Life During Economic Recession: AW Blog Chain January 2009

I am writing this blog entry as a part of Absolute Write Blog Chain January 2009. I volunteered to run it and that is why, I am writing the first post. Well, I have never run a blog chain earlier and that is why, I am still some confused how to do it properly. No problem- next time, I will be better. I want to write about economic recession because I have been reading a lot about it in the next few days. By the way, just remember that this blog chain does not have any theme. So, the next person after me can write about anything she/he likes.

Enough of the introduction. Now, I can write something about the economic recession. I live in Bangladesh and economic recession has not affected us yet. Most people are perhaps too poor anyway to suffer from global recession. I have started to feel the pain because I earn my living by blogging and earning through advertising has decreased significantly compared to this time of last year.

Today, I was thinking about the possible negative impact of the recession on people in western countries. I know a person in USA whose wife lost her job on during the time between Christmas and New Year. She had a baby sitter to look after her baby and the day she lost the job, she had to inform her baby sitter that she could no longer afford to keep her. The baby sitter’s husband also got fired on the same day. It is indeed like a chain reaction.

I read in Internet that around 2.6 million people lost jobs in 2008 in USA. There is little hope that things will become better in 2009. The bad part is that the economy of almost every country is now somehow related to the US economy. For example, my neighboring country India earns around $50 billion from outsourcing and 80%-90% of that money comes from USA. Indian export sector may see loss of 10 million jobs in the next few months.

As a blogger, I am worried for the future for two reasons- I have already seen dramatic decrease in advertisement revenue for my blogs. I am not optimistic about 2009 because anticipating a bleak prospect; big companies like Microsoft and Intel are cutting many jobs these days. Secondly, if the condition of US economy does not improve then the number of freelance projects will either decrease or there will be less money on offer for these kinds of projects. May be I am wrong or may be I am too much afraid. I just pray deeply that things will get better in 2010.

Next in the blog chain is Benjamin Solah with her blog: http://benjaminsolah.com/blog/

I wonder what he will write about.

The participating blogs in Absolute Write Blog Chain January 2009:

Razib Ahmed
Benjamin Solah
FreshHell
WendyNYC
madderblue
Kat Frass
veinglory truelyana

Ralph Pines

(This entry was first published in January 2009. Because of a technical problem, the entry had to be deleted and I am reposting again now.)