With Thanksgiving around the corner, I thought it would be a good time to take stock of the stockless. To check in with the realities of a crippled economy and how we are coping with this big ole reality check.
I have talked to friends from all over the country and all over the financial map and it is getting really tough out there. Things are not going according to plan. That money we had so carefully put away for retirement? Gone.
The real estate we purchased because real estate is such a good investment? Not. The annual pension statements which used to make the future seem all warm and fuzzy?
Ice cold. The new plan is that there is no plan.
Many of us are learning the hard way that our upward mobility was subjective. We invested our way up the ladder and it gave way beneath our feet. We counted on institutions which were "solid as a rock" and "strong as a bull", only to see them brought to their knees by regular old greed and stupidity. We worshiped "Rich Dad" who created his own wealth and felt contempt for stupid old "Poor Dad" who just worked for a living.
A good friend of mine finally packed the two kids off to college, just in time for her husband to get laid off from his job on Wall Street. It is important to remember that not everyone involved in the markets is a robber baron or some mustachioed villain. Most of them have never seen the inside of a private jet. They are just folks trying to raise their families and pay the note on their home. My friends had most of their money invested on same said street and took a big hit there as well .So this couple who had it all figured out now get up every morning and wonder how the hell they are going to pay the mortgage much less 75,000 dollars a year in tuitions.
Another friend in Real Estate is having a terrible time of it. He has had six deals fall apart in the last three months, plus his investment properties went upside down and took his nest egg with them. So at 43, he is seriously contemplating a seasonal; stint on the sales floor of Macy's.
Still another couple finally finished restoring their beloved brownstone in New York City only to discover they can no longer afford to live there. It is for sale now and that makes me sad.
I live in a modest neighborhood which is surrounded on three sides by housing projects. Everyone here works their tails off. One fellow across the way rises before dawn each day and gets behind the wheel of his Super Shuttle bus. Another starts his trucks at six AM and head off to tend the lawns and gardens of the Beverly Hills set. I walk my dog past the projects every night and there is one young man who arrives home at 5 PM and rushes inside to change out of his auto mechanics uniform before hitting the streets pushing an ice cream cart. He does this with a smile. On Sundays there is a bent mostly toothless old woman who roams the block selling home-made tamales out of a rusted red wagon.
These folks do not lie awake at night wondering how to pay outrageous private school fees. They could not dream of it. Many have never been inside Macy's and could never conceive of working there. Most will never own a one bedroom condo, much less an entire brownstone. Yet their lives are rich in many ways and so will ours be. We will thrive with or without our 401Ks. We will have to work harder and longer than we planned, but so what? Come on admit it ... golf is boring and there are only so many times a person can snorkel. Plus if things get worse we can all take up smoking again on the grounds that we can no longer afford to get old.
So as we gather around the table to give thanks, let us remember what richness lies in the soil and the soul of this nation. Let us give thanks for California artichokes and Florida oranges, for Chesapeake crabs, New York cheesecake and Boston lettuce. Let us give thanks for ball parks and concert halls and 10 dollar bottles of wine. I personally am very grateful to whoever invented Scrabble and to my sister for always agreeing to play it with me even though it drives her batty. Finally I am very grateful to be an American and I am in love with every single person who stood in line at the polls this year. Maybe we are all going to the poor house ... but we are in good company. I have no idea what the future holds but I am grateful to be alive at this moment in history. I have a lot less money these days, but, maybe for the first time ever I am feeling pretty rich.
But a strong sense of entitlement can actually help this country rebound in the way many people are hoping for.
Let's not fool ourselves the way we judge others based on what they "have" and what we measure as success. Because in this country if you want to live a simple life in a simple home i.e. a mobile home this country considers you low class, trailer trash or unsuccessful. Just a fact. It's easy to get all "we are one" when you are scared. But judging people based on what they have is as strong as it ever was. And no matter how much I dislike that, that is not going to change.
http://www.theonion.com/content/node/34159
The old saying is there is no need crying over spilled milk. Crying does not clean up a mess only a focused effort to clean up a mess does. When liquid becomes a spilled mess on the floor of a nations’ life, spilled from the mishandled glass of faulty financial strategy...that came crashing to the floor to become a million pieces..., that which is important remains.
If you retain vision to see the mess, voice to express momentary exasperation at the clumsiness of dirty hands that fumble broken containers of financial well-being, and most importantly, you possess a will and an outlook that allows you to proceed with not only cleanup, but better glass design and handling. Then, you are alive and that means that you still breathe the air that is the space of glasses.
If you can breathe it, then you can perceive it, then you can believe it, and with hard work, perseverance, and opportunity, you can achieve it. Recovery is but air in a glass.
A relative of mine once told her son, "As long as I can afford a room not too far from a good used bookstore, I'll be fine." I think that, with greed put in perspective and animosity abandoned, we can make it through the hard times to come an even better nation than before. Which is, as I understand it, just what you're saying. Happy Thanksgiving.
I felt grateful though reading your piece. You did a great job, and I thank you for sharing your thoughts. I also just looked at your past piece on Sarah Palin, which was accurate for sure, but also extremely thoughtful in your description of who she is and how she represents a true dead end for the Republican Party if they should be so foolish as to end up following her.
Anyway, thanks for what you wrote, and Happy Thanksgiving.
You should have highlighted some of it in your essay.
"Rich" is when we are part of a "community." The real kind, not some new fangled "virtual" BS.
Financially, I grew up "poor." The other guy's definition, not mine. Today, I'm labeled "rich." The other guy is still confused. Nothing really changed for my family, past or present. We are still reachuing out to try to be part of a "community." It became harder and harder as 30 somethings chased the illusion of wealth and set asunder the true fullness of life.
I've got the feeling that we are on the other side of the coin ( there is nothing new under the sun) and I just hope that more people remember what we learned in kindergarten:
"When you go outside, hold hands!"