Usually when the stock market drops, most people feel somewhat secure because their home values remain buoyant. And usually when home values stagnate or drop, the stock market rises. If one asset is down, the other usually holds, and this creates a feeling of confidence and security.
However, today’s “new economy” creates a perfect storm with falling home values, a plunging stock market, and, to add insult to injury, real threats to the dual income paradigm upon which our culture has become so dependent. Job losses and layoffs are reaching the highest levels in decades, and the impact on American families is much greater than any uptick in a statistic can reveal. People are anxious. People are afraid. People are desperate. Yes, these are desperate times. But have we found a bottom?
Oddly symptomatic of the desperation of a struggling nation that is having a hard time breaking its spending habits is Black Friday’s trampling death of a WalMart greeter as he opened the doors to the throng of crazed bargain shoppers as they rushed to buy . . . whatever WalMart shoppers buy at 6:00 am. This man’s death is so wrong on so many levels. First, that anyone would stand in line to get into WalMart is insane. Second, that anyone would rush into a WalMart once the doors were open is a diagnosable malady, I’m sure. Third, that a man would be trampled and killed is more than just a sad commentary on the people who actually pushed, stepped on and stepped over another human being; it is mob mentality reflective of a nation pushed to the brink by fear.
FDR famously said that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself, but what I fear most is the irrational responses to fear. This nation has been gripped by fear over the last eight years because of 9/11 and the wars of retribution waged in its wake. This nation has been gripped by fear because of the economic uncertainty that is, for some, death by a thousand cuts . . . a thousand points at a time.
This nation is gripped by fear because our trust in government is at Watergate levels, and our faith in the ever-efficient wheels of capitalism is tarnished and torn. No, we have more to fear than fear itself. We have ourselves to fear.
When we trample men to death to save a buck, I think that then we have reached bottom.
Comments