making ends meet is a priority where a means to an end can mean something else
Climate; geography; soil; tool use; storage and distribution; consumption; surplus; transport and trade are some of the base elements when it comes to people, money and the environment. Of course, there’s little new to see here and maybe there never will be; so, we’ll make the best of what we have as we try and change things, even if it means failing again. It’s not set in stone but the only given is that it won’t be easy, meaning a different bottom line splits comfort from despair.
In the introduction to his tome ‘The Wealth and Poverty of Nations’, the late David Landes, a former professor of economics at the University of Harvard, writes:
‘This world is divided roughly into three kinds of nations: those that spend lots of money to keep their weight down; those whose people eat to live; and those whose people don’t know where the next meal is coming from.’
Clearly and no-one knows this better than those living these lives, but what Professor Landes’ book does so well is draw together various factors, layer-upon-layer, to show the domino effect of influence across history. In stating the benefits of a particular type of plow, for instance, in one region’s soil but where it failed in another, the stepping stones of growth and development can be seen with clarity.
This lottery of resources is meaningful in so many ways while helping to illustrate a history of economics that tells a story, in its own right. So, who owns what and who has the muscle to take whatever they choose has been and remains the backing track to life. Meanwhile, underscoring that intensity is the quality and availability of resources, which as we know is the basis of one of the steepest cost-of-living crises seen in many years. It’s the domino effect of influence writ large in its reach around the world, and a 2021 report from the International Energy Agency, explained why.
‘Investments in oil and natural gas have declined in recent years as a result of two commodity price collapses in 2014-15 and in 2020. This has made supply more vulnerable to the sorts of exceptional circumstances that we see today.’
‘As well as the economic recovery, these [demand] rises were driven by a number of weather-related events, including a cold winter in the Northern Hemisphere, droughts that curtailed hydropower output in Brazil and elsewhere, and lower-than-average wind generation.’
International Energy Agency, IEA
Well, there was a moment in time when as you stood in a supermarket and stared at the price-bar: you had to blink, twice, to make sure you weren’t dreaming. Where you once reminisced at the gap between a can drink costing 20p in 1985 and a contemporary amount of £1.05, an increase of 425% in 49 years: suddenly, you were looking at a year’s increase of 24.6% and 14.9% in cheese and meat, respectively. To put it into context, the average price rise of that can drink over any given year of the 49 would have been 8% – all things being equal in a domino effect of influences.
In the current climate, that chain reaction also starts with military conflict in different parts of the world. So, attacks on commercial shipping, for instance, in the Red Sea leads to not only higher costs in security and insurance but also re-routing where necessary, which has an additional impact on time, fuel and personnel. Obviously, it’s disastrous for anyone with a bottom line to look after let alone supply chain dependents and consumers. Equally, the war in Ukraine has affected oil and gas prices to the tune of a 52% increase in crude oil, and a 56% rise in Brent at the time of writing, which can only hit hard in terms of plastic production and fuel bills. Perhaps, just as impactful if not more so was the global pandemic which derailed the output of food and the distribution of energy supplies. So much so, that the World Bank labelled it as an existential truth:
‘The Covid-19 pandemic sent shockwaves through the world economy and triggered the largest global economic crisis in more than a century. The crisis led to a dramatic increase in inequality within and across countries. Preliminary evidence suggests that the recovery will be as uneven as its initial economic impacts, with emerging economies and economically-disadvantaged groups needing much more time to recover pandemic-induced losses of income and livelihoods.’
As the report states: different regions, countries and cities felt the effects reflecting trends in mental health, too, that may otherwise not have been there or stayed less pronounced. The fact is, after the systemic meltdown of the 2008 financial crisis, the pandemic tore through our global psyche like a flashover in a fire but no sooner had we recovered than we were slapped with a health and cost-of-living crisis. The UK charity, the Mental Health Foundation, concluded: that ‘30% of adults in the UK have poorer quality sleep; 23% meet with friends less often; 15% pursued a hobby less often and 12% exercised less often.’
