Recession a REALITY or FARCE?

A new Study has come up recounting the sorry state of unemployment in America 

Going through this I reflected on the thought about the present state of India in terms of recession and unemployment. Every other day we hear about economic growth rate rising and presently it is placed at 8.5% according to the facts. 

Let’s try to understand what Economic Growth Rate is

In practice, it is a measure of the rate of change that a nation's gross domestic product goes through from one year to another. Gross national product can also be used if a nation's economy is heavily dependent on foreign earnings.

Economic Growth = (GDP2 - GDP1) / GDP1

Now, the question comes as to what exactly is Gross Domestic Product which is commonly known as GDP.

What Does Gross Domestic Product - GDP Mean?

The monetary value of all the finished goods and services produced within a country's borders in a specific time period, though GDP is usually calculated on an annual basis. It includes all of private and public consumption, government outlays, investments and exports less imports that occur within a defined territory.

GDP = C + G + I + NX

where:

"C" is equal to all private consumption, or consumer spending, in a nation's economy
"G" is the sum of government spending
"I" is the sum of all the country's businesses spending on capital
"NX" is the nation's total net exports, calculated as total exports minus total imports. (NX = Exports - Imports)

Investopedia explains Gross Domestic Product – GDP

GDP is commonly used as an indicator of the economic health of a country, as well as to gauge a country's standard of living. Critics of using GDP as an economic measure say the statistic does not take into account the underground economy - transactions that, for whatever reason, are not reported to the government. Others say that GDP is not intended to gauge material well-being, but serves as a measure of a nation's productivity, which is unrelated.

What Does Unemployment Rate Mean?

The percentage of the total labor force which is unemployed but actively seeking employment and is willing to work. 

Do all these calculations show the real picture? Our Census says we are at present 1.15 billion. My hunch is that we are much more than that.

Now, I would like to ask a question - did the recession really hit India and is over now when America is still reeling under it?

I will let you know my experience of recession:-

• ·         My salary was decreased by 10% from the current level.
• ·         My quarterly Team Building allowance of Rs. 200 was scraped.
• ·         Bisleri bottles and dispensers were replaced by water filters.
• ·         We were asked to use paper plates, napkins and disposable glasses with care.
• ·         Many of my colleagues were asked to leave.

The only fact that amused me was that not a single project in my company got scraped during this period.

I and people around me experienced recession in the above illustrated form only. The other effect that we discovered outside our company was that our updated Resumes on the various Job Portals were unable to attract new job opportunities anymore.

The effect was like people started reaching Interview venues on or before time for whatever opportunity they got. The attitudes got milder. There were little or no negotiations on salary offered. Candidates started running after recruiters instead of the opposite earlier. Offer declines became a word of past.

Recession became the talk of the town and the synonym of any sorry state. 

According to me it was a FARCE in India. It just exposed our unorganized way of functioning. The recession was not the cause for the above distress instead it was the aftermath of the so called Economic Boom that we all enjoyed just before that. The so called trade pundits who continuously chatter on the idiot box and colour our newspaper black and white, were in one voice saying that “our Time has come”, “we are going to be the next economic super power”.

After the recession hit, economy slumped and they were again there making noise barefacedly about the present sorry state and how much more bad shape it would take in future.

We, like illiterate and senseless fools first believed them when they were shouting at the top of their voices dressed in fine linen suits and gelled hair on our TV screens that we are not going to get affected by the recession and our time has come and again believed them when they with an expression of an intellect again dressed in linen and well groomed hair said that we are hit by recession and the matter will worsen in future.

Again, we all started talking about the recovery when again these pundits started babbling about the recovery and we all started getting calls on our updated Resumes. 

I want to ask

• ·         How can we recover if America & Europe are still reeling under recession?
• ·         How are we getting new opportunities when our counterparts in America are still struggling to find a decent job?
• ·         How can we say that we were in recession and recovered from it with flying colours when during this periods all records of scams in our country were broken?
• ·         How can we say that we are on a recovery path when the price of all the essentials goods has almost doubled in a spam of one year?
• ·         How can we say that we were hit by recession when I hardly heard any company in India shutting down or incurring huge losses?

So, am I not right in calling this recession a FARCE?