The word RECESSION became very prominent recently that even the rural folk around my home started asking me, Does the Ice started melting? I was not very surprised at the general awareness of the lay man. Being a budding engineer from my village I am supposed to answer their questions. Even though I don’t know much I have to dodge the questions. Economists and eminents in the sector are still not sure about the complete recovery of the economy. But it seems like it is under control to certain extend but not steady as before. Governments across the world trying hard to stabilize their economies by providing right solutions and encouraging people in different ways. It was chaos a few months back, investors loosing money due to panic in the stock markets, companies filed bankruptcy thus a lot of unemployment came out of the blue. All together public life went miserable. In US big motor giants like GM, and many new generation banks like Morgan Stanley lost their balance and fell in the storm. When we look into India it affected every industry but the impact was less compared to American and other European Union nations. The underlying reason that we are less affected can be our nationalized banks. Because in US the problem started from banks giving away money without checking assets. Thanks to the foresight of our think tanks, who are very good with numbers and predictions. When a common man look at the Indian economic slow down he will only see the slow pace in construction of the nearby flat or may be a few young guys just out of college with deferring joining dates or a few abjured due to high stress levels etc.

All these can be considered as an altruistic boon of the economic recession. Because it made us think about future. Everyone became careful about work, studies or in spending money. It brought edification of society to certain extend. People started using the grey cells more effectively. A frozen scenario like this brought us back to our senses. It is teaching us the need to evaluate our personal and professional life before and after the recession without procrastination. So that any such tempestuous situation in future can be resolved much easily. A focused study is very much necessary for this.

Even though secondly to individual the family gets worst affected when a condition like loosing a job occurs. This is particularly severe when you have dependents especially when you have siblings. So families must start precautionary measures in the new world order, especially to create a good financial position. Like a good budget serves purpose of a country, every family must prepare a budget which shouldn’t be a deficit one. Must identify the areas where an unforeseen & urgent expenditure will come like an illness to self, parents, partner or children. A contingency fund must be there to meet such purposes. Besides the financial aspect there are certain things which might help a person in a crisis it’s the trust and care of the family which one can earn through a period of time. Certain people tend to keep there problems to themselves which is not a good practice. There are people who where afraid to break the news to family and went out everyday even after loosing their job. In such cases a professional counselor can help you. The small changes like this in our life will certainly help in adverse conditions.

Professional life is another important area one must focus. We must cultivate new habits which are healthy enough to support you when a condition like a lay off comes. Slapdash attitude must change. Build a good circle of friends whom you can rely on. Always be fructuous in your works. And cardinal thing is learning a new technology to back up your core skill. This will help to find a job and will get you engaged till you find the right job. Always refresh your core skills as well, which will improve your value to the employer. Results must not be just par expectations, it must exceed that. Other ways of overcoming financial crisis include, finding a second income scheme. I have many friends who do internet business like blogging, freelance works like website maintance, running small businesses etc.

Like I said recession will turn out to be a boon if we start analyzing our life. Investments must be done wisely so that we can withstand crisis. A simple example is gold, people who have invested in commodities like gold have reaped handsome benefits. So start planning your investments, and there is nothing wrong in getting an advice from a qualified investment counselor. Other simple ways of secure investment is in government sector like post office recurring deposits, FD’s in nationalized banks etc. These are judicious people doing now a day. The importance of financial literacy and spending money wisely cannot be underestimated. Think about ways you can cut down on spending and save money. It’s difficult for even the top economists to predict what’s going to happen next, but we can do our part by asking questions and being aware of how deep economic changes can affect our daily lives.

Another important help recession brought is that, with recession we understood who is with whom. Even the proud European Union failed to help each other in the crisis, the crisis made a fracture in the alliance with stronger economies protecting their own national interests. We have a slightly different picture in the Asian context, developing countries started helping each other. BRIC summit held on mid June made significant decisions on cooperation, mutual respect, equality etc. However the summit showed that the four countries do have a common agenda. Earlier in 2001 BRIC was just an acronym coined by an economist at Goldman Sachs.(BRIC stands for Brazil-Russia-India-China summit.) These ideas are an optimistic perspective, but I feel like certain things mentioned above a more into the realistic side also.

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