This financial crisis is a real downer--not just because of all the gloomy headlines, but for something deeper. Recently, I realized that we Americans have been going through the "Five Stages of Grief."
I'm referring to the famous Kubler-Ross model that describes the five stages that people go through when dealing with a tragedy.
Denial. That's the first stage. "This can't be happening." That's what we all thought when the credit crunch first hit. We thought this was just another "down" business cycle. "It's not my problem."
Then there was anger. That was a tough one. We realized the crisis is for real. "No! No! How did this happen?" And we looked for someone to blame. We blamed the fat cats on Wall Street. We blamed the politicians in Washington. We blamed Alan Greenspan. We blamed people who took out mortgages they couldn't afford. And we were angry that "we" had to cough up 700-billion dollars in bailout money.
Bargaining and depression came next. "The world is coming to an end." "My 401-K is now a 201-K." "I'm miserable." "I'll save more and spend less if only you make this nightmare go away."
And finally, the fifth stage. Acceptance. This is the stage where I think we are now. We have accepted the reality of the financial crisis. We've accepted that we've all contributed to the problem, and now we are beginning to deal with it. The thinking now: "Let's find a solution." There's the sense that "we're going to be okay, and we just have to get through this."
Acceptance doesn't mean instant happiness, but at least we have accepted that we have a serious problem and as a country we're trying to find solutions.
And, let's face it, we are looking to President-Elect Obama to come up with "the" solution and to get us out of this mess.
It won't be easy to do. And it won't be easy with the economy in a recession. It will take time and patience to get the financial system and the economy back to normal. No president, even Obama, who will have the majority of Congress backing him, can possibly solve all the economy's problems. But I am optimistic that progress can be made. Just turning the country in the right direction would be a success.
Comments
Hello, Susie,
I admire your ability to deal with the issues with such an even hand. You explain well how we
got where we are and help us to face the reality of the situation. Keep doing this !
I'm afraid I don't share all of your optimism about "getting out". Apparently the first evidence of our folly was in the housing market, when borrwing against a decreasing valuation was called by our lenders. Both the lender and we
realized we couldn't afford the liftstyle. Yet
we are again heading into the same situation, where we propose to borrow against the biggest house in the world, our country, to prop up a liftstyle we couldn't afford the first time. My concern is the world will foreclose on us.
I sincerely hope you are right and I am wrong.
What I find so fascinating is that everyone is so surprised! This greed driven., me-first society pushed the economy along as far as it could. It had to collapse. You can feed off your friends-n-neighbors for only so long.
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I'm a disabled vet., forced by the government to live., to exist on an extremely tight budget. My cost of living increase for the entire year equates to .025 cent an hour for a 40 hour work week. Roughly $4.00 a month pay raise. Cost of living increases in the past 60 days alone have already wiped that increase out.
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President elect Obama will not.., make it all right. He can't because he has no interest in doing so. He has no stake in the outcome. He's not a leader - he's a power-play politician.., a very good one., but a gamesmen. Think not? Chicago has the second worst rated school system in the entire country - yet he just appointed the head of that system to the top secretary position for national education department.
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No.., nothing is going to change.., in fact, it's going to get a lot worse., a lot!
As a retiree who now relies on an annuity and social security as my sole source of income, and seeing my rolled over IRA significantly lose value after my so-called financial adviser failed to alert me to what was happening in the stock market starting last year, I moved what was left of my funds into a safer arena: money markets. While I have stemmed the losses somewhat, issues remain that people like me face penalties if we withdraw these funds prior to reaching age 70 1/2. One of Mr. Obama's campaign pledges was to allow retirees to withdraw from their retirement savings accounts without penalty. Among others, that was one of the reasons I voted for him, and it remains to be seen whether he will follow through on that pledge. In the meantime, while there may be many of us in later years who have been through previous recession periods, we have not experienced first hand as we are now what many of our parents and grandparents experienced. They weathered those times, as I expect I and my current generation will as well. However, questions remain as to what the present bodes for our children and grandchildren. Mr. Obama and Mr. McCain both touted the need for change; that government should no long be "business as usual." Well, the so-called Wall Street Bailout would seem to be more of the same, at my expense. How about bailing out the American taxpayer? President Bush's previous stimulus package was a farce. If anyone wanted to seriously do something, how about at least $500,000.00 to every registered voter in the country? Not only would that amount pay off most mortgages and allow people to wipe out their credit card debt, that amount would restore an infusion of cash to banks and once again provide them with the funds to make reasonable loans, restore confidence in the economy and perhaps even add strings to require each recipient to deposit at least 10% of that amount into some sort of savings account. Make the amount also taxable at a flat 10% rate, so at least $50,000.00 went right back to the government. A ridiculous notion? No more ridiculous than giving away the arbitrary amount the Treasury department came up with to bail out Wall Street, Banks, et al and the criminal bonuses paid to CEO's.
Susie,
I really enjoyed reading this. Unfortunately, sometimes it takes a tragedy to pull people together. It's a wake-up call for most Americans and hopefully we can all learn from this and not make the same mistakes. Obama definitely has a difficult task ahead, but I do think he is the one who can lead this country in the "right" direction.