no, women are definitely NOT chicks

So the finance section of sympatico/msn online reported last week that economists are seriously concerned about the potential for the bird flu pandemic to drop the global GDP two to six percentage points.

The report, produced by bank economist Sherry Cooper, also predicted plunging birth rates resulting in "an older population, leading to sustained labour shortages." Apparently as the flu spreads, Bay Street and its suit-and-tie investors have been warned to be on the lookout, girl-guide style (ie. "be prepared.). This is the third report of this kind that Cooper has produced to date, and the IMF has already released a sister study, concluding that "If the pandemic is severe, the economic impact is likely to be significant, though predictions are subject to a high degree of uncertainty," and that "a severe pandemic could pose risks to the global financial system."

Cooper compared a severe pandemic to that of the 1918 Spanish flu - enough to potentially "push the global economy to contract for the first time since the Second World War."

Interestingly, cases of bird flu have the highest death rates among the so-called "productive" members of capitalist societies, and Cooper noted that (again, just like in 1918) "pregnant women and 15-to-40 year olds would be proportionately the hardest hit," and that "would have a lasting impact on demographics and economic activity around the world."

Alongside population aging, there could also be sustained labour shortages, and a drop in "the demand for housing, cars, electronics and other durable goods...[c]onsumption growth, in general, would be slower and government and private pension plans would risk a fairly rapid insolvency."

All this concern and preparation for a flu that is remains largely contained among birds and those who work directly with them. Cooper noted that it is "still extremely difficult for humans to become infected."

Hm.

[...thinking...processing...thinking...]

Why is it that I can't help thinking of a bird by the name of Marilyn Waring given this scenario?

For those of you who don't recognize the name, Marilyn Waring is a lecturer, writer, development consultant, farmer, activist, and feminist with a PhD in political economy. This chick knows her stuff. Her book, Counting for Nothing: What Men Value and Women are Worth (originally published in 1988) and accompanying video, Who's Counting? was one of those texts that slapped me in the face back in the day and made me think about the way in which knowledge, power and value played itself out in the world in which we live.

The book, summarized here by someone from Women and the Economy, says that

...when economy includes only activities which involve monetary transactions, much of women's productive and reproductive work is excluded. Bearing children, mothering, tending a garden, feeding one's family, milking a family cow, raising sheep for wool you use yourself, all of these are excluded as economic activities and do not find their way into any country's System of National Accounts. In other words, through a traditional understanding of the economy, much of the work of half of the population becomes invisible. (See Julie's story.)

According to Waring, mainstream economics has also not found a way of counting the resources on which valued production is based, namely the earth. For example, activities which involve monetary transactions count as production even when they involve the degradation of the earth's resources, such as strip-mining. A sunset has no value, nor a mountain, and trees only count when they have been chopped down and sold. At the same time, Waring criticizes traditional economics for not finding a way to value community well-being. By current thinking, war and disaster are 'good for the economy' because they create jobs such as arms production and clean-up.

Waring basically focused on how mainstream economics puts zero value on women's work and, in effect, renders a good majority of that work invisible. And she does so in a really accessible, really political way. I got it, and math, stats and economics were never my strong suit. She was pissed that this system - the System of National Accounts (the "rules" for government number-crunchers for defining and measuring economic activity) - valued war and environmental degradation and largely ignored subsistence labour and unpaid work - both of which were and continue to be done primarily by women. These resulted, she pointed out, in rendering women "economically inactive" despite their blood sweat and tears.

Now I'm pissed over all of the maybes buzzing around the avian flu that are causing investors and economists and the big banks to get themselves in such a tizzies.

Waring's book has been reprinted something like 10 times since its publication. Women's unpaid labour is still not counted in the global economy. And the market price of the avian flu is already being calculated...right now, as I type this.

Is this fucked up, or is it just me? I think we may be in need of another revamping of Sex, Lies & Global Economics...