What can possibly turn around such a world-wide economic crisis as the current one? Everyone is worried now, not just those who have lost their jobs or their homes or both. Everyone is threatened, it seems.
We've moved beyond trying to find out who caused this monstrous mess, because it's getting closer each day to our house. Godzilla has leaped off the B movie screen and is swishing his powerful tail through our neighborhood. And we don't care how the beast got here, just how to stop him!
The federal government is now trying to turn things around with the power of money. And most of us are hoping that will do the trick. But few of us think we're going to regain our prosperity with just the latest trillion or so; it may take several trillion more to restore the American Dream we thought we were living and everyone felt entitled to.
Well, there's nothing wrong with the American Dream. The problem is in not looking at it in total. To many it is synonomous with wealth and property. And it is attainable as soon as the wet foot becomes dry, as soon as we "arrive" on this land, whether as high school or college graduates seeking instant high-paying jobs or homebuyers taking out mortgages they can't afford or immigrants seeking a better life. To too many, The American Dream is instant, material success. Never mind that most have to work for it over a lifetime. Never mind that even then many will never be able to have it as fully and completely as those whose talents, intelligence, labor, skill, ingenuity and drive or even plain luck propelled them to realize the dream and others to fall short despite their best efforts.
As with so many components of human aspiration, the American Dream is an ideal, not a practical guide for living. It is like justice and love, freedom and equality. It is an ideal to be strived for, a beacon. Unfortunately, the government has led the American people to believe it can and should solve all our problems and needs. And now it finds itself in the unfortunate position of not being able to deliver, no matter how many stimulus bailouts it throws at the problems.
We will, I'm afraid, soon learn this the hard way. Many have suffered grievously and many more will suffer before our faltering economy rights itself. But when it does, I suspect it will come from the ground up, not from the top down. It will begin when people realign their ideas about how much they are entitled to for doing so little actual work, when they begin to accept responsibility for their own choices and actions, when they begin to help their neighbors and their communities again and treat each other with fairness and compassion and good will instead of asking for more, more, ever more for themselves and to blazes with everyone else. I think there is a moral flaw in the naive expectations that everyone should deserve to have everything and something is wrong with the American Dream if they don't get it without doing anything to earn it.
It is said that people come together in adversity. We will see in the coming days if that is true. And if it is true, we may emerge a better nation, a better people, than we were when we thought things were "normal," having a better grasp of what the American Dream really is about: it is about freedom and opportunity, not about guarantees and the same level of wealth and material success for everyone.
I think it so ironic that so many people want to "get back to normal," as if that were such a wonderful thing to get back to. We need to temper our economic engines with oversight and accountability no matter what political party is in power in the future. We didn't before, when things were"normal." We need to readjust our expectations to reflect the realistic productivity of our labor, our innovation, and our resources and skills viz-a-viz the rest of the world. We didn't, when things were "normal." And probably we need to regain a respect for learning instead of looking for shortcuts to quick wealth. Again, that kind of respect has not been "normal" in recent times. If we do these things as a result of the current crisis, then perhaps a new "normal" can emerge based on more solid stuff.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
1 comment:
In 1992, this was "normal":
Pat and I bought a 1500-square-foot three-bedroom, 1 and 3/4 bath home for $83,000. We put 20% down and got what was then a good interest rate, about 7 percent.
The loan got sold to one speculator and then another, and on occasion the escrow, property tax, and insurance payments went astray. Finally, we refinanced with our credit union, at 5%, and things went well.
Two years ago, Pat's employer started cutting back on his employment. At the time, he was promised that this was just a short-term situation, and that he would soon be back employed full-time.
Because of the reduced income, we depleted our savings, and then we started running up debts on credit cards. All the while, Pat's employer was assuring him that full-time employment was just around the corner.
After a couple of utility cutoffs, we took out a home-equity loan to pay off the bills. The credit union was willing to accept Pat's employer's line that he was just on a furlough, and we got $77,000 to pay off our outstanding bills.
But Pat has not since been re-hired.
The house has greatly appreciated in value. Even with property values declining overall, they have declined less in Albuquerque than elsewhere, and in our neighborhood, values have held steady. The house across the street, smaller and less updated than ours, just sold for $270,000, less than a week after going on the market.
If we owe about $100,000 ($25,000 on the original mortgage, $75,000 on the second mortgage) on the house, and it's worth $270,000, we're not poor. But who's going to buy the house and bail us out of these mortgage payments that we can no longer afford?
I see lots of relief for those irresponsible home-buyers and lenders who ended up with loans for more than the home was worth. What about those of us who are NOT upside-down?
Post a Comment