The general understanding of recession translates into an economic slowdown where the preceding phenomenon are slow movement of goods, lower manufacturing and production, difficulty in getting credit, people losing jobs and companies closing down, all of which declare the onslaught of tough times. A deeper probing into the topic leads us to the most talked about but often misunderstood concepts of wealth and money.
To sum the concepts in the most laconic manner, wealth refers to any asset of value to self or others; it could be tangible things like currency, house, gold, and health and also intangibles like happiness, security, fulfillment etc. We as humans have been creating, harnessing, giving and acquiring wealth. Money is the most innovative creation of mankind. A mediator to facilitate the exchange of wealth. Singularly it was not feasible for man to acquire all the wealth that he aspired. He realized his abundance of a particular sort of wealth was wished by another man who had something else of abundance. This realization led to a concept of exchange of wealth†â€barterâ€. Barter had a shortcoming of the coincidence of double wants, where by the commodities being exchanged we equally desired by the two parties. To do away with this and other shortcomings, money was created by man. Money is a tangible commodity that has an attached value; its purpose is to facilitate the exchange of wealth. Over the ages the actual function of money has been forgotten, Money instead of being a medium of exchange of wealth is being misunderstood as wealth, true it falls under the subset of wealth but it is not everything.
In times of recession the fluidity in the economy reduces. The wealth does not decrease but its movement slows. What is required in such times is interventions that would keep the transactions going and the circle moving.
Design as a word is difficult to define in an all-inclusive definition. On a basic level design can be understood as an intended process that fulfills a need. The process, creation and outcome is thought keeping the entire context and lifecycle is mind and often finding the problem is half the work done. The problem in recession is the loss in fluidity of money; designs can be created to counter this situation.