Recession indeed....

This morning I read the news that tells me we really and truly are in a whole different kind of recession. What news, you ask? Total lottery sales were down in the state of Kansas for 2008.

This may not seem like big news to anyone. On the surface, it seems obvious that if you have less money for bread and gas, you will not spend it buying lottery tickets. But on the contrary, that is often not the way it goes. The majority of lottery sales go to those who can least afford it, with the desperate placing their hopes on a windfall, real life being what it is.

I do not play the lottery. I am not one of those people who is likely to ever benefit from anything that involves good luck, my luck being mostly of the other variety. But I understand why people hopefully throw down a dollar or two or ten, on the off chance - after all, someone does eventually have to win the money - that this will be their moment to grab the brass ring in life.

My brass ring has turned out to be fool's gold, and I am not hopeful that will change any time soon. I don't waste my time or money hoping for something that will never happen - I don't have that kind of time, nor do I have the mental energy. But, like I said, I understand the hopefulness that leads a person to participate.

And that is why I was surprised this morning to learn, quite unexpectedly, that lottery sales are down in the state of Kansas for 2008. As the economy tanked, I would have expected that sales would have spiked, and that more people would have looked for the barely possible to occur. [This is as opposed to the impossibility of becoming rich under your own power, which will not occur for most people who don't start out that way, no matter how hard they work.]

I don't know the reasons behind it, nor do I understand the sales trends or dynamics that are involved. I have not given sufficient time, or any time, really, to the study of lottery sales, to have even the slightest idea of the economics of it all.

But I do have an understanding of human nature. I understand how irrepressible hope can be, how optimism can drive you to make decisions that don't make sense, and how dreams can distort reality until it seems possible that a person could actually hit the jackpot and suddenly find themselves on the other side of a financial divide that separates the comfortable from the fearful in our society.

It has been said that you are more likely to be struck by lightning than to win the lottery, and yet, while people assume, usually correctly, that they will never be hit by lightning, they also believe they can win the lottery. It is that very inconsistency which leads human beings to climb mountains, to cross canyons, to strike out as pioneers for unknown, and unforgiving, new lands. It has led us into space, and under the ocean, and to new, or at least new-to-them, continents, where we wrestle with the unfamiliar until we have imposed our own sort of order upon it.

So, back to the lottery. What would lead people, in this troubled time, to suddenly abandon the belief that this could be their moment in time? What would make people who usually dream to suddenly awaken and realize it won't happen for them after all? What is it that leads them to say, it's not going to happen for me, instead of the usual hope that it can, indeed, happen, and happen now?

When I step back and look objectively at it all, it seems to me that we are now seeing the incidental evidence that this nation is going through the hardest time in my lifetime. This is not an isolated event, and it's not a short term problem. Barack Obama has made many promises, and for all our sakes, I hope he will be successful, because his failure will be our collective failure as well. Those who, in their short term anger and spite, hope that he fails are wishing disaster upon us all.

But the evidence I see tells me that we are in for a whole different period in the life of our nation, a period of true malaise in the population. The optimism that usually drives us to bigger and better things seems to be absent right now, and in it's place, we have anxiety and caution. We are not going to shop our way to prosperity this time, I fear, no matter how many stimulus checks we can cash.

The very people who have driven the economy previously, the paycheck-to-paycheck crowd, who spent money they barely had, in the hopes that tomorrow would be more lucrative and their windfall would hit, are out of work, or out of money, or possibly both, and they are not spending any more. Those who have the money are cutting back from the fear of what may come, and they want to be sure that they don't run out of money, because it's easier to keep what you have than to make new.

The lottery spending is a reflection, not of the economy, but of the change in mindset that has been driving the economy. American optimism has been replaced with fear, and suddenly, what seemed possible just a few short months ago now looks distant and out of reach.

And yet, in my humble and uneducated opinion, I think we are at a turning point to becoming a better nation. In shedding the trappings of the national acquisition obsession, perhaps we will find the simplicity that has been lacking over the last 50 years.

I see picnics and board games and reading on the horizon. I think libraries will see a renewal, and coffee shops will be forced to justify their existence. I think the days of buying a house you cannot afford to furnish may be gone, and in their place, we will see a return to smaller, more compact, but higher quality homes that will last longer than your child's adolescence.

