Recession, Any Winners?

The economy to me was something that I would take a fleeting glance at, absorb from it the information that I needed, being the small parts that I could understand and forget about. This was something that was studied by the type of people who spend half there daily lives commuting to London for work, only to allow them to complain about the state of public transport between reading the latest copy of FT and sneering through there expensive suit at other passengers. But now, it is a different story and not in the fairy tale sense.

The recession is upon us and although the goverment put the term in pandoras box along with many other words that are not allowed to be used including “War”, “Iraq” and “NHS”, It has become a daily discussion with people from all walks of life. No matter who you are or what you do, you cannot seem to escape it and everything that comes along with it. From Savings to Mortgages, Jobs to Wages and even the price of a loaf has been effected, leaving no one untouched. Or has it?

Seeing another new doctor at my local surgery recently got me thinking about the impact on GPs in the recession. Does a new doctor mean that the NHS is making cut backs and someone has got the sack?Or is it more likely that, similiar to teachers, doctors in general practice are walking due to the strain on society today?I happen to think that the latter is true. Those who have lost jobs knocking on the door for prozac, those who have jobs following them for the same medication caused by living with the fear of losing there job. This beggars the question, who is the real winner in the recession. My personal conclusion:Drug Addicts.

i understand that this is a stark and contraversial conclusion, but tell me that I am wrong?

Possibly addicts is too large a scale to look and as I am not an expert of how the current economic climate has effected the price of drugs on the street, I define my conclusion to drug addicts on the NHS funded rehabilitation program.

I openly admit that i do not know all the ins and outs of this program but the free supply of a drug that is mainly used to make you feel better and goes hand in hand with benefits from the goverment that include money for food, payment of rent and council tax and other allowances unaffected by the recession sounds good to me.

No worrying about where the next rent money is coming from, if you are going to lose your house etc, all the worries being faced by million of britains all over the country at the moment. I understand that these people are coping a drug problem, but why does it make them immune to dealing with all the problems that the rest of the world must face?A drug problem is something that you instigate yourself. Loss of a job through company closure is something completley outside a persons control.

Even the commuter in his expensive suit reading the FT on the train every morning is no longer taking in the words on the page, but using it as a shield his face and concentrate on his thoughts of “I hope my wife isn’t using her credit card today?” and “how am I going to pay the mortgage this month?”