So What Are We Learning and What Are the Signs of Rebound?
Posted: Thursday, March 19, 2009
by Missing Link
The stock market is heading up again but nobody really knows why. We're told the whole crisis is about confidence in lending. We're told that the problem started because a bunch of people took loans that they knew they couldn't pay in the hopes that they'd never have to. And lenders made the loans knowing the people signing for them didn't have adequate income in the hope of repackaging the loan and selling it to fuzzy-headed foreigners before they'd know they were being suckered. They know now. And today, nobody is paying except those of us who do live up to our obligations. We will pay the taxes until the end of our time to rid the country of this deficit.
Are we rethinking the fundamental character flaws that led to the greed of borrowers and lenders that fused together and imploded.
Perhaps there is more than one lesson in all of this.
Are we learning that perhaps what we can do with our family is more than what we can do for our family? Are we learning that children having stuff isn't as important as children having present and involved parents. Are we learning that it is vital for children to have parents who aren't too busy trying to earn money to buy them stuff to do homework, to coach their soccer team, to go for a walk, to plant a garden, to teach them about values and morals and their Creator?
If the economic tide has turned, or of it turns next week, or next month, or next year, are we going to return to the "balls to the walls" pursuit of piles and piles of crap so tall we can neither park in the garage, nor water the Christmas tree, nor see the end of the accumulated debt in our own lifetimes?
What are the signs of a rebound?
It worries me that the signs of recovery promoted in the media are increased spending and increased lending and increased gross domestic product. It worries me that the signs of the recovery are the same measures that would have signaled the problem if anyone had their eyes open.
If nothing changes except the direction of the graphs inclining upward instead of downward, then we are doomed to repeat the cycle again and again until the country dissolves with the last vestige of trust among our people, our institutions and our government.
If we can't trust each other to borrow and repay a debt, then I am not sure we really can't trust each other at all.
In my mind the true recovery would be a recovery of confidence in in each other's character. This cannot be measured by the data being collected. Oh sure, the banks will say they can now trust people with loans, but I doubt they really believe they can which is why they still aren't lending. I think rebuilding real trust can only come through rebuilding our collective character. We can only accomplish that over a period of time and I can think of a few signs that would encourage me that we are beginning to turn the corner.
· The most promising sign of the times for me would be "For Sale" signs on storage businesses and cars parking in garages. The storage unit is the most visible sign of our materialistic mania. Storage Units are places to store stuff we don't have room for in our homes and places for stores to keep things they hope to sell us soon and which will soon end up back in the storage unit in a dusty cardboard box.
· Parks being filled with families spending time outdoors together. Parks in poor countries are busy, lively places and not nearly as nice as ours often.
· Moms yelling after their children to change their Sunday clothes before they go out to play after church.
· Dads going to Church with their families and showing their children submission to something greater than the dollar.
· Dads mowing their lawn on Saturday and the kids are raking cut grass instead of the landscaper doing it while Dad and Mom are away at work during the week. It would mean Dad isn't working six days a week.
· The rebirth of the newspaper. It would tell me that people have time to read a paper again. I don't buy that it's old media, it's time intensive media and nobody has any time these days because we've got to earn, because we've got to spend.
· The demise of the credit card companies. The day one of those companies goes out of business for lack-of-business, should be a national holiday. It would be a victory over our own greed.
Anyway, that's my soapbox for today. I just wonder if anything is sinking in. I wonder if there has been enough pain yet. I suspect not, it has been little more than a brief inconvenience so far, more for some and less for others. But I wonder…
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Top-level comments on this article: (3 total)Welcome back, ML. I have missed reading your insights. This is a very good article and reminded me of something. Yesterday morning on a local talk radio show the son of one of the hosts was to call in to be interviewed. Evidently, he is a financial wiz now living on the East coast. Because the price of gold is increasing, the interest rates are supposed to drop and the stock market was rising he was called into an urgent meeting. This would have been very early Eastern time. Even the financial geniuses don't know what to make of all this because there is no precedent.
Things run in cycles and we are due. I agree with you, it may not be a bad thing after the initial blows.Thank you for your comment! It's nice to have a little time for writing again.
I think you are spot on. I walked away from a 6-figure job because the money wasn't worth it. It took all that money to buy things and to spend in order to help me forget how miserable I was the 6 days of the week I was working and to help me feel less guilty for the time I was not spending with my son. Now I am much poorer and have less "stuff", but am happier, working toward doing what I want, and am a much better parent and example for my son.If this period of economic trouble gets people more in touch with what truly matters, even if it is only for a little while, then the next generation and this country might just have a future.Thanks Laura and good for you and your son!
Well, it is certain that something has to give, that's for sure. It's going to be an adventure finding out just what that "something" ends up being.
Well done piece BTW.Thank you for your kind comment and for taking the time to read my ramblings!
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