The View from my Bicycle [COLUMN]

Access...Denied

When I went to gym this evening [1 November 2009] as I approached the turnstile, the lady at reception swiped my card and instead of the yellow square popping up to identify me as a valid human being, a red one popped up and blinked: VITALITY FOR THIS CHUMP HAS BEEN CANCELLED.
"I guess I'll be leaving then," I said. The lady at reception was far more surprised than me. I knew my status was questionable, but I thought I'd be able to use the gym until the 4th, which is when Vitality is usually subtracted off my account.
The lady at reception wasn't to know this of course. She said I was welcome to go in through the gate. She must have thought: Probably some administrative error. She would think that because I train often at Melrose Arch Gym, the #1 Virgin Active gym in the country. I sometimes pitch wearing my Ironman 2005 shirt. But I won't be back.

See I lost my job in September, and since then, my Medical Aid has been cancelled, my lifestyle is being...downsized. Benefits are becoming fewer. I have to think twice about buying a pizza. The other day I gave a beggar a 20 cent coin and as I drove off he yelled at me: "MOTHERFUCKER." I saw him again this evening, crouching at my window.

Some people, apparently, are taking the recession in their stride, learning to form new priorities.
Reuters reports that market research firm Synovate polled around 11,400 people across the world and found more than half had permanently changed their attitudes toward money over the last 12 months.

Another 47 per cent, however, said they were looking forward to being able to spend freely again.

I think money is an interesting construct. It has a very theoretical value and meaning. When you're unemployed, the lack of it becomes evident. It's quite painful. Money has a way of cushioning reality for a very limited number of people.

Think about this. The sole reason a company exists is to make money. So the people who work for these companies, what is there reason for being there? To make sure the company meets its objectives, right? Well what about their objectives? Increasingly companies feel if they are paying a salary to an employee, they own and can and should control everything in that drone's life. Companies are also now more powerful than governments. They have their own security, their own agenda. They pull the strings of presidents and politicians. It is what is in their interests that counts, not the ordinary person. Thus corporate persons are more important than natural, or real persons. Think about companies that sue people. Like the famous MacLibel trial, the longest running trial in British history. McDonald's sued two not particularly wealthy people. On paper, despite being in the wrong, McD should have won. Because they had a dozen lawyers, and lots of money. In fact,if my memory serves me, McD did win, eventually, but they lost the PR war,and the case was eventually overturned by a European court.

By let me get to the original question. If a company's purpose is to make money, and you work for a company, what is your purpose? Why do you exist on this planet? To make money? Because that's how you're behaving.

Fortunately for me, at around the same time my Virgin Active membership has dried up, someone gave me a freebie, a one year membership at Planet Fitness. It won't be the same, but it's better than no gym at all.
This is an interesting situation. I was saying to a friend of mine that when someone loses their job, for a few weeks, months even, you can not have a job and still maintain the life you're used to...as you expect you'll be employed again quite soon, and earning a salary. Meanwhile, you're burning through the very last layer of skin before you get to the sheer skeleton of your finances. If you look at America, this is exactly what is happening. Things still have the appearance of normal, but when those final barriers are gone, the last credit card reserves, the pension, then the full portent of reality sets in. That is going to be painful to people personally, and that will be felt in the economy. As the world's biggest consumer market comes to a grinding halt.

In South Africa people are thinking the property market is turning. Interest rates are at record lows. Sorry to say, but South Africa lags Australia, and in Oz interest rates have just gone up again. That means, buying property isn't going to work right now. And over the long term, electricity prices are going to eat into the small property cookie that remains.

Which brings us to oil prices. With an economy going nowhere, and oil prices in the high $70's, what can we expect. The answer is we can't expect anything good. Energy is going to kill growth. It is the perfect storm for stagflation [high prices and unemployment].
To get back to the metaphor above, as I say, when I was finally denied access it came as an unpleasant, but not totally unexpected surprise. The receptionist was almost shocked. I don't think she considered that I hadn't paid, I think she thought their systems were defective. Because how on earth could it be that I didn't pay?
Access denied is going to increase everywhere, and the question is this: how will people respond to this? If money and consumption is the reason why we do what we do, and are what we are, when you take away the money, what sort of people are you left with?