Headlines. And a Mission

The Painted Maypole hosts a writing group at her site called Monday Missions. Yesterday's mission was to write a post in the form of headlines. The assignments are a lot of fun and I learn a lot from the writers that take on a mission. We all learn from one another. To see the latest MM, go here.

As often happens, I am getting to the mission on Tuesday and twisting its tail. A lot. Because after I slithered down the lane to the mailbox and picked up our papers this morning, all I could see were the headlines.

CHAOS RULES IN PORT-AU-PRINCE and

Disaster in Haiti.

To the horror of the earthquake and the heart tearing frustration of the slowness of arriving help has now been added the violence and fury of looting. It is hard to watch; it must be maddening to try to manage and terrifying to endure. I do not find it hard to understand. When I was taught to be a lifeguard, we were warned and taught how to deal with drowning victims who might be so frantic, so panicked, that they would grab their rescuer and prevent the rescue. We were taught how to approach from behind, how to break a stranglehold under water, how to choke a victim enough to stop the flailing that would prevent us towing him to safety. Tough love, in fact, in the extreme. And I think the people of Haiti are like those drowning victims. So without hope that they see no help, no rescue and flail out at all around them.

I am afraid that the tough love solutions are what is needed now. The rescuers are going to have to defend themselves, to ensure their own safety, before they can rescue. The American group running the airport is going to have to prefer landing for munitions and soldiers over medical aid and supplies. Canada may send peace keepers; as a Canadian I would demand that such young men and women be armed and allowed to defend themselves and the aid workers they support. Of course this slows the aid and limits its delivery and so more people are going to die or go so long without treatment that they will end up with amputated limbs or chronic debility.

The root of it, as I see it, is the poverty in Haiti, a poverty that leads to hopelessness and a hopelessness that leads to rage and amorality. We don't experience that kind of poverty in North America; not even the worst of our slums, the most lost of our homeless, have no one, ever, to reach out a hand to them, have no expectation of ever being helped. Our government works, even when Mr Proroguey is running it, our safety nets are there, stretched thin in places, but there. But in Haiti the government and its programs are sometimes so corrupt that they are part of the problem and not of the solution. So it is a country of grinding poverty in which a disaster brings a situation where it is every man for himself, where morality is a luxury and the ability to fight for it ruthlessly is what gets you food and water.

I am sure that the majority of people in Haiti are, like all of us, a mixture of good and bad, noble and venal. They deserve peace, order and good government, as all of us do. So, I am happy to give money to emergency relief. But I would throw my heart behind anyone who knows how to make that relief effective and who has the skill, the knowledge and the power to clean up some of the basic problems that have made a natural disaster into something so much worse

Dead Cat Bounce

...and other Stock Market stuff I never wanted to know about.

I've been brooding for some time now about the miserable economic mess that we have got ourselves into. The stock market in free fall is only one piece of it, albeit a big piece for people watching their investments and retirement income shrivel. A lot of people are losing their homes, their jobs, their dreams. Even affluent retirees such as my husband are depressed and a little bit scared.

I've just ploughed through a long article in MacLeans about the 'economic crisis' and am planning on tackling the Economist, maybe tomorrow when I feel stronger and more intelligent. I read two daily papers, daily. I listen to pundits. I still don't understand it. But I'm not sure anyone does, no matter what their credentials. So, here is my two cents' worth. Which, tomorrow, will probably only be worth 1.3 cents.

Although I guess it is fair to say that the trigger for this mess has been the mortgage bubble in the United States, I think that Canada and Europe, the 'developed' world, is all at fault. The reason? The acceptance of a world based on easy credit. 'No money down.' 'Do not pay until 2010'. With this acceptance, also, the belief that it is okay, more, that it is safe, to live up to the eyeballs in debt.

I was raised by parents who had been young adults in the Depression years of 1929 to 1939. Their education, expectations and plans had been disrupted by the hit their families' incomes took when the wheels came off the bus. And they never forgot it. It shaped their world view. They did not buy on credit. Never. Ever. In their view, you saved until you could pay cash for whatever you needed and did without until the cash was available. Savings went into the bank, into land or, more dangerously, into very, very safe investments.

People who had been young adults in the war years, however, found, in the post war boom, a new level of prosperity and desire for things. They wanted houses of their own. They wanted cars, televisions, cottages. They were earning good salaries, the future of their employment seemed secure and so they took out a mortgage, a car loan, a second mortgage. And it all worked out, for most of them, and the children they were bringing up in this new affluence grew up in a world of new clothes, bigger TV's, transistor radios, bicycles, vacations to the beach, a fur coat for mother. Stuff advertised on TV. It was normal; these things were expected, not treats. I am talking, of course, about the 'Boomer' generation.

As the Boomers grew up in their turn, in spite of the occasional wobble in the economy, things stayed good. And along came credit cards. And car dealerships and electronics stores that offered long payment periods. And banks that allowed second mortgages. And advertising for all of this grew more and more strident. It was everywhere. An economy based on a need for growth to keep it stable, fuelled by 'You deserve it' advertising. When inflation got too high, when the credit card was maxed out, it was corrected, consolidation loaned, tamed down. Governments borrowed at high interest to keep the spiral spiralling.

Next came computers, and the Boomers discovered that they could be their own stockbrokers. Everyone and her aunt got into it with RRSP's and self directed retirement plans and mutual funds. Even the pop when the dot.com bubble burst did not deter people. The meltdown after 9/11 did not deter people either. Recovery had happened before; therefore, it would happen again. I think a whole lot of people with a little knowledge got into energy stocks. And a whole lot of people (I heard one expert describing the American blacks as especially vulnerable to the sub prime mortgage offer) overextended themselves for a big house and a new car and as many toys and treats as they could swing. Which they could not, if the economy dipped in the slightest, manage to hold onto.

Canada has not been quite as wild as the US and as some of the European Union countries. We have had solid, stodgy bank rules and a Finance Minister for many years who, in tandem with a sensible Prime Minister, held the reins tight and used surpluses to pay down debt. But even with that, the coming recession is going to hit here. When you sleep next to an elephant, if it turns over you are going to lose your blankets.

I've never studies economics at all. I don't know the terminology and the theories and the history, except from the viewpoint of a housewife. If I can see how we got into this mess, why aren't the experts, seemingly, seeing it. I was really discouraged listening to Obama and McCain dodge the very reasonable questions related to finance that they were asked in tonight's debate. Mr McCain, the economy is not basically sound. Mr. Obama, you say it is going to be tough -- can you put a little detail in there.

I am hanging on to my piece of the blanket, but the elephant is pretty restless tonight.

As for a 'dead cat bounce', it's a one day upward swing in the market following a lot of down days and followed, as it was today, by a return to going down. Something I never wanted to know.