Beyond Cheap: The Dark Side of Consumerism and an opportunity for the Circular Economy

Well, that was a tumultuous week for the world, stock markets, pension funds, and even Treasury bonds. 

With the largest repercussion being a lack of confidence as to what will happen with tariffs globally even after the 90-day pause on this trade war. Do businesses have clarity on how to react, invest, move? Aside from the last-minute rush to export as much as possible to the USA to avoid the tariffs, do businesses have clarity in the future?

What is clear is that both Japan and China hold substantial bonds and now have a gun fully loaded and could be ready to pull the trigger again with the USA having little recourse. China only exports 18% to the USA, and I’m sure Europe would benefit from any redirection of that trade. 

But I’m no economist. I’m just trying to set the scene. 

Regardless of what happens in the next 90 days, here are themes I’m picking up on:

• We should reassess our consumerism, which is only sustainable through cheap overseas production and labour.
• We should reconsider how we vote with our money. How much do you think Primark items would cost if they were not produced in Bangladesh?
• We got used to paying cheap for far too long and with the likes of Temu, anybody can order a small item produced in China and delivered to your door. 

If a global recession is coming and it affects the pricing of the latest iPhone or the latest tech devices, then maybe we need to focus more on the circular economy. Minimising consumption, making what we have last longer and consider opportunities to expand repair cafes. Ironically, fixing our broken devices is too expensive in our own country, but I’m sure if we can ship cheap tatter from China, we could work a way to ship our broken items abroad to be fixed and returned.