condolences

the rain was supposed to be good news. after many months wait, the ground, the plants and the people were desperate for it. the tragedy yesterday has put all of that into perspective.

my younger child went to camp for the first time this year. i hated letting her go, as i always did with the older one. it wasn't because i feared for their safety, but because i missed their presence around the house. even if only for a few days, the emptiness was difficult to bear.

so i can only imagine what the parents of the six children who died in yesterday's tragedy must be feeling like, knowing their children will never come home. there's already media pressure to put the blame somewhere, but i wish they would hold off for a couple of days at least. even the staff at OPC need to go through a grieving process; are our media so callous as to not even give them that time? the full story will definitely come out through the various investigations that have been announced, so there isn't any hurry for pointing the finger.

i'd much rather the media focused on coverage that helped us to grieve with and support the families of those who died. most of them are doing that pretty well actually; it's just the additional stuff around blame that's not needed just now.


on another note (quite hard to think about anything else today), it seems that the credit crisis may not lead to a decrease in borrowing. this is because of the rise of low-interest credit cards, which encourage people to borrow to fund current consumption. borrowing for current consumption (rather than for investment) is the worst form of borrowing.

i appreciate that many are facing financial difficulties with rising food and petrol prices. but in that kind of environment, i would say that it's more important to stick to what you can afford, where possible. the retail sector requires high consumption to ensure growth, but growth fuelled by debt is harmful to the economy. what we need is growth fuelled by increased production and an increase in exports. which means increased investment is required, not increased consumption.