A dear friend recently shared the heartbreaking news about her daughter being diagnosed with a form of cancer. Having lost three siblings and several friends to the disease, I fully appreciate the toll it takes on the victim as well as on their family and friends. I now include the young woman in my meditations alongside a great-niece and four friends who are also fighting cancer.
I read regularly about people in the wealthiest society in history who grocery “shop” at food banks and about folks who, because they’re unable to afford rent and health insurance, are doing without, whatever fashion doing without means. Then there are those dealing with loneliness and mental health issues, which are at epidemic levels, especially among our youth.
We’re now enmeshed in Middle East War: Part IV. In the early 1990s, the original—the Gulf War—was about preventing Saddam Hussein from seizing Kuwait’s oil fields. Mission accomplished. At the turn of the century, there were back-to-back sequels. Part II in Afghanistan was about hunting down the perpetrators of the 9/11 attacks. When we finally pulled out, the Taliban was still in charge.
Part III was about seizing Hussein’s nuclear arsenal. It turned out he didn’t have one, which intelligence made clear before the shock-and-awe campaign was launched. Now it’s bombs away on Iran. The old ayatollah has been sent to his grave, but in his place is a younger, apparently more severe version.
Gas and oil prices are skyrocketing, and Americans are experiencing sticker shock when filling their gas tanks. They’re also bracing themselves for a fresh round of inflation, which will force them to pinch their nickels (RIP pennies) even more.
Raise your hand if you recall the 1970s oil embargo that resulted in gas rationing, queue lines at filling stations, and 55-miles-per hour speed limits. Raise your hand if you remember the 2007-2009 Great Recession.
Are we heading for an economic downturn, which is a polite term for recession? Among the social sciences, economics is not my strong suit, so I won’t hazard a guess. But I read Andrew Ross Sorkin’s 1929: Inside the Greatest Crash in Wall Street History—And How It Shattered a Nation. As you’re likely aware, even if you failed your American history class, it didn’t turn out well.
When I was a boy, my mother adamantly refused to deal with Mellon Bank of Pittsburgh. She never told me why, probably because I didn’t ask. But after reading Sorkin’s book, I might’ve put my finger on it. Andrew Mellon, Herbert Hoover’s Treasury Secretary, had made his contempt for average Joes and Janes clear.
During the financial meltdown, Mellon advised the President, “Liquidate labor, liquidate stocks, liquidate the farmers, liquidate real estate. It will purge the rottenness out of the system. High costs of living and high living will come down. People will work harder, live a moral life.” Much to unpack there, but it’d take a separate, much longer essay.
It was ordinary Americans who paid dearly for the mess Wall Street created in the 1920s. By 1933, the unemployment rate soared to 24 percent. Millions lost everything and became destitute. To stabilize the banking crisis, President Franklin D. Roosevelt declared a Bank Holiday.
It was similar during the Great Recession with one major exception. Unemployment surged to 10 percent, and home buyers who were underwater with their mortgages lost big. But that time, the too-big-to-fail financial institutions got bailed out.
F. Scott Fitzgerald once commented the rich are different from the rest of us, to which Ernest Hemingway responded, “Yes, they have more money.” Hemingway’s retort was a clever repartee, but I wonder how he would’ve responded if Fitzgerald had added “because they play by a different set of rules.”
Everyday Americans are paying for MEW: IV. Some with their lives. Those safe at home are enduring escalating energy prices atop the curve- and beanballs life is throwing at them. Like physical and mental health issues and possible bankruptcy because of them. Like relying on food banks and living in rundown, rat-infested housing with poor heating, clean water, and sanitation, or worse, on the street. Like…
In the interest of spoiler alert, I won’t reveal Sorkin’s summation in “1929” other than to mention his caution about how quickly we forget.
MEW: IV is costing American taxpayers—those who actually pay taxes—a billion dollars a day. Imagine the good that money would do if it were invested in something intelligent, like finding a cure for cancer, solving the housing and hunger crises, and supporting those struggling with mental health issues in a comprehensive manner.