Well, the stress of having to make ends meet can be an endless one and an attritional nightmare as the indignity of searching clothes and furniture through a mirage of money, takes its toll. With needs calling on parents to deliver and partners feuding seemingly in and out of love, the economic marriage of prices and people can leave a familiar and bitter taste:
‘Anyone who has ever struggled with poverty, knows how extremely expensive it is to be poor.’
James Baldwin
‘Resolve not to be poor, whatever you have; spend less. Poverty is a great enemy to human happiness; it certainly destroys liberty, and it makes some virtues impracticable, and others extremely difficult.’
Samuel Johnson
Survival economics is a junction of life and death and a means to an end which are synonymous with power, choices, anxiety and responsibility. These things also link with the four tenets of existentialism as described by Irvin Yalom, the existential psychiatrist. So, with death, freedom, isolation and meaninglessness variably tied to fiscal matters, we can work out a way of living our lives that allows us to keep pushing forward. At the same time, we may use it: cash, dinero, bucks or dough to feel better about death, as a 2013 study showed. ‘Money and the Fear of Death: The Symbolic Power of Money as an Existential Anxiety Buffer’ looked at the way in which a fear of dying relates to the value we give to money. On the one hand, it may reflect levels of cognitive dissonance with feelings of immunity from death whilst conversely, money is literally a buffer between anxiety and hunger, disease, low-social status, homelessness and ultimately, mortality.
So, what bodes for the future?
A bi-annual survey of economists at the International Monetary Fund, IMF, gives an analytical prediction of a ‘baseline forecast’, for the global economy over the coming year. For 2024 into ’25, the ‘World Economic Outlook’ expects growth to continue at a rate of 3.2%. Unfortunately, in five years time, they anticipate it to be pretty much the same, stating: ‘it’s [the] lowest in decades’.
Well then, logic suggests a collective sigh in nodding to a tall, hooded chap, in black: but maybe, just maybe we can overturn our thinking at the bleak face of the cost-of-living.
Copyright © 2024 | recoveryourwellbeing.com | All Rights Reserved
Images:
Decrepit House, by CongerDesign, Pixabay Images – Main Image
Financial Despair, by Mikhail Nilov, Pexels
References:
David Landes, ‘The Wealth and Poverty of Nations’ Introduction, Para 9, (London, Abacus, 1998) https://www.amazon.co.uk/Wealth-Poverty-Nations-David-Landes/dp/0349111669
Peter Reuell, ‘David S. Landes, 89, dies’, The Harvard Gazette, 30th August 2013, accessed 1st May 2024, https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2013/08/david-s-landes-89-dies/
David Landes, ‘The Wealth and Poverty of Nations’ Chapter 3, European Excpetionalism: A Different Path, Page 40, Para 2, (London, Abacus, 1998) https://www.amazon.co.uk/Wealth-Poverty-Nations-David-Landes/dp/0349111669
Niki Ignatiou, ‘Cost of Living Ccrisis: The Staitistics Around The World’, Actionaid, Humanitarian Policy, 13th November 2023, accessed 1st May 2024, https://www.actionaid.org.uk/blog/2023/11/13/cost-living-crisis-statistics
Carlos Fernández Alvarez and Gergely Molnar, ‘What Is Behind Soaring Energy Prices and What Happens Next?’ IEA, 12th October 2021, Paras 13 & 14, accessed 1st May 2024, https://www.iea.org/commentaries/what-is-behind-soaring-energy-prices-and-what-happens-next
‘How Prices Have Changed in 25 Years’ This Is Money, Financial Website of the Year, 14th November 2007, accessed 1st May 2024, https://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/news/article-1609849/How-prices-have-changed-in-25-years.html
Diet Coke, 330ml’, Sainsbury’s, 2024, accessed 1st May 2024, https://www.sainsburys.co.uk/gol-ui/product/diet-coke-330ml
