The 12 consequences of unemployment

So we talked about unemployment but what about the not so often discussed consequences.
Unemployment is bad enough, but what really changes the world around you for decades will be the consequences of such a situation, if high unemployment perpetuates itself enough to cause serious damage like it did here and in other countries.

More poverty

Of course. Should be obvious enough but something most people don’t think of is where these poor are coming from. During an economic crisis and with +20% unemployment, those new poor are you. It’s the middle class society, the large social cushion that keeps good life standards in 1rst world countries. We’re talking about you, your family, friends and neighbors, people from your social circle. They can no longer afford to live in the kind of places they did, can no longer the car they used to have, the medical care.

Crime

Less jobs means more desperate people looking to survive and while the majority of people are overall good guys, desperate people do desperate things and the smaller percentage of bad people still exists.
As times get worse, more and more people get involved in criminal activity of all kinds to survive. The worst kind is of course violent crime such as armed robbery, kidnapping and murder.

Hatred

Remember those ex middle class folks? They are people, and the mass psychology involved here is pretty complex. Why am I poor? Why does that guy have what I’ll clearly never will?
The misery creates an entire population of young adults and teens that simply hate they lives, hate themselves and have no hope in the future whatsoever. And believe me its MUCH worse than the bleeding heart rap BS you may already be familiar with. Its totally different when there really is no hope in the horizon, and you understand you may not live long enough to see a positive change.
This means there’s not just more crime, the hate combined with such crime is the worst part. 12 year old kids thinking its much easier to pick a corpse clean so they just shoot you without remorse. Armed robbers rapping the victims during home robbery, torturing them in other way too.
We’ve never seen such hatred towards senior citizens either. They just trick them into opening the door and brutally beat them to death.
We’ve never seen such a predisposition to shoot the victim just because, simply for a pair of shoes or 20 pesos.

More drugs

Along with the social degradation comes drugs. No hope, more drugs. Its also good business for many so its understandable that a large amount of people find drugs and drug dealing as a mean to make money during the crisis.
There’s sure going to be more than enough customers.

Corruption

Here its kind of accepted that cops ask for bribes whenever they can because salaries are too low.
The problem isn’t just dirty cops, the problem is that corruption becomes socially accepted and spreads like a cancer.
Corrupt cops, corrupt politicians, judges gov. officials. It get to the point where you have national Senator Luis Barrionuevo with his infamous quote: “If we stop stealing for 2 years, we solve every problem this country has.” Notice he includes himself in the quote.
http://www.elojodigital.com/politica/2009/07/21/1688.html

More suicides

It happened often enough, I remember cursing them for ruining my day. ”Cant they kill themselves any other way? At least don’t choose rush hour to jump under the damn train!” Ashamed to admit so but you eventually lose a bit of sensitivity when it happens often enough.
During the worst of the crisis you would have 2 or 3 suicides in Roca railroad branch alone. For some reason they usually did it early in the morning, maybe a desperate attempt to attract some attention in their final moment.
Don’t remember the exact percentage but suicides had gone up significantly along with phobias, stress and mental disorders.

Spreading of cults and pseudo religions

Seems silly but the more desperate people are, the more willing they are to believe in false idols or pagan rituals no one sane would believe.
Umbanda churches became terribly prolific along with a huge variety of cults.
People still believe in this, they have their witch or pai that does “jobs” for them, mostly for money, love and revenge.

More prostitution

The oldest trade in the world they say. The amount of prostitutes increases significantly.
There’s also more perversion as well: More transvestites, more pedophilia and “white” slavery: Girls, even children getting kidnapped, moved to some far away province and forced into prostitution in some brothel.

More gambling

Gambling has gone up from 500% to 800%, heard that on the news a couple days ago.
I know, makes no sense that people have even less and waste more. Well, again, its complex. People become more desperate and do more stupid things, and it goes along well with the general social decadency: More gambling, more drugs, more prostitution.
This isn’t some “big city” problem either. It occurs and becomes evident in small downs as well. As a matter of fact, most brothels where kidnapped girls end up are usually in small towns with the complicity of local police.

More diseases

Poverty means less people have access to medical care, have enough heat at home to stay healthy during the winter, have no money for repairs at home or have no home entirely.
Less money for proper hygiene, and the poor education means the population has less knowledge on common sanitation measure too.
All this means that diseases and viruses, everything form Dengue to flu, along with sexual transmitted diseases, it all spreads easier now.

Less education

Why even study if you’re ever going to get to college? Why study if you’re going to end up a criminal anyway?
Add to that the amount of good kids that have to stop going to school to work either as “cartoneros”(paper and cardboard scavengers), or on the fields in the country. The parents don’t make enough money so they have to work too to put food on the table.

Lower life standards

This entire situation means there’s social degradation, social decadency in all aspects of life.
Even if you do make a better living, manage to have better finances, the world you live in is still the same.
The more money you have the more you can isolate yourself by moving to gated communities, guards, even bodyguards and armored vehicles if you have the money for it.
All that does not change the fact that the rest of the country is very different from your personal bubble.


These are the medium and long term consequences of the crisis.
Some may become more evident than others, some may not develop as much, but there's no other way, these are things that will happen to a greater or lesser degree and have an impact on everyone's life.

FerFAL