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2001 All Over Again
For those of us in the mid-to-late thirtysomething category, this recession has a specific discomfort to it. The recession of 2001 is still a sharp memory, and today’s turmoil rustles up primal and unpleasant memories of that year’s slump.
That terrible year and all that came with it—9/11, job losses, the stock market’s collapse—hit many of us right in the psychological jugular. By 2001, we Gen Xers, the entitled, “slacker” generation had gathered our momentum and were wrestling with real-life responsibilities—our first management jobs or kids or aging parents or a mortgage or a partner needing either commitment or escape.
Then, poof…
In a way, I think I’m still recovering from that period in my life, making peace with some of the choices I made in order to cope — moving to lower-cost Seattle and diversifying my work in order to survive.
And then along comes 2009: Our homes are worth nothing, the stock market stinks, employment is dropping, and we can’t spend money to stimulate the economy because we’ve already spent too much.
How are you doing so far? So far, my ship remains afloat—ditto for most of my same-age peers here in Seattle. But the problems of 2001 unfurled over several quarters, and we’re only a few quarters into what officials now concede is a humongous mess—which means the mess probably started much earlier, and will unspool slowly and continuously for many seasons. I’m expecting it to get worse before it gets better, just like 2001.
Here’s my 2001 in a nutshell. First, my income went: I freelanced exclusively for publications focused on the dot-com and technology boom, and by the first quarter of that year all my titles were for sale, folding or undertaking freelance-free makeovers. I’m resourceful, as most freelancers are, but I had to turn down projects because I had other issues demanding attention: In May, my family learned my mother’s cancer was terminal. I went to Virginia to be near her, and in July, she died. By September, I decided I’d stop the grieving and redouble my work efforts. (Alas, freelancers—along with the growing ranks of unemployed—don’t get bereavement leave or pay, and they can’t phone it in for a few weeks under the protection of a compassionate manager.) I had a few months left in New York before a move to Seattle, and I remember sitting at my desk on September 10, thinking how nice it was to plan my return to the world. The next morning, of course, I did no such thing: I stood on the roof of my uptown apartment building, using a neighbor’s binoculars to watch the first tower burn.
I keep reminding myself that 2009 is not 2001, that I don’t have any catastrophic family business in the offing; that the notion of warring with the Middle East is no longer a novel horror; that I’ve diversified my work sufficiently so I won’t end up twice dot-commed; that if I’m leveraged with my own debt in 2009 it’s because I just financed my own wedding and not because I’m charging groceries or paying an exotic mortgage; and that, at 39, I’ve already been through a few recessions—graduated in one, worked through another. By now, I should be Zen.
But I’m not: I can’t help resenting the obvious signs of re-entry into a cautionary economy—assignments about layoffs and foreclosures (hello, Recessionwire), shorter stories (for lesser pay) in ad-strapped publications — watching one of two Seattle papers up for fire-sale, the concept of feeding my IRA for the golden years seemingly fruitless. What should be years of middle-age achievement, for many of us, consist instead of a subsistence economy. Two friends with Ivy League masters degrees are scarily on food stamps. The recessionary road bumps laid in the path of those of us who took out student loans and mortgages, tried to save for the future, leveraged ourselves (somewhat) to a star called economic growth, remind us that our plans for the future are predicated on optimistic theories that no longer hold, that our stars hang in a lower horizon — like at elbow height.
I feel guilty, as a middle class college-grad, kvetching about the contracting economy. I’ve got it lots better than so many other folks. But hope, optimism, a sense of opportunity and expansion? A recession—whether in 2001 or 2009—can steal even those priceless commodities from everyone. We may recover economically within a year or two, but emotionally? It could take decades.
Jane Hodges is a freelance business writer and recession survivor in Seattle. Her work has appared in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, MSNBC.com, BNET.com, Fortune, The Seattle Times, and many other publications.
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5 comments for “2001 All Over Again”
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Hey, great article. Having moved from Boston to DC in response to the 2001 recession, it does bring back memories of a tough year. I disagree with you on one point, though, “hope, optimism, a sense of opportunity and expansion” can never be stolen without our permission. The US has been entrenched in a culture of fear since 2001, and it will only get worse if we empower that fear. Those who embrace a sense of hope, optimism and opportunity will get us out of this recession.
Hi Kt4hope — Thanks for reading. I get what you’re saying about the fact we can’t all live in fear or else that becomes self-fulfilling. I more intended to communicate that, while I don’t live in fear, I do live with a sense of (short-term) diminished horizons. Sure, we can still do great things in our lifetime. But it’s no fun to get kicked back a few rungs every few years due to circumstances beyond our control. You can’t give up, of course, but it’s hard not to feel cranky sometimes…. Cheers, Jane
Jane,
Good article. A lot of people tend to look back on 2001 as one catastrophe after another. What often gets forgotten is that the economy was already contracting by early 2001 in the wake of the dot-com fallout, and the predominating meme, as it were, was how we were going to have a \soft landing.\ Well, 9-11 blew our chances of that, but rather a single transformative event (speaking in economic terms) it was more of a kicking-us-while-we’re-down moment. The fear that the attacks engendered helped keep us in recession, of course (my own newspaper started downsizing shortly afterward). What worries me is not the overall recession we’re experiencing right now (although when I was unemployed last year I had a different opinion), because these things happen, although this is going to be deeper than most. The worry is that there will be some kind of \event,\ broadly speaking, that has the same effect as 9-11, in that it kicks us while we’re down. These aren’t events that we normally have a lot of control over, especially if they’ve been in motion for years already (the banking crisis comes to mind). Often, the best we can do is do what you did in 2001; diversify and prepare to ride it out.
The sad reality is that if we really took our financial pain in the last recession we would not be where we are today. IMHO Greenspan was so afraid of how consumers would retrench their spending post-Nasdaq bubble that he lowered rates to drive housing as a means of creating an even bigger wealth effect. Look Boys and Girls – a new and bigger bubble! If we dealt with a moderate recession — and 2001 was a slight recession (economically, not emotionally with 9/11) we would be in a much better place today.
Jane,
I’m fortunate enough to still have my parents around. (I’m about 7 years ahead of you on the age curve.) They bred into me at an early age the lessons of the Great Depression. And then my teens coincided with the dreadful stagflation of the 70s. I still recall a Time mag sidebar from that era predicting a dystopian future where no one could drive cars because there was no more oil in the year 2000 (or so). Uh, right.
And then we boomed starting in the 80s. Life has cycles.
Recently, I sat mom down with a video camera to record some family history. What came across to me was how economic times have re-routed my family’s trajectory over the past 100 years — Great Depression, Panic of 1907. It happens. It’s real. And we need to prepare for it, which is what my folks tried to instill in me.
It’s good to mourn the loss of optimism. That buoyant feeling of youth is wonderful and uplifting. And it’s really what gets us out of these occasional funks. (I can’t wait to see what the kids invent next!) But it’s better, as we age, to be grounded in the reality that age affords us the ability to understand. These cycles come, we will outlive them, prepare yourselves for the next one when the times turn good again.