The Spouse and I have lived through at least three recessions during our three decades together — including a memorable one in the late Seventies that had us paying off an 11 percent mortgage rate for a short time — so you would think I’d be used to the market ups and downs.
This recession, however feels different, in many small but distressing ways. I paid more than $2 for a dozen eggs last week, double what I paid a year ago, and milk is at least 50 cents more a gallon. My friend and I had our choice of tables at lunch yesterday at a cafe that is usually clogged with people, and the entrees were markedly more expensive. The price of a bag of flour is staggering, having quadrupled in some areas.
My daughter-in-law’s family canceled a much-anticipated summer trip because of the expense, and it cost a friend more than $200 in gas for a quick weekend trip home. I’ve always tried in a careless way to consolidate some of my errands, but I now look for reasons not to drive anywhere.
A popular family on our street disappeared practically overnight without a good-bye, and their house has sat empty ever since. Other houses in the area have for-sale signs that have been up for months. My brother is putting his riverside dream home on the market, hoping to attract some rich Californian. A large condo and shopping development that involved another brother is sitting half-finished, all work stopped until investors can be found.
And I can’t even describe what is happening to our retirement portfolio. We may have to adjust our exit dates from our jobs.
Sometimes I feel a kind of heaviness in the air, a bit of foreboding. I wince when I turn on the radio or the TV, bracing myself for the next bit of bad news. And I feel so impotent against it all. Other than getting rid of our consumer debt, is there anything to be done?
That’s probably why I find stories like this so annoying. Somebody’s making money off this mess, and it’s not the little people. It never is. My 87-year-old mother-in-law, who lives on a fixed income, had to pay an additional $1,200 this year in income taxes, and yet there are bozos out there spending money like drunken sailors.
Update. (Guaranteed to make you grit your teeth.)
April 15, 2008 at 10:29 am
I couldn’t agree more. We are heading for a real crisis, I’m afraid. My husband and I are realizing that we will most likely never be able to retire. We’ll work until we drop…if there are jobs that is. Capitalism has it’s flaws and I think that we are coming face to face with them. The rich get richer and the rest of us suffer for it. Pure capitalism doesn’t work in the long run because it fails to account for one thing – greed.
I wish I had the answer. Well, I do really – it’s a long-forgotten concept called sharing. Obviously, it went out of fashion with the ultra-rich years ago. Why care if your neighbor has enough food to eat when you can buy your third Bentley.
April 16, 2008 at 6:31 pm
When I read that hedge fund partners on Wall Street are making over a billion dollars a year, it makes me ill. The inequities in capitalism are amazing. And we want to sell this “package” to everyone and their brother-in-law around the world when it’s clearly not working so well here.