It's only money
LJ Idol Week 2: “I Don’t Care About Apathy: What I "Should" Care About - But Don’t”
A couple of years ago I got a look at the 1929 editions of the newspaper where I work. I looked up October, for the edition of Black Tuesday and the start of the Great Depression.
Not a word about the stock market crash.
I didn’t see anything on it that week, or the rest of October, or the rest of the year. And this hometown paper published wire service dispatches from Washington, across the country and around the world. (It even ran an article on the legendary man-eating trees of Madagascar!) But nothing on how, as we’ve been led to believe by history, America was suddenly plunged into ruin.
Of course, it didn’t happen suddenly, not for folks out here three states away from New York. But as the months went by, from time to time one would read of this bank or that bank failing. Then I noticed the occasional report of suicide by some distraught farmer or businessman; an event uncommon enough to make front-page bulletins, but becoming too common through those years.
Finally, in 1933, after Roosevelt’s election, articles appear about dealing with hoboes and homeless WWI veterans, FDR declaring a “bank holiday” to prevent further panic withdrawls, and the New Deal programs.
On the day a couple of weeks ago that bank failures were being announced and the world’s markets plunged, there was also (a short distance from Wall Street) an art auction in which pieces went easily for millions of dollars.
Congress and the President’s struggles to keep the present recession from slipping into true depression -- which may be too little too late -- are fighting for space in the news cycle with the latest celebrity gossip, reality TV and (a truly all-American distraction) the imminent baseball World Series.
And instead of getting too little news on the crisis, as it was over 75 years ago, we’re getting too much. Multiple news networks and financial news networks, battling blogs, etc., are hitting us with so much data, trivia and opinion that it’s all blended into background static. Future students will wonder of us, how did we not see the events of 2009 and 2010 coming?
But don’t look to me to help. I was conditioned by my own episodes of financial hardship that when hit with big numbers I can’t afford to deal with, my brain vapor-locks. 700 billion? Just a random number to me. I still struggle to find a way to pay a couple-thousand-dollar old student loan. I was so frozen by disbelief over a medical bill this year that it got a legal fee tacked onto it before I could get my stuff together.
To a degree, I try to care; I’ll watch the news; I’ll vote. But as for the future of markets and banks and mortgages - sorry, but I have my own worries; Wall Street and Washington will just have to work it out without me.
A couple of years ago I got a look at the 1929 editions of the newspaper where I work. I looked up October, for the edition of Black Tuesday and the start of the Great Depression.
Not a word about the stock market crash.
I didn’t see anything on it that week, or the rest of October, or the rest of the year. And this hometown paper published wire service dispatches from Washington, across the country and around the world. (It even ran an article on the legendary man-eating trees of Madagascar!) But nothing on how, as we’ve been led to believe by history, America was suddenly plunged into ruin.
Of course, it didn’t happen suddenly, not for folks out here three states away from New York. But as the months went by, from time to time one would read of this bank or that bank failing. Then I noticed the occasional report of suicide by some distraught farmer or businessman; an event uncommon enough to make front-page bulletins, but becoming too common through those years.
Finally, in 1933, after Roosevelt’s election, articles appear about dealing with hoboes and homeless WWI veterans, FDR declaring a “bank holiday” to prevent further panic withdrawls, and the New Deal programs.
On the day a couple of weeks ago that bank failures were being announced and the world’s markets plunged, there was also (a short distance from Wall Street) an art auction in which pieces went easily for millions of dollars.
Congress and the President’s struggles to keep the present recession from slipping into true depression -- which may be too little too late -- are fighting for space in the news cycle with the latest celebrity gossip, reality TV and (a truly all-American distraction) the imminent baseball World Series.
And instead of getting too little news on the crisis, as it was over 75 years ago, we’re getting too much. Multiple news networks and financial news networks, battling blogs, etc., are hitting us with so much data, trivia and opinion that it’s all blended into background static. Future students will wonder of us, how did we not see the events of 2009 and 2010 coming?
But don’t look to me to help. I was conditioned by my own episodes of financial hardship that when hit with big numbers I can’t afford to deal with, my brain vapor-locks. 700 billion? Just a random number to me. I still struggle to find a way to pay a couple-thousand-dollar old student loan. I was so frozen by disbelief over a medical bill this year that it got a legal fee tacked onto it before I could get my stuff together.
To a degree, I try to care; I’ll watch the news; I’ll vote. But as for the future of markets and banks and mortgages - sorry, but I have my own worries; Wall Street and Washington will just have to work it out without me.