For some of us, the current economic crisis remains a fairly abstract concept—something we see reported in our newspapers and on TV, but that we have yet to experience directly. Meanwhile, the media provide a view of a world that, despite the horrifying headlines, seems oddly unchanged by the collapse of the credit markets, the imminent failure of the American automobile industry, the plummeting stock market and skyrocketing unemployment.
If you turned on the television this weekend, for example, you'd have had your pick of about a dozen pro football games, the stands filled with fans—people who still have the extra cash to pay grossly inflated ticket prices, which in turn pay the grossly inflated salaries of the hundreds of multi-millionaire players who populate the National Football League. You'd also have seen, in the span of about an hour, hundreds of thousands of dollars spent by Detroit's Big Three on TV advertising.
Or perhaps, braving near-blizzard conditions, you and your family piled into the family SUV, stocked up on $1.61 gasoline and headed north to one of New England's premiere ski resorts. There you'd have found plenty of company as the slopes filled with people who can still afford an $80 lift ticket, not to mention the associated costs of equipment, clothing, meals and lodging.
Maybe you ducked into the River Valley Market on King Street in Northampton, where crowds navigated wide aisles brimming with fresh, organic produce and foodstuffs—all of it good, none of it cheap. Or maybe you hit the Holyoke Mall, where you took advantage of the tough economy, which has resulted in deep discounts being offered by retailers.
If, after a pleasant day of watching football, skiing or shopping, you flipped on the news, you'd surely have seen more bad economic news. You might have caught a report warning that, at best, we're about halfway through a prolonged recession from which we're unlikely to emerge until late 2009.
But except for that bleak assessment, bolstered by statistics showing rising unemployment and shrinking consumer confidence, the weekend news programs seemed just as upbeat as usual, delivered by attractive, well-attired news personalities who eagerly milked the snowstorm for all it was worth, turning briefly to the blockbuster movies Hollywood will release in time for Christmas, segueing to weekend news treatment of Obama's choice of pastor Rick Warren to offer his inaugural prayer (turns out folks in Hollywood don't like the idea).
And while you may have seen footage of homeless people sleeping on heating grates or elderly people living without any heat at all, you may also have seen video of people who seem plenty prosperous—people like our former governor, Mitt Romney, whose perfectly-tanned, Dorian Gray face seems to testify that, even in a crappy economy, there are still winners among the losers.
If the bad economy isn't yet on your doorstep, it isn't hard to pretend that all is well with the world. If you still have a job, if you weren't planning to retire sometime soon or if, by some miracle, your retirement savings are still relatively intact, you may be enjoying this holiday season just as much as you always do. To you I say, enjoy it while you can. And count your blessings.
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The Valley Advocate is feeling the effects of the economic crisis acutely. Last week, two of our longest-serving colleagues, Associate Publisher Do-Han Allen and Circulation Manager Jeffrey Owczarski, became the latest casualties of a series of year-end layoffs by our parent company, Newspapers of New England. The mood in the office today is a grim mix of sadness at the loss of two people who have given the best of themselves to the paper for more than 15 years and anxiety and frustration at our own obvious vulnerability to forces beyond our control.
Because we're in the newspaper business, an industry whose problems predate the current economic crisis, you might think we're used to bad news by now, that given the human misery we write about week in and week out, we're callused to it all. Fact is, even when you see it coming, it still hurts.
