When our province has a $25 billion shortfall, should we...

panic in the streets (it is a record of sorts, after all),

review our stock portfolio with an eye to sell high,

lower our material expectations for the next 10 years,

start the day with a very strong drink,

just keep smiling and plugging away,

all of the above,

or other?

Personally, the answer depends on so many variables.

A job-oriented person (“Can I have a successful, long-term job in this climate?”) will react differently than a cause-oriented person (“Maybe the climate will improve as the economy withers?”).

A person with expensive lifestyle or materialistic goals will react differently than a person with sustainable environmental or more spiritual goals.


A person with a secure job and pension might plug along. A person with few job and security prospects might despair.

After a 60 - 100 year strong-economic-era that has been good to many people (on the back of growing production and cheap oil), a growing debt load at least should make us pause to wonder:

Are we in for a long period of decline?

Do our present economic goals periodically or eventually lead to failure?

Are we facing some of the true costs (that aren't often talked about) of a high-production and fossil fuel based economy?

Will austerity and lower financial expectations become the norm?

Should our government and business leaders now consider developing an economic model that will appear very sustainable and sensible 20 years from now?

(And the $25 billion question...)

If government is just hoping everything will go back to business as usual, but that approach brought us to this dismal point, might the next order of business as usual be even worse for us?

***

I don’t think business as usual is the right choice for governments.

More to follow.

.