A new era arriving with the New Year?
Dante Chinni
Posted: 01.02.2009 / 9:18 AM PST
As the calendar turns to January the feeling in most of Patchwork Nation communities is one of serious concern about where the country is heading.
Most are worried about the economy. Some have mixed feelings about the arrival of President-elect Barack Obama in the White House. And even while there is a good amount of hope for the arrival of Obama, that hope is tinged with a fear of mounting large-scale problems.
But talking to people in our 11 communities one thing seems clear: “change” the dominant theme of last year’s election is one everyone’s minds. The idea of the nation “turning a page” is not a hope or a wish in minds of most of our communities, but rather a coming inevitability.
For good or bad, there is a feeling that something ended in 2008 and something new is about to begin. What that new thing will look like, however, is a different question.
A Turning Point
“I have no doubt that next year will be a major changing point in the modern history of the United States,” writes Bill Enloe, Chairman and CEO of Los Alamos National Bank in Los Alamos, N.M. our well-educated, wealthy “Monied ‘Burb.”
Enloe says he see three paths for the coming year, one that leads to a depression, one that leads to stagnation and one that leads the nation to path that leads to sustainability and growth. “I know this seems a little idealistic but we are at a crossroads and the choices we make this year will determine if we go the way of the great civilizations that preceded us or we reinvent ourselves to both reflect the ideals of our founders and the realities of the complex world into which we have evolved,” Enloe writes. “I’m optimistic that 2009 can mark this beginning.”
For people in places like Los Alamos, 2008 was a shock to the system. The residents in those communities, who have been the winners in the global economy up to now, had their faith shaken dramatically when credit crunch hit in the fall and the stock market crashed. Their retirement plans and education funds went up in smoke.
They see a new world rolling out in front of them and wonder what it holds.
Down in Clermont, Florida (our aging “Emptying Nest”), where many live on fixed incomes and watching their savings rise and fall with interest rates, there are some of the same long-term fears.
“[O]ur unemployment rate is over 8 percent, many people are now without jobs, no money, and they are watching almost hopelessly as things in Lake County, Florida, the US - and it seems like the rest of the world – unravels,” writes one resident in an email, who asks not to be name due to local sensitivities. “One of my biggest concerns is how does the American Free Enterprise system model work in a 21st century global environment?”
And in Ann Arbor, (our young, collegiate “Campus and Careers” community) there are the very real concerns about entering the workforce in the time of a historic slowdown. “[I’m] Wary and pessimistic in general,” writes Jane Coaston, editor of the Michigan Review and a senior in college. “The economy, combined with searching for a job after graduation, make this a tough year in general.”
Some Hope for the Next Year
The gloomy mood does not extend everywhere, of course. In Hopkinsville, Kentucky, (our “Military Bastion” located near Fort Campbell) there is more of a mix of views, writes Mayor Dan Kemp in an email.
“I think most people in Hopkinsville are cautious about 2009. At the City, we are expecting a budget revenue shortfall and we don’t plan any employee pay raises for the next fiscal year, which begins July 1. We have 1,000 fewer manufacturing jobs than we did in January 2008. That environment does not lead to optimism,” he writes. “But the return of Fort Campbell soldiers is a shot in the arm. 10,000 have returned in the past 2 months and they are buying cars and renting apartments.”
And while things are tough up in Lincoln City, Oregon (our small-town “Service Worker Center”), with unemployment near nine percent, there is some hope that the tough times have called attention to the country’s longer-term problems.
“I am so much more optimistic than last year, even though I know the world is in much worse shape,” emails Anne Hall, director of the North Lincoln County Historical Museum. “The reason for this hopeful attitude is that it seems most people now recognize that the global issues of climate change, hunger, war, poverty and disease are problems that each of us has to face and deal with individually, as well as collectively. For so long people didn’t seem to find much interest in these problems as long as they didn’t affect them directly.
“Maybe it is because so many people are now affected directly that things have begun to change, at least in attitude.”
Future Plans
Patchwork Nation will go forward in 2009, with a new grant from the Knight Foundation and a new partner in the Corporation for Public Broadcasting along with The Christian Science Monitor. We will watch our communities and the nation as a whole as the “change” everyone expects – in politics, economics and culture – begins to arrive.
Please check back daily with the site and watch with us as the New Year unfolds.
January 2nd, 2009 at 9:46 am PST
Domestic economic issues are probably the are in which most people are concerned about change. But this is too narrow a view: I’m also looking forward to change in American foreign policy. Abroad, Bush’s personal unpopularity was such that declaring opposition to anything the USA wanted was almost a litmus test for election to high office. With new policies and certainly with a new image, the USA can perhaps best address its security, environment, and economy by looking abroad and by working with as many partners in as many areas of common interest as possible.
January 2nd, 2009 at 4:05 pm PST
Although the young, ultra-leftists, and the uninformed voted for Obama, the prognosis is very negative.
Those who are investors, business owners, and executives in companies all know that if Obama follows through with his promised programs, it will be absolute poison to the economy. And, even though he is not yet in office, the markets always anticipate what will happen.
What we are seeing is the start of the Obama depression. Higher taxes, more government controls, punitive and destructive energy controls in the name of global warming, shut down of the coal industry, loss of 50% of our electric generating capacity dependent on coal, loss of whole industries, bankruptcy of automobile companies driven to insolvency by government controls, wasteful attempts to stimulate the economy, and god knows what else.
Is their reason to be hopeful? Not much.
January 3rd, 2009 at 8:04 am PST
Arthur,go back to the Rush Limbaugh show, the commercial break is over.
Everything you describe happened in the last 4 years, the future is not here yet. Take some medication. As a country, our economic woes are caused by unfettered credit. Spending and consuming more than we produce.These are things, in the past, that conservatives were good at managing. Somehow conservative went from conservation and restraint to unfettered growth at any means. They started to look and act like liberals without being progressive. Now we’re in a big fix. Stop blaming people who haven’t even spent one day on the job. Get more creative than that!
Globally, the rest of the world realizes were not much help unless bombs are needed. We’re not even that good at ground warfare and without bribes of foriegn aid, our foriegn policy isn’t that well respected.Let’s have more creative dialogue this year and less ideological finger pointing…