Thirteen months ago we were thrown into a recession. We had just experienced what had seemed to be a near-crash of the financial system when the housing bubble popped. We talked about the great depression and made comparisons with it.
While I am not an economist, I would rather have called it the credit bubble. Too many people who would not have normally qualified for the regular 30-year conventional loan were getting these large adjustable rate mortgages (ARM's) with obscenely low rates that were attached to other economic indicators. They were living outside of their means, and when the interest rate went up on their mortgages, they were immediately in arrears.
The banks sold the bad loans and their buyers resold them and converted into securities and derivatives. They had been coined "toxic assets." In November 2008, the federal government bought with tax payer money much of the toxic assets from banks in essence bailing out the banks. The damage had been done to the economy.
We saw the pain slowly creep through the economy. Banks were laying off people. People were not buying cars and so General Motors and Chrysler both declared bankruptcy and reorganized. The pain trickled through the automotive sector and then into other economic sectors. We probably all knew someone who lost a job.
We probably all endured some of the pain passed on in some way. Restaurants were giving out smaller portions. Our employers did not give us raises. We did not get our holiday turkeys or any of the spiffs.
We were expected to draw within ourselves our own sense of intrinsic reward for having a job. Some of us (me especially) were expected to do more with less all the more. It was all the more difficult when you have abusive and neglect management not caring about morale. I sure felt exploited at times.
As different times bring different terms. The most poignant term to me for this recession was "under water." This referred to a mortgage holder who has or had a mortgage that was for more than the assessed value of their home.
There was one benefit to the recession. Gasoline/petroleum prices went down. This is my layman theory: there was less credit for speculators to compete for oil futures. When the credit dried up, the dollars dried up to inflate oil futures. The oil futures deflated and our gas prices practically dropped from around $4.67-$5.00 down to below $2.00 per gallon in late 2008.
When diesel and gas prices were high, we were getting a trickle-down effect of higher grocery and other consumer goods due to the dependence on trucking. When the fuel prices dropped, so did grocery prices, but then people without jobs and with lower pay still had an equal problem with buying power.
That aside, many of us have learned to be simple again in our expectations. Many of us have re-learned the difference between wants and needs. Many of us will do a better job in managing our personal affairs and in being sensible.
It sounds somewhat crazy but Nietzsche and the Bible were in half agreement about what trials do to you. Nietzsche said "That which does not kill us makes us stronger." The Epistle of James in the New Testament said
2Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds,
3because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance.
4Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not
lacking anything. (New International Version)
Trials do make you stronger in some form or another. For those who seek to learn, they will be more mature and will not make the same mistake twice.
We will lick our wounds, get up and figure out what we will do. Then we will make effort to do it.
We will not always get where where we want to go, but we will put the past and the present behind us and be somewhere that is at least different if not better.
So, at this point, I have hope. I am trying to take inventory of the different life and professional lessons I have learned in the past year. I have hope that I can put what I have learned to use in 2010.
As with most years, the new year is full of most of the same from the past year. People will be people like people have always been people. Some of the same things will be happening:
- Politicians will sling mud
- Babies will be born
- Dogs will get run over in the road
- Bosses will act dumb
- Your crazy relatives will continue to be crazy
- Your brain-less in-laws will continue to be brain-less
- You will have moments of laughter
- You will have sad moments
- You will find yourself angry at times
- What you hoped for is not all going to come true.
So, the year is ahead of us. We will have choices and we will be stuck in some situations where we did not seem to have a choice. We will only get out of those stuck-situations when it is time that we get unstuck.
I will do my best. I hope that you do too. It is all that we can do in the end.
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