a rah-rah place, but the internet recently has been all doom.

Prices for groceries, taxes, fees of various kinds (some water bills are up 400 percent). Dr. Doom (Steve van Metre) in his podcast is predicting a serious fall of the American dollar in the coming year. He sees more unemployment, more people unable to pay for their home mortgage or rent apartments and houses. Unemployment up, costs up.

I’ve been aware that the Chinese economy hasn’t been good. I never used to pay attention to the Chinese economy, but trade wars can shatter even the largest economies. There are questions about the Japanese economy. I didn’t know that they had an economy. I knew that they had geishas and slept on tatami mats.

I pay attention to people in grocery stores. I see more people watching the cash register and saying for the cashier to take some items off the bill. I belong to a group on Facebook, nearly all single moms with kids – the fathers have disappeared – who can’t feed themselves or their kids. Food banks can’t meet demand. I feel that these are storm clouds gathering.

In Gimli, we used to watch the east shore. First the wind would rise, dark clouds would gather, rain would sweep across the lake. We could see the storm coming. All we could do was make sure our boats were well tied to the dock, that our windows were shut. When we were still heating and cooking with wood, we made sure we had dry wood in the basement.