Magna Car Ta

Before anyone gets carried away with all the positive vibes about countries emerging from recession, spare a thought for the 10,500 workers soon to be out of a job as a result of the Magna/Sberbank acquisition of Opel.
Now we’re not close enough to the details to understand why that number but clearly oversupply and the well documented GM struggles made this sort of announcement an inevitability.  The economies affected are going to take a seriously long time to recover.  At best the growth estimates are mind numbingly small, so finding alternative valuable work for these redundant individuals is going to be tough.
There almost seems to be this view that somehow because technically the world is dragging itself out of a recession that all will be well in a few weeks so some reality needs to be reintroduced to the equation.  But there’s the rub.  How do you introduce reality without then depressing the signs of recovery such as they are…
A lot of recessionary pressures are caused by lack of consumer spending based on fears over longer term security.  Announcements such as the Opel one does little to dispel such fears.  But we’re all adults – we should be able to cope with some reality along the way surely?
Reality has certainly hit home for those 10,500 awaiting details of their redundancy package and this will further suppress any potential growth in the economies affected.  Reality bites…