Economists argue that the current economical downturn
may not have been caused by a slowdown of the Chinese economy as previously thought
but, may in fact be due to the excessive number of divorce cases which have
sprung about from the Ashley Maddison data dump.
Indeed, it would seem that the disclosure of the names of members of
Ashley Maddison, a website catering to married
or people or men and women in a commited relationship who want to engage in
extra-marital poom-pooming, has led to a spike in divorces worldwide and has
had lawyers giggling like school children all the way to the bank and the
global economy on its knees.
It now seems as though the extent
of the damage has been underestimated as the use of Ashley Maddison was a
fixture of the daily lives of a large number of people for a very long time and
the extent to which it was a part of popular culture was misunderstood. In some African countries Ashley Maddison has
more members than Facebook and in Brazil cheating on one’s partner is called
pulling an ‘Ashlelihno’. Some recently discovered caves in Congo, thought to
belong to the very first men, have revealed cave paintings which mention women and
men leaving their partners on the pretense that they were going to see their
friend A.M.. Anthropologists and scientists have confirmed this may well be the
initials of a precursor of Ashley Maddison.
As a result the extent of the crisis has been underestimated.
According to economists from the
University of Bododonk .The rate of divorces is affecting the world economy in
palpable ways.
“For one it is making the
workforce less productive. The recently divorced individuals are despondent,
distracted and unmotivated following their divorces. This has knock on effects
on their concentration levels at work and will on aggregate lead to less
production worldwide.
Furthermore, the increased
spending on lawyers and on divorce proceedings will be an unexpected one-time
income shock for many of these individuals. People will find themselves forced
to cut back on their consumption elsewhere in order to pay the exorbitant
lawyer fees. As a result, there will be a reduced demand for goods -as we have
been seeing worldwide- causing companies to lay off workers particularly in China
and reduce production to cut down cost and which in turn has made people
poorer.
Economists are warning that it
could take time for the full effect of the Ashley Maddison data dump to fully
manifest itself. This is because it often takes a while for couples to decide
and then take action to divorce and in many places, the law imposes separation
requirements which can last several years, so potentially there could be
billions more cases of divorces arriving which will be sure to sink the world
economy.
“We’re f*cked,” says an economist
raising his hands in the air in resignation.
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