Oh, the good old days when you could drive across the road to visit someone instead of walking. Are we not a privileged bunch? Pre-Pandemic we faced better pricing in all our material needs, whether they be for energy, food, recreation or workplace. Now that the sh*t has hit the fan, we are all experiencing the strangling effects of costs that are still going up, and debt also pressing down upon our financial abilities and livelihoods. Sure wish we had not used those credit cards eh? Once upon a time, we could pay off our debts, and we purchased items using these credit cards only once in a while. Now millions of us use our credit lines and cards to maintain our lifestyles. Lifestyles of the rich and famous? No, cause apparently anyone can get a credit card these days.
Many of our seniors look to the days past when managing our personal and business books we doable. Walking to the corner store is a pleasurable exercise. Our wasteful, materialistic natures have to lead us to a situation where our homes are in danger due to excessive spending and increasing costs for essentials.
Housing is only a dream to many, as the opportunity to rent or own a home is very costly and housing starts few and far between. Our populations are becoming more and more distant from each other, class and ethnically. When we should be uniting as one pissed-off crowd, we are separating into smaller exclusive groups, Upper-dwindling Middle -Working Classes trying to get by, and struggling in their own ways. Is a return to values of family, work for ethic and pride in one’s self something we need to seek? Can believing in ourselves, our family and our neighbours give us the strength necessary to breech the glass bubble that surrounds us all? We can see out of it, but we are stuck in its embrace of stress, fatalism, depression and hopelessness. Feel like that? You’re not alone. Prices for all things essential to you will continue to rise, due to the mismanagement and lack of foresight of our leaders. The war in Europe, between historical enemies, Russia and Ukraine was foreseen by many, but certainly not by the media or our leaders who look at the world through rose-coloured glasses. What needed to be done to alleviate the effects of this war could have been planned for, and policy established long ago to save us from possible economic ruin personally and nationally.
Think tanks have devised long ago that our gas prices would match those in the EU long ago. No one listened and considered responding to these warnings. So western of us eh?
Steven Kaszab
Bradford, Ontario
[email protected]
