THURSDAY, JANUARY 8, 2009

THURSDAY, JANUARY 8, 2009

Onward, upward

As we flip our calendars from 2008 to 2009, there is

considerable optimism that things will get better

in the new year. That hopeful spirit is not confined to Rappahannock County, though it is alive and well here.

If all goes well, according to a panel of prominent economists surv eyed recently by MSNBC, we could start seeing the economy recovering by midyear. And recovery, these experts say, is likely to be “convincing.”

Well and good. But we believe a lot has changed during this very frightening downturn, and this recovery is liable to be different from recoveries we have seen before.

Most clear is that the “more for me, bigger is better” mentality that’s dominated our collective mindset for much of the decade is over.

Perhaps the most glaring examples of that can be told by those trying to sell McMansions, which have given way to homes with much more modest presentation. That’s by necessity

We have certainly learned to stay away from funny-money mortgages, but the more, important lesson involves keeping our house payments as a far lower percentage erf our incomes.

Detroit will make a comeback ... or not, depending on whether designers can start coming up with vehicles that makeThe significant fuel-efficiency gains that Detroit seems to have found so distasteful in the past.

Gasoline at $4-plus a gallon opened our eyes and struck fear in our hearts. If it did the same to Detroit, the Big Three will survive. If it didn’t, they won’t, pure and simple.

Meanwhile, investing is going to become a lot simpler and "more straightforward. As it turns out, we have developed investments that neither buyers nor sellers understand. Nobody’s going to want them in the recovering economy.

But if we are going to regain our equilibrium in the coming year, the single most important change is going to have to happen to employers.

Typically, in a recession, they get scared too, and as the recession ends, they art slow to add workers. For the recovery to work, employers are going to have to be as quick to hire people as they have been to pare, their payrolls during these testing times.

For one, it simply doesn’t make sense, in a modem and forward-looking economy, to continue to ask people to do jobs meant for two, or three, or more. It’s not like we don’t know the devastating effects — and societal costs — of workplace stress.

For another, emerging from a recession as a “leaner, meaner” company — and proud of it — may have worked in the past, but it ain’t gonna work in the future. We’ve seen how the fear caused by lack of job security inhibits consumer confidence and spending.

Neither this economy nor any other with which we are so closely tied in global terms is going to recover if we don’t put people back to work.

Onward and upward.