My husband and I send our kids to private schools in our area. Our town, in all its wisdom, decided that you can't go to your neighborhood school unless you basically enrolled your child at birth. When we moved here, our neighborhood school was booked for the next three generations, so we had little choice but to send them to private school.
We went to the annual Ice Cream Social at our younger son's school today - a fundraiser for the school where the kids and adults all get to make their own sundaes with all the fixings. I have always assumed that anyone who can send their children to private school is probably pretty well off (only a few kids have scholarships), so that I didn't really expect to hear too much talk about the economy today from this relatively affluent crowd.
Boy was I surprised! The crisis is so much deeper than any of us realize -- even the "upper class" is being hurt but they are whispering about it.
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I ran into one friend and asked her how she was doing. "Not so well," she said. She looked grim. I was surprised, expecting to hear that perhaps someone in her family was ill. "Oh my God," she went on. " I didn't realize it until this week but we are really being hit hard by the credit crisis." Her husband owns his own business and has been extremely successful. She went on, "We borrowed a lot to buy more inventory and nothing is selling. We are over-extended to the point where I think we have to sell our house." I was in shock. Sell their house to make ends meet?
Another friend came over to talk and I asked her how she was doing? She confessed behind a cuffed hand, "My husband just lost his job and I think we are going to have to pull our kids out of this school." Holy cow! Things are so tight they might pull their kids out of school in the middle of the semester because they can't afford the tuition?
A theme was developing.
I ran into a third friend. "How's it going?" I asked. "Gosh," she said in a hushed voice, looking around to make sure no one was listening. "Things are really tight. My salary just got cut in half. I know it is not as bad as loosing my job, but we have been living on both paychecks for so long that we have decided that we are going to have to sell our boat." "But you love that boat," I said. She teared up. "I know. We just learned that the equity line for our house has been frozen and we have cancelled plans to put on our addition and if we are going to be able to pay our monthly bills, we have got to start cutting out all the extras -- and that includes the boat." I thought these people were loaded!
Now, I realize that the above stories are NOTHING compared to those who have lost their only source of income or have lost their homes through foreclosure. But what the above vignettes signal to me is that this financial crisis is already hitting many more people than any of us have imagined and is hitting those who we thought would never have to worry about much of anything. Big homes, private schools, owners of their own business, people who have yachts!
And the ramifications of each of the above realities and decisions are potentially huge. People trying to sell their house in a down market in order to survive? Won't prices fall even farther with more supply and no credit? What if thousands of parents decide they have to pull their kids out of private schools? How will the private schools stay afloat? And how will the public schools handle the new influx of kids? What if nearly all planned home construction comes to a halt because credit is scarce? Many more will be out of jobs. It is a house of cards.
And what will happen to retail if everyone scales back at Christmas? We went out as a family yesterday to do errands and the only store doing much business was Target and even their overflow parking lot was full. I have never seen it so crowded -- never! It seems that no one is interested in brand names and fancy labels when they have just lost their job, half their salary, their home, the hobbies they love, their children's schools, and their dignity.
The whispers are getting louder. And, NO, I am not talking about Hockey Moms and Joe Six-Packs, while I am sure they are finding themselves in even more difficult circumstances.
All I am suggesting is that things are a whole heck of a lot worse than they appear for a lot of people, because the privileged class is suffering too, but they are are speaking in whispers.
What we do not need is a new President (McCain) who has consistently opposed regulation, wants to tax American's health insurance benefits, wants to continue in Iraq until there is "victory", and whose only campaign strategy at the moment is to try to assassinate Barack Obama's character. McCain offers no hope to anyone who is suffering.
What we need is a new president who is calm in a storm, who makes sound and reasoned decisions, and who actually cares about the daily lives of the American people. Obama has some good ideas and plans on how to try to fix this disaster. And he is acutely aware of how hard things are for so many American people.
Wake up America. Rich Poor. Young Old. Black White Latino, Native American, Eskimo and Asian.
As Obama said. Our collective house is on fire. Let's elect Barack Obama and put it out before it consumes us all.