At the moment, the answer to the current financial crisis proposed most frequently is to stimulate spending with financial incentives to the public.
Just yesterday the Chief Executive of JC Penney in the States called for the new U.S. administration to step in and help boost the amount consumers spend. He said that people are not spending because they are 'concerned about the lack of visibility to '09 and beyond'.
He has identified an important problem - lack of certainty, lack of visibility of the future. But the solution should match the problem. Short term financial incentives may simply add to the uncertainty by destabilising the economy once more. Perhaps we should stop trying to give short-term stimulation, and think more over a ten- or twenty-year time frame.
In a crisis, it is the constant change, constant attempts to revive in the short term, that are exhausting, and stop the wider world from functioning. To enter a period of good, extended recovery, we first need to accept that some parts of our infrastructure may not recover in the short term. Then we need to identify a long term plan to make the most of what will be left. We are spending a lot of time hanging on to what is gone, what is spent. Let's start from where we are. The beauty of crisis is its ability to create something new.
Let's stop trying to reverse autumn by sticking leaves back on the trees. Spring comes without our desperate help.
