The other day I said that it was an American recession and not an Australian problem.

Three things happened yesterday that radically altered my perception. One involved my neighbour, Ron the second involved my uber geek friend from Europe and the third, an Australian edict to stockpile food. .

Stockpile Food

For a Government to issue conflicting messages......

Australian Government told Australians to stockpile a couple of weeks worth of food because of the swine flu pandemic – but Don’t Panic – we don’t want a run on the shops.

....about a threat that hasn’t yet arrived in Australia is unusual.

With previous Pandemics, Sars, Bird Flu, no-one (except an academic report) ever said – stock up, stock up the end is nigh.

But this time round, I have a feeling that the upcoming budget may need some “good news” to take the edge off the unfortunate announcements that have been forced on the government by lowered taxation revenue stream and increasing foreign debt.

Therefore – I would opine, that swine flu as dangerous as it may be** – is at this stage a trigger event to increase consumer purchasing in the retail sector. June will be up on the first quarter allowing some much needed book balancing in Canberra.

My Neighbour Ron

I was placing potted plants in a garden bed this morning – lining them up for the planned planting frenzy tomorrow and my neighbour walked passed retrieving his wheelie bin. “Hey Ron”, I called out. “Hey Tom”, he replied, “how’s it going”? So we chatted about my planned planting and then I asked him, “so you got the day off, huh?”

“Yeah, it’s a bit quiet at work so we’re taking our holidays a bit at a time.”

Ron’s not an economist. He’s a diesel mechanic/fitter and turner and he’s worked for the same company for thirty years. It’s an American company. I didn’t have the heart to tell him that the company was probably minimizing its termination liability position in case it received shutdown orders from its USA Head office. Ron’s a nice guy, but he’s 55.

I don’t think Ron will find it easy to get a job if the company shuts down.

My friend is propositioned by Schoolgirls

The other incident yesterday involved the oldest profession known to man.

My uber geek friend AK came to visit me today, and I collected him from the train station*. As I arrived at the station, I could see cops everywhere and I prepared myself for the worst…. The uber geek had hacked NSW Rail to make the trains run on time…..and was about to be carried away.

But no, there he was standing on the curb with his hands behind his back looking nonchalantly up at the sky and whistling innocently.

“What did you do?” I asked as I pulled up next to him.

“Nothing… But it was unreal – I got off the train and there were all these girls offering sex for fifty bucks and then next minute there were plain clothes policeman grabbing people and girls running everywhere.”

Apparently, the ubergeek had arrived just in time to watch Sydney’s finest breaking up a train station prostitution ring.

“So how do you know it was fifty bucks dude?” I asked.

“Because I had two of them offering me services before I got to the stairs, but they were young, just schoolgirls” he replied.

So there we have it. Schoolgirl prostitutes, highly qualified people close to being laid off and the Government saying the end is nigh.

We do have a problem. I just didn’t realize until today how serious it was.

So – to fix this we need more Australian jobs that can only be created by paying more for consumables. Yep – you. Pay more – now – for everything – as long as it’s made in Australia.

Try to buy Australian.

It’s a simple exercise – start asking shop keepers – was this made in Australia ?

If every single Australian starts to ask every single shop keeper – was this made here, for every single item they buy – very soon the recession that we had to have, coz the USA told us so,  – just ain’t going to happen and schoolgirls can go back to school again, Ron will be able to amass his holidays again and the Government will stop imitating the USA. (Well, one would hope they stop.)

* I am omitting idenitying the station as I do not wish to damage the prosecution evidence of the boys in blue.

** I happen to think that Swineflu will go much the same way as Sars and Bird-flu. It will sell lots of drugs and kill less people than the normal flu.