This Economic Crisis

My son has given up his job:
he survived for almost a year
but finished up stressed-out.

He worked fourteen hours a day
for 1,500 euros a month.
He is a land surveyor,
and he studied for five  years  
to get his degree.
That was his first job
and he is disillusioned.

One night they kept him in the office till 5 a.m.
then he had to go to work again at 8 a.m.
and measure things accurately all day.

If he made a mistake,
the company would lose money
and he would be responsible.

Another night they had him measuring by lamplight:
the job had to be finished in time for elections
to please a local politician,
who had been expensively wined and dined
in order to get the contract.

They could of course have employed two surveyors
on bearable eight-hour shifts,
but that wouldn't have been cost-effective.  

He was never paid any overtime.

I realize things are worse in many countries,
but right now I can only think about my son.

No bank would give him a loan
because his contract was short-term.

His income was relatively good.
Most young workers in Spain
make a thousand euros a month
or even less...

They can't get a mortgage,
so they rent a bedroom
in an old, shared flat
for 400 euros a month
in Barcelona or Madrid.

By the time they've paid for light,
heat, phone calls, food and clothes,
there's no money left for a car,
let alone for a home of their own.

Don't worry, I'm not a socialist,
but I would ask Spanish leaders:
"Are you surprised that car sales are down,
or that many new houses are empty? "

Politicians, of course, earn more.
Perhaps they lack the imagination
to understand how hard it is
for most of us to just get by.
Perhaps they were always rich.

Obama may be an exception.

If consumers can't buy because their income is low,
demand for goods and services goes down,
production is cut, workers are laid off
(and so have less money to spend in shops)  
and the downward spiral just goes on.

I'm not an economist,
but I believe the original Mr.Ford
used to pay his workers well,
so they could buy his cars.

Another question is what the banks have been up to...

I repeat, I'm not a socialist,
but giving everyone third-world wages
and impossible working hours
just isn't going to work.

Sorry if this is not a poetic subject.

In England my younger daughter
gets the minimum wage in a café:
eight hours a day on her feet,
for eight hundred pounds a month.
Just her room costs four hundred.
She studied aeronautical engineering for six years
and that was the best she could find.

My other daughter, in the same country,
is paid the same salary  - as an assistant teacher.
She studied English and French for five years
and has a Master of Arts
in translation and interpreting,
and that was the best she could find.

They barely get by.

I do not expect  them to marry
and have some children,
because they can't afford to.
Grandpas are of another time.

Soon no one will have enough  cash
to buy anything from anyone.

I suggest that the governments of certain countries
should be requested to raise their minimum wage
(if they have such a thing)
until it's similar to ours,
so that their citizens can buy our exports
as well as exporting to us.
Their businesses would still compete
because their employees
are such hard workers.

Who knows, child labour
might even disappear,
because better-paid parents
would  keep their kids at school.

The middle-men, it's true
could well lose out:
they would no longer be able
to buy shoes for one euro in Asia
and sell them for twenty in the West.

But I can live with that...

Money has to circulate  - that's trade:
if you take out buyers,
then sellers are lost too.