I was startled to actually see a front page article on recovering the dead in Iraq. No photos of bodies on the front page, though the trunks used for soldiers possessions look like small coffins. I recognized them - same as my son used for camp. An apolitical article really, but poignant in relating the emotions of those whose task is to recover the dead. We've seen little direct reminders of the dead in this war - I suspect we've actually seen more photos of the dead in coverage of New Orleans.
I live in relatively affluent suburbs north of NYC. My family has been in the area forever - bsack to the Revolution. A relatively unambitious group. Life was always "good enough" though it seems to have been on a barely perceptible downward slide for most over that 300 years. My wife and I were both from blue collar families and have done better than expected. Took a while but it's a pretty good life now. But we haven't forgotten the apartment in the Bronx and scrounging change on the day before payday. We're pretty conservative in our spending habits.
But all is not well here.
All around us we see people truly on the edge, leasing cars they couldn't afford to buy - flipping them every three years. (We hold onto one for a deacade and run it to death.)
We were house-poor for a while but took a fixed rate mortgage and put 20% down. Refinanced to a lower rate at 15 years. You're not seeing those buying habits now. (Adjustable rates could hurt alot of people.) But houses are now double or triple what they were a dozen years back. People are playing with funny money - flipping co-ops in Manhattan to buy a house here or moving up in the market. But few can afford to buy in cold.
Older residents seem to be bailing out while they can - "taking the money and running." Blows the school enrollment projections. Local property taxes are through the roof - mainly school taxes though there's a lot of pass down from the sstate to County and local. Our property taxes are now more than I used to gross - more than double ten years ago.
This community draws long term residents - not the three year corporate transfers you see in some places. One of the things I like about it. Yet many people are now "consultants" - suburbanspeak for "unemployed" - scrounging work but not employed in the sme old safe corporate positions they used to hold. All those systems people and programmers with the large Manhattan companies (wasn't THAT the "future"?) have seen their jobs off-shored.
But a lot of people are living off their home equity - a trend noticed in a NYT article today as well. Borrowing money that exists ONLY through ever increasing home values. What happens if that trend stops? How many college educations that were going to be financed through re-mortgaging are NOT going to happen?
Winter has many nervous. Fuel oil lock-in prices are a topic on the soccer fields. Pity the poor natural gas customers.
Even the die-hard Republicans (and this area seems pretty split on national politics) are wondering what's going on.... Iraq is an issue, though it is more sub-conscious that in the forefront. Katrina and Rita caught people's attention. It's nice to give clothes but I susspect money would do more good than old khakis and unused winter clothes. But I suspect many don't HAVE much in the way of "discretionary" charitable funds. A worthy local fundraiser - not one of the "private club unnecessary but nice" efforts took in far less than usual this year.
There was a lot of bitching about AMT - alternative minimum tax - last year. Don't know if it's going to surface again. I don't thing too many people are seeing real raises. The Wall Street types will get their bonuses - if things stay up, but real income isn't seeing growth.
Any real economic slow-down may have some serious effects here. The late 80's had people losing houses - and that housing run-up and drop was less than this one. The next 6 months will be interesting.