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NEWS > BUSINESS > DEATH A GROWTH INDUSTRY AS ECONOMY CALLS IT CURTAINS
DEATH A GROWTH INDUSTRY AS ECONOMY CALLS IT CURTAINS
Garden City, NY – It was Daniel Defoe in his 1726 book ‘The Political History of the Devil’ who first wrote about the certainty of death and taxes. Sixty years later Benjamin Franklin immortalized the idea with his line ‘In this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes.” Both men had undoubtedly experienced their own financial troubles as well as their fair share of death but neither of them could have predicted how true that concept would prove to be so far in the future.
Across the country enrolments in the mortuary sciences have skyrocketed. At the Nassau Community College applications have increased 15 per cent in the last few months as more and more students and other workers begin to seek employment with a future.
“They're looking for something stable, a career that will last them,” said Michael Mastellone, chairman of the Nassau program. “And there will always be work out there.”
Traditionally even through rough economic times people have continued to die with regularity. In extreme cases of financial hardship, particularly the great depression, suicides and death from things like malnutrition and other diseases related to extreme poverty caused a massive spike in the death rate.
“In the 1930’s the mortuary business wasn’t nearly what it is today. Back then it was still quite common for people to conduct their own burials and very few bodies went into the ground preserved. Like many industries throughout the 20th Century advances in burial procedures and the affiliated support fields such as casket production put a virtual stranglehold on recreational burials. We have become
so used to that process now that even in these harsh times its likely people will insist on the same procedures,” said Scrape TV Business analyst Ken Green. “For that reason it’s likely that the mortuary business will stay vital all through this downturn, provided of course people continue to die.”
So far death rates across The United States have stayed constant but experts expect that to change as more and more people continue to lose their jobs, the majority of which are expected to come from suicides.
“In the twenties people lived fairly meagrely compared to what we have now and so when the economic collapse occurred they didn’t have a whole lot further to fall. In today’s world though we have a much higher standard of living and being forced to abandon that is going to bring a lot of turmoil and depression which of course leads to suicide,”
continued Green. “People aren’t just being forced to abandon ramshackle homes or barely producing farms anymore. They are being forced to give up their blackberries and flatscreens and most just will not be able to adapt, especially the younger people who have such reliance on those things. That will likely mean a major surge in death, securing thefuture for mortuaries.”
Reportedly President Obama has set up a secret task force to brainstorm solutions to the expected increase in deaths, specifically the rising costs of such burials.
“The administration is having a hard look at the bailout money and deciding whether or not some of those dollars should be allocated to aiding in proper burials. What they don’t want is a movement of personal burials, not only for health and social reasons, but also because they want to avoid people becoming used to a new process that is of course dramatically less expensive,” continued Green. “They don’t want to use law enforcement to press people into expensive funerals and would rather just remove potential obstacles. The last thing the country needs is a degradation of one of the most venerable professions, especially as it seems to be such a desirable field all of a sudden.”
Both Daniel Defoe and Benjamin Franklin were given elaborate burials after their deathsthough i’s not clear how much they cost.
William Ashford, Business Correspondent
NEWS > BUSINESS > DEATH A GROWTH INDUSTRY AS ECONOMY CALLS IT CURTAINS
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