Not surprisingly, the global recession has had similar impacts across the globe.
What is possibly surprising, is that people around the world look for the bright side in the downturn, and find ways to be optimistic.
Islamabad, Pakistan
Tarik Zia, 38, TV News Reporter
The global economic downturn has effected my job security. Eight people in our Islamabad office were laid off recently, with only one day’s notice. Inflation is also rising but my salary is not keeping up with the rise in prices.
Warsaw, Poland
Klara Walecka, 35, NGO Project Manager
The mortgage that I took in Swiss Francs at the end of July has gone up by 50 percent, and the value of the apartment that I wanted to sell to pay for the new one went down so I can’t sell it now.
Basically, I’m chained to this mortgage for 30 years with much higher monthly payments than expected. I negotiated the mortgage at the worst moment, when the Franc was worth 1.90 Polish Zloty, right now it’s more than 3 Zloty per Franc.
Hamilton, New Zealand
Barbara Wiseman, 57, Organic Store Owner
Business [in January] was 20 percent quieter than last year, which means less income, less expenditure. I am very careful as to what I do buy. I buy when things are on special, plan ahead so I don’t have the temptation to buy on impulse. I have to be a lot wiser about how I spend my money.
But I think it can be a positive thing. It is good for New Zealanders to have a look and appreciate on a world scale what we really have. We live in a land of plenty. We have the best of everything. It’s making me into a wiser businesswoman. In a lot of ways adversity can work really well.
Salt Lake City, USA
Sometimes my work is slower and sales were down 50 percent at work. I still have a job, so it hasn’t affected me too much. But recently it’s been busier and we have more days with sales higher than before the problem. I think that more people are visiting and moving to Utah, and Obama has put a lot of hope in the people.
Brisbane, Australia
Steven McLennan, Marketing
Not me personally, however, I have a lot of friends, particularly younger people—apprentice builders, and such, and people just joining the work force—who are now finding it particularly difficult to find work.
Kosice, Slovakia
Jakub Lorenz, Age 23, retail store Manager
Not directly. My salary was a little bit lowered, since in our shop turnover has decreased. Also, due to the crisis, one of my favorite shops is now closed.
But I think the crisis will not last long. I don’t consider it to be so frightful like it was after the World War, for example. The social system in developed countries is advanced enough, so it couldn’t happen that people would starve, etc.
Athens, Greece
Panagiotis Venticos, 36, Travel Agent
I work in the tourist industry as a free lancer. The tourist industry is very linked to the crisis. No money - no vacations! Three years ago I had twice as much work compared to now. My incoming now is 50 percent lower than it was 3 years ago for the same month. So I have less work but the same expenses.
Timisoara, Romania
Adam Marius Florin, 29, Business Owner
I am a retail business owner for thermo-pane windows (or insulated glazing windows), so it affects me because people don’t get loans, and without loans, they don’t build houses and don’t have enough left over money to make upgrades in their homes.
Before people got 15,000 Euro credit for personal needs, now they can get only 3,000 Euro and also the interest rate is much higher then before. The money in the Romanian banks came from foreign support which is now cut.
[Editor’s note: In the communist era houses were not very well insulated so the thermo-pane windows business has been flourishing in an attempt to fix this problem. The communist regime had explained this subtle form of repression as economizing and not being wasteful.]
Rasht, Iran
Farokh Ahmadi, 52, Super Market Owner
After the revolution that happened in Iran, there was big inflation and then after that Iran was in a war for 8 years and on top of that was faced with economic sanctions. That’s why people have become used to economic woes and inflation, and therefore the economic downturn in the market has not had a big impact on the marginalized class.
Actually, in the case of our profession, certain goods have even had a reduction in their price, which is beneficial to the low-income class.
Rasht, Iran
Bijan Malek Mohamadi, 57, Taxi Driver
I’m a driver, I make my living by driving, and this economic downturn has caused the price of gas to go up. The government doesn’t give us enough subsidized gas, and so we have to buy gas on the open market, so I’m having problems providing for my family.
Ghazieh, Lebanon
Ali Khalifeh, 33 years, Auditor Accountant firm partner
Like any other average Lebanese citizen, the only thing that affected me is the increase in the prices. Those who got affected significantly are those investors who have shares abroad, like some rich businessmen.
We have a small-scale banking system and capitalist economy. The financial operations in our banks are mainly local, like opening a personal account, transferring money from an account to another and taking personal loans.
These are not significant operations, which isolates our economy from the international system. We are not 100 percent immune, the national economy is of course affected like I said by the increase in prices.
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