Hitting Home

"Its Shanghai, Dubai, Mumbai or bye-bye"

Qn: What's the difference between a recession and a depression?
Ans: A recession is when others lose their jobs. A depression is when you lose yours.

Quotes like these are making rounds in bid to infuse a tad of humour into the depressing Economic situation. The first quote is with reference to corporations sending off employees to lower cost/higher leverage places, often without alternatives.

It is really hitting home, with a number of personal friends losing their jobs. One day you are on a15-hour day work routine as an investment banker/stockbroker, and in the next day you're out. It is a cold affair where a script (cleared by inhouse legal counsels) is read out to you about the retrenchment.

Sure, those that we know of are mostly relatively young (30s) and without dependents, so it is not too much of a worry. The few older ones would have, in any case, earned more than their fair share during the good times, so they shouldn't be too affected. I worry for those who depend on their jobs for daily living. Those who are sole breadwinners. The average man on the street. Unfortunately the prospects in the near future are bleak, and we can only hope that as individuals we can do our part to help those less fortunate around us, and that our Government's social help will be sufficient to lessen the pain.

Today we heard of another friend getting laid off. And just when this piece of bad news came to us, we received another more serious news. A family friend has been seriously injured in a car accident and is currently unconscious and in ICU.

He is a year younger than me and we played together as kids. While we (the kids) have not kept in contact, our parents always have, and we're all praying for his recovery.