How bad is the economy?

A world-wide public opinion poll was recently conducted by Pew Research Centre, covering the populations of 44 countries, asked the question: “Do you believe that the situation of the economy in your country is bad and going in the wrong direction?”

Those who said that the economic situation in their countries is bad formed a majority that reached 88 per cent in France, 79 per cent in Thailand, 67 per cent in Brazil, 60 per cent in Mexico and 46 per cent in Turkey.

But what is the percentage of Jordanians who believe that the economy in their country is bad or going in the wrong direction?

A recent poll by the Centre for Strategic Studies at the University of Jordan revealed that the pessimistic portion of the people makes a majority not less than 54 per cent.

Even those whose personal financial situation improved in a tangible manner are not satisfied. They simply want more.

The positive side in this state of affairs is that Jordanian citizens are very ambitious.

They harbour very high expectations. Some of those expectations are not more than wishful thinking, not based on reality.

There is near agreement among Jordanians that the economy is not going in the right direction.

One is not surprised to see even economic experts who admit that the Jordanian economy achieved very high growth rates in the last 20 years claim that this high growth did not reflect on the lives of the citizens!

Strange that not even the high rate of economic growth is seen as satisfactorily reflecting on the lives of the population.

The reason, people believe, is perhaps that the standard of living in Jordan is still below that in America and Europe, or that the growth went to benefit only the rich who, they say, became richer while the poor are getting poorer.

This last sentence is very attractive among populist politicians and journalists, even though the distribution of income among the classes of the Jordanian society, as calculated by the Economic and Social Council, is better than in any other developing country, and closer to fairness.

Of course, the economic situation in Jordan is mixed: there are plenty of both positive and negative points.

The public, in general, does not welcome any talk about the positive points. Such talk is seen as appeasing and flattering the government.

People often prefer highlighting the negative points and stressing the weaknesses and inequality.

Such weaknesses do exist, of course, and shedding light on them is very popular.

One should take into account that the volume of imports is growing year after year at extremely high rates. This is an indication that people’s private consumption is growing rapidly, which is one of the best indicators of a rising standard of living.