A few weekends back I did only two things, I walked the beautiful beaches of the Jersey shore (they were packed even though it was April), and I watched the C-Span coverage of George Washington University forum on the "Panic of 2008". I actually watched it three times. I then asked some friends to watch it too.
On the program well-spoken, intelligent minds like Dennis K. Berman, Deputy Bureau Chief of Money and Finance @The Wall Street Journal; Rob Cox, U.S. Editor of Breakingviews; Daniel Gross, Senior Editor@ Newsweek, Jesse Eisenger, Senior Writer @ Condé Nast Portfolio , Arthur F. Burns Fellow in Financial Policy Studies @ GW and others discussed our current economic crisis- how we got here and what the world might look like when it finally ends.
"This (referring to the current economic crisis) is our generation's World War II," is a claim one of the panelists made. I think he may be right. I know that many of my contemporaries can point to an enemy, I'd rather not.
Another panelist said, "I don't yet see any heroes in this crisis." One of my friends who watched the program (and who asked that her name not be posted here because she doesn't have time to engage in a public debate, should one ensue) says that she does.
"The heroes are you and me. The people who keep going to work each day. The people who don't give less when their pay is cut. The people who keep doing their best when there's no raise in sight. The people who agreed to take unpaid time off so that their coworkers' jobs could be saved. The people who are going the extra mile to save their companies."
Do you know these people? I do. I've interviewed some of them. Take, for example, the employees of Gannett, most of who went on furlough without complaining; or the members of the Yonkers Firefighters local 620, or the folks at EMC who said "happy to do it" when their CEO told them they'd be taking a 5% pay cut until the end of the year; or the CEO of Starbucks who is paying himself minimum wage,
But it's not just the folks at the big companies. 30% of small business owners are currently working without being paid.
Let's hope that these sacrifices are not made in vain. That both individual citizens and financiers will take a closer look when they use their credit, accept or make a loan. Let's hope that reforms will be made so that borrowers are made to understand their repayment plans. Is it too much to ask to want investors to understand what they're investing in?
When we came out of other wars, we had to reexamine who we were. We had to rebuild, to create something better than we lost. Are we doing that now? Sometimes I think yes. Other times I think everyone's trying to rush back to doing "business as usual". That scares me. It makes me think we're being lazy. We are all capable of much more.
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