High Economic Pressure

Brandon has been described as being made up of a financial pyramid of the A's the B's and the C's, with fewer A's at the top.

Up until the Meat plant came to town, most entry-level jobs were at minimum wage. The glut of new jobs pushed up this rate by a dollar or two, but the pressure has eased off now owing to the unpleasant nature of meat-plant work. Employees are now recruited from South and Central America and Newfoundland as it is hard to recruit locally.

"Grey Market" activity is relatively high, as money is tight. An informal barter exchange system is quite active at all levels of the community. Although the attitude of "everything must be paid for in this town" is high, not all such revenue is reported as income.

Economic pressure is frequently used as a means of social control within organizations, and it takes the form of a pincer movement. Debt and cash flow are used as the two arms of the pincer. First of all a level of debt is maintained by policy, in order to be able to say, "we cannot afford that because of the debt". Then control of the cash flow is seized in order to ensure that its flow goes to fulfil the wishes of the power group. People who press for paying off the debt have been known to be forced out. The level of debt is usually not significantly high for this to operate.

Overall, the level of the economy is low and stable. It does not have the booms and busts of Alberta's oil economy, nor the severe droughts of the full prairie to the west. Perhaps the biggest change in the past two decades has been the ripple effect of the dropping of the "Crow Rate" government subsidy for shipped raw grain, making "value-added" secondary-industry a necessity.

Media Based Solutions

Further Resources

In the resources listed below, the variety of types and levels of economic pressure can be seen as individuals, groups and countries interact with each other.

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