This recession, too, shall pass I’ve never seen so much bad economic news in such a short period of time. Neither have you unless you were an adult during the Great Depression in which case you are now about 100 years old. Since the average Business Ledger reader is 51 years old I will assume that this newest “Great Depression” is a first for all of us.      “There may be a recession but I choose not to participate,” has become a cliché to fire up our sales staffs or even ourselves. I even heard the Great Windbag Rush Limbaugh say that the other night on the Barbara Walters special. That’s easy for Rush to say that after he signed a multi-million contract.        It’s most likely that a majority of us will not make as much money in 2009 as we did in 2008. That flies in the face of what we have all believed was our due, the longer we work the more money we make to allow us to spend it on bigger cars, nicer clothes, more exotic vacations, a better cable TV package.      Really, all we need money for is food, water, clothing, housing, utilities and basic transportation. And fortunately our economy provides many levels of choice for those things.        It’s been said that any problem you can fix with money, isn’t really a problem. Wouldn’t you give up lots of money for the health of a sick child, parent or other loved one? I won’t go any farther down that road, but let’s put all of this economic misery in perspective.   I don’t need to watch Law & Order in HDTV and pay an extra $12 a month.  It’s nice but it’s not necessary. I can deal with the slightly more blurry images on the screen. It was the only picture I knew for the past 50 years.      The main thing that we have to keep in front of us as individuals and as business managers is that our economic system will eventually rebound. This will be over at some time in the future. And, it’s important that we come out on the other side better than when we went into it. Since it was only recently that we were told we have been in a recession since December of 2007, how do we know that we aren’t already out of it?      According to Geoffrey H. Moore in “The Concise Encyclopedia of Economics,” the average recession since 1948 lasted 11 months. In comparison, The Great Depression lasted 43 months (1929–1933).      As a journalist I have been exposed to many learned people in the world of finance and economics. In addition, I did get a B in my college macroeconomics class 101 so I think I’m qualified enough to offer an opinion.      I have often thought about four particular areas of the economy that have performed in recent years in a way that didn’t make a lot of sense to me. They were housing, the stock market, the amount of debt that I was allowed to accumulate along with so many other folks, and the level of government spending. And sure enough, look at what has happened.      The market value of my house, and my neighbor’s, has more than quadrupled in the 23 years that I have lived there but obviously is going back to where it should be. My 401-k increased at an even faster rate but no longer. And I was offered the opportunity to borrow significant amounts of money on the “value of my house” or even on nothing more than my signature. Thanks to the new 0% interest rates I may be able to refinance and work that out. And government spending—local, state, national—what a mess. But it forces our public employees to deal with it. Is there anyone among us that doesn’t recognize the waste in that area versus critical public services?         So what do we do and how do we make things better? There are no silver bullets. As individuals we can only take care of our little part of the world. Make some choices that may not be all that much fun to make but are the right things to do. They are probably short-term decisions.   But, we also have to be careful not to affect the long term. I don’t think in my lifetime there was an event that affected us more than what we call 9/11. Yet most of us look at it now through a rear view mirror.  The same will occur with the Great Economic Meltdown of 2008.        Unlike Rush Limbaugh, I do plan to participate in this recession. I don’t have a multi-million dollar contract. So, I will watch my costs— personal and business. I will manage my business better just as I have in previous recessions. I will watch for business opportunities because you can’t just close it all down.        I will have compassion for those who take a pay cut, lose their job, lose their house or get screwed in some other way by the present situation. I will lend a hand and hopefully receive appreciation and compassion, if needed, for me.    Contact publisher Jim Elsener at jelsener@thebusinessledger.com or at 630-428-8788.

Posted on Tuesday, January 06, 2009 (Archive on Tuesday, January 13, 2009) Posted by jstoltz  Contributed by jstoltz

Return