We will still have those among us who can go to Paris for spring break without giving it much thought, but I think we will see more driving trips and renewal in interest in national parks and local landmarks. Chicago and St. Louis may become destinations once again, while Disney World could be forced to lower prices and raise service in order to compete for the increasingly limited tourist dollars no longer so available. [And as much as I love Disney World, it's my favorite vacation place on earth as anyone who knows me will tell you, the level of service, especially in their hotels, is abysmal, while the prices are exorbitant.]

I read the other day that Abercrombie and Fitch, [a store of which my children can tell you I most definitely do not approve,] is in financial trouble, with Christmas sales down by double digits this year. I hope that their troubles spell a resurgence for stores like Target, which sell very fine merchandise [truth be told, the quality is probably higher at Target, at least in my experience,] at a fraction of the cost.

I know there are many people out there who believe they have the answer for why this recession has occurred, and what is at the bottom of it. I have my opinion as well, based not upon science or theory, but upon casual observation.

When your only focus is on maximum short term profits for shareholders, often overseas, with no real investment in our nation, at the expense of the long term viability of the majority of your major companies, you are going to have a problem somewhere along the line.

When you add to that the offshoring of most of the manufacturing jobs, lowering the quality of the merchandise, while paying your remaining employees less to do more, you have priced out the remaining consumers in an ever increasing cycle that can only have one direction and one outcome.

What is my solution? Bring back the jobs. Raise the minimum wage to a living wage once again, so that the people who have jobs can afford to pay for what they need, driving a genuine surge in buying, rather than the artificial one that has been ongoing for some time now.

I know there are many who will cry that raising wages will dry up jobs. To them, my response is easy. Look around you. The jobs are drying up anyway, and they are not just the lower wage employees in that unemployment line these days. The middle managers are the ones who are really struggling, because they didn't make enough to save up much, and they spent too much to save what little they could. [Yes, I would be the classic example.]

I believe our economy needs to be rebuilt from the bottom up, providing a living wage to everyone who is employed. I believe this will push job creation in the long run, because those who have the money will require more goods and services, and the result will be more jobs. If the wage is mandated, the playing field will be more level, and you will fuel an economic rise for everyone.

Alan Greenspan has acknowledged that his long held beliefs were, quite simply, in error. It is time for us as a country to admit we were wrong, as well, to try and right the ship, and to pay a little attention to those in the steerage class once again. Henry Ford had the right idea, I believe. He funded the lower class, to provide consumers for their own products, driving up prices, and demand.

I know I will have many who disagree vehemently with me, and I know I am not an economist, so the criticism that I don't know what I'm talking about is fair. But that is how it looks from the merry-go-round I'm riding, and from what I can see, the geniuses in charge haven't got the answers, either.

I think this recession is not only real, and more severe than any since the Great Depression, I think it is going to be with us for a long time. I believe now is the time to correct the road map, while we are in pain, anyway, and to set a new course, one which will increase prosperity for all. Real prosperity will raise hopes and increase optimism, and that will bring out the American spirit once again.

I will leave it to the brain trusts to figure out how to get it done. In the meantime, go ahead, spend a dollar or two. Get your ticket, if you feel lucky. After all, there are less players now than there were before, and someone has to win. You never know, it might just be you!

The world is my oyster....

Most people who know me well will probably, out of my earshot, tell you that I am a cynic. Some of them will tell you that right in front of my face, of course, particularly if they call themselves blood relatives. [Being adopted, it narrows the field considerably, so they know who they are.] I admit I tend to look at the glass as half empty, because, at least in my experience, that IS being optimistic. The bad stuff in life is life - the good stuff is a pleasant surprise.

But there is a larger life viewpoint, a perspective from which you can only see yourself as the small cog in the celestial wheel that is life on earth. We are, each of us, but a drop in the bucket of life, important to our own family and friends, possibly even important to our employers or our own town or city. If you are Bill Gates or the President of the United States, you might even be important to people world wide in an impersonal sort of way - you impact lives on a daily basis without even knowing the people whom your decisions affect. But still, in the end, when viewed through the lens of the whole cosmos, we are small cogs at most.

Awhile back, I came across a picture taken from space at night. It was, in reality, a series of time lapsed pictures, stitched together. Ultimately, you could see the entire world from the bird's eyed, or space ship eyed, perspective.

http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap001127.html

If you want to know where the developed world ends and the developing world begins, you need only look at our continents from space at night. Europe, the United States, and small parts of the Pacific Rim are lit up brilliantly, clearly defining where you will find most of the life that is being lived within those boundaries. Hawaii is easily found in the middle of the dark Pacific, while Mongolia and Siberia and Tibet and most of the continent of Africa are completely shrouded in darkness.