Olivia Stringer, ‘How Much Have Food Prices Increased in 2023? Full List of Rise’, Metro newspaper, 21st June 2023, accessed 1st May 2024, https://metro.co.uk/2023/06/21/how-much-have-food-prices-increased-in-2023-full-list-of-rises-3-18988748/
‘Rising Cost of Living in the UK’, UK Parliament, House of Commons Library, Research Briefing, 23rd April 2024, Para 17, Contains Parliamentary Information Licensed Under the Open Parliament License Act v3.0, acessed 1st May 2024, https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/cbp-9428/
Sameer Mohindru and Robert Perkins, ‘Red Sea Shipping Attacks Raise Tanker Insurance Costs as Security Risks Escalate’, S&P Global Commodity Insights, 6th December 2023, accessed 1st May 2024, https://www.spglobal.com/commodityinsights/en/market-insights/latest-news/oil/120623-red-sea-shipping-attacks-raise-tanker-insurance-costs-as-security-risks-escalate
Zhang, Q., et al, ‘The Impact of Russia-Ukraine War on Crude Oil Prices: an EMC [Event Analysis Method Based on Multiresolution Causality Testing] Framework, Humanit Soc Sci Commun 11,8 (2024) Conclusions and Suggestions, accessed 1st May 2024, https://doi.org/10.1057/s41499-023-02526-9
Isabella McRae and Sam Gelder, ‘This Cost of Living Calculator Shows How Different Cities in the UK Are Being Hit by Inflation’, The Big Issue, 18th February 2023, accessed 1st May 2024, https://www.bigissue.com/news/social-justice/cost-of-living-tracker-predicts-how-bad-inflation-is-in-your-area/
The World Bank, ‘Chapter 1. The Economic Impacts of the COVID-19 Crisis’, World Development Report 2022, accessed 1st May 2024, https://www.worldbank.org/en/publication/wdr2022/brief/chapter-1-introduction-the-economic-impacts-of-the-covid-19-crisis
‘Freat Recession: What It Was and What Caused It’, The Investopedia Team, Investopedia, 18th December 2024, accessed 1st May 2024, https://www.investopedia.com/terms/g/great-recession.asp
‘Mental Health and the Cost.of-Living Crisis Report: Another Pandemic in the Making?’ Mental Health Foundation, Policy and Advocacy, 2023, accessed 1st May 2024, https://www.mentalhealth.org.uk/our-work/policy-and-advocacy/mental-health-and-cost-of-living-crisis-report
James Baldwin Quote – ‘Anyone who has ever struggled…’, Goodreads, 2024, accessed 1st May 2024, https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/9852471-anyone-who-has-ever-struggled-with-poverty-knows-how-extremely
Samuel Johnson Quote – ‘resolve not to be poor…’, Goodreads, 2024, accessed 1st May 2024, https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/241455-resolve-not-to-be-poor-whatever-you-have-spend-less
Philippa Perry, ‘Are You, Like Rita Ora, Terrified of Death? You’re Quite Right To Be’, The Guardian newspaper, 26th August 2015, accessed 2nd May 2024, https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/aug/26/rita-ora-death-freedom-isolation-meaninglessness
‘Irvin Yalom’, Biopic, HarperCollins Publishers, 2024, accessed 2nd May 2024, https://www.harpercollins.com/blogs/authors/irvin-d-yalom-880000047992
Tomasz Zaleskiewicz, et al, ‘Money and the Fear of Death: The Symbolic Power of Money as an Existential Anxiety Buffer’, Journal off Economic Psychology, Volume 36, 2013, Pages 55-67, ISSN 0167-4870, https://doi.org/j.poep.2013.02.008 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0167487013000391
‘Cognitive Dissonance’, Cambridge Online Dictionary, 2025, accessed 2nd May 2024, https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/cognitive-dissonance
World Economic Outlook, ‘Steady but slow: Resilience amid Divergence’, International Monetary Fund, 16th April 2024, accessed 1st May 2024, https://www.imf.org/en/Publications/WEO#:~:text=Global%20inflation%20is%20forecast%20to,projected%20to%20decline%20more%20gradually.
recover your wellbeing 