The economy is bad, but not for everyone

Life is number 6, or number 9, depending on which side of this number you are standing. We judge things according to where we stand. I have a personal fault I shamefully accept; if I am driving, I am constantly irritated by the shenanigans pulled by matatu drivers, but, if I am passenger in the said matatus, the irritation is just not there – get me there in the shortest time possible, driver! I am not selfish, I am just human.

“This economy is really bad” - a statement that has many colourful versions, one that can be used as a joke or in seriousness, of course, depending. What is constant though, is that it is one statement that never goes out of fashion. I have no memory of when I first heard it, but that is probably because I heard it way before my brain could decipher words. Fact is, the economy has always been bad, depending.

As bad as the economy has perpetually been, there is ever the lot that cannot identify with that statement. In the same bad economy, new millionaires are rolled out every day. There will be people putting up palatial homes at the same time the landlord of your one-room abode is threatening to kick you out for rent arrears.

At a time when petrol prices have shot up the roof (they always have, depending), there will be people filling up their big engine tanked vehicles without checking the price per litre, while you peep at them from inside a matatu, because you can no longer afford to fuel your car. As you review your kitchen budget to bare minimum during bad economic times, there are people who will not blink at spending ridiculous amounts in expensive restaurants, paying bills bigger than your monthly house spending.

For the economically challenged, the over-spending by some people can be hard to fathom. It can hurt, it can make you angry at life. But, like in George Orwell’s Animal Farm, some animals are more equal than others. Life is designed to have servants and masters. Unfortunately, only fate has a say in it.

Fate has the ultimate say, because it is not like these people work harder – it is possible they work smarter, but often, it is being at the right place at the right time. This piece was inspired by a conversation I had with someone in my village. For six days a week, he is in a tea farm by four-thirty in the morning, only source of light being a headlamp. Eight thirty, as his tea harvest is weighed, he has breakfast served by one of those enterprising ladies who make affordable food for casual labourers. You would think he would go home to rest because, working at dawn in dew and darkness can wear out just about anyone. Not him. He reports to a mjengo site and works until four o’clock in the afternoon.

He stops by the local butchery, drinks bone soup and a few pieces of cow-head eat as he catches up with the village gossip. By nine, he hits the sack, and prays that the obligations he is still to meet do not keep him awake at night. And the cycle continues the following day. This man has no other life, he does not even have time to catch up with his own family because he is often too tired to talk.

When the economy is bad, like now (and every time), prices of everything escalate, but his salary does not. If before he was able to save two hundred shillings, he is left with a hundred, or nothing, or negative, meaning he might have to get a night-guard job to top up the deficit.

The economy is (perpetually) bad for him, but is it bad for his employer? No, because when the price of production goes up, his employer passes the buck to his customers. Unfortunately he forgets to raise salaries, so he ends up making more.

As his worker gets a third job and less sleep just to keep his feet on the ground, the employer buys a new car to keep his feet off the ground.

This holiday season, do something for the economically challenged.

— thevillager254@gmail.com