It is difficult to understand how a continent such as Africa, with its wealth of natural resources, can be so dark, so lonely, so forgotten, while all of Europe glows like a beacon in the night. It would seem that a continent such as Africa would have every opportunity to convert the vast resources they have into a thriving world leadership position, but it has never been so, since trade routes were first established. It has always been a continent which sold its soul, it seems, for a few pieces of silver or some shiny beads, but in the end, they are left with nothing but dictators and poverty.

And yet, for many people in the United States, they are detached from those issues, because it is something on the news - they don't have to confront the reality of the problems in person, face to face. Darfur is the same old story, the Congo is something of a legend, Pakistan and Afghanistan are pictures on television, and Gaza is someone else's problem. We think of these places as a news brief and forget that the people suffering and dying there are still doing so right this minute.

As we enter this new year of 2009, I cannot help but wonder what is ahead for all of us - as a person, a family, a country, and a world.

We in our family are embarking on new adventures on many levels - a new pet, still finding my way in a new job, college graduation and decisions that must be made, deciding where to go after high school - all are personal decisions being made just in our family.

As a country, we are looking at a new presidency, and new people in charge, amidst the current crisis in our economy and an ongoing war. Will they fulfill the many promises they have made on the campaign trail (or even any of them?) Will they be able to bring new enthusiasm to old problems, and perhaps, even if only psychologically, move us in a new direction? What solutions are available that haven't already been tried? How do we put our nation on track - not back on the old track, but on a new track, that will be even more successful and bring us greater satisfaction, both individually and collectively?

Our place in the world is on shaky footing right now, as we battle with both allies and enemies. The political climate both at home and abroad is not satisfied with where we currently find ourselves - will we be able to work together to solve some of the world's problems, or will we continue to be splintered into a million different pieces, each piece with its own agenda?

We are still seeking Osama bin Laden, who, even though functionally irrelevant, is still tactically dangerous for his symbolic successes. We are seeking an end to tyranny on more than one continent. Israel and the Palestinians continue to battle for supremacy in a part of the world where war is the norm, and peace is a long forgotten dream. We are facing poverty in the Sudan and other places in Africa on a level that is unimaginable - 40,000 people a day are dying on the continent of Africa right now, most of them children. The problems we face are not small, and not insignificant. And we will not be exonerated from our failure to address and solve them simply because an ocean separates us.

As you view the world from space, and you see us, not as individuals, but as a whole, we are inextricably linked together in space and time, as inseparable from each other as drops of water in a glass.

Where our economy goes, so too do the economies of the developing world, who are dependent upon our consumption for their success. A dread disease in Africa is but a single plane flight away from a world wide pandemic. War in Gaza threatens the stability of every nation on earth, as Jew is pitted against Muslim, and every country chooses up sides. The children dying in Darfur are cheapening life for all of us, and we will never know how much has been lost to us because of it.

So then, is the point of this post to depress and criticize? No, on the contrary, for the first time in a very long time, I feel like we, as a nation of hard-working compassionate people, are finally ready to face the realities of life, and to dig in and solve the problems we are facing. We are looking at 2009 as a time of retrenching, a time to renew and cut back and start over. Our new year's resolution as a nation may well be that change has come, and it's not fun, but we are ready, and we are going to see this one through.

So, to all the believers out there who join me in hoping for a brighter tomorrow, even in the midst of the hard today, happy new year! I hope, one year from now, I will be able to look back at this moment and know it was the turning point for us as a nation, as well as for me as a person.

I don't usually make new year's resolutions, because it is, in my opinion, a set-up for failure. However, I do like to assess my situation at the beginning of the year, and try to see where I am, and where I wish I would be by the time this year comes to it's close.

At the beginning of 2009, I look ahead with hope and anticipation of what may come, both personally and financially. I am resolved to take the best each day has to offer and to do the most I can with it. I have learned from as many of my past failures and mistakes as I can, and I will try to take that knowledge and use it to do better in the days to come. I will appreciate more and complain less, I will recognize the gifts of each day, and stop worrying about tomorrow so much. Finally, I will try harder to be a better me, so that those who know me will be enriched by my presence on this earth in new ways. I want to be the pearl in the oyster of life, instead of the grain of sand.

I am wishing you and yours all the best that life can offer in the coming year.