In fact, things have even returned to normal politically. After cooperating briefly, President Bush and the Democrats are sparring over how to stimulate the economy, and whether to pay for it by scaling back tax cuts, as the Democrats want, or by cutting nonmilitary spending, as Bush and many Republicans want.
You don’t have to be a professional contrarian like me to see that the enervating environments in which the national government and much of the national media operate have to influence their world view. Take me. First, I read the daily page of World Trade Center obituaries in The New York Times, which tears my guts out. Then I get on a train, which is packed because commuting patterns have been disrupted. En route, I see the New York City skyline with the Twin Towers missing. By the time I get to my office–where there’s no mail, thanks to the anthrax scare–I’m already bummed. And that’s without having to see the rubble or listen to the fighter jets patrolling the skies.
And then there’s anthrax. The media feel under attack, especially television. After all, we’re a primary target–not accidentally, I’m sure. To use the old line, news is something that happens to an editor–a major reason for the anthrax obsession. Large parts of the country aren’t prone to panic over anthrax, because they know what cows are, and people who deal with cows and soil are used to thinking about anthrax. But there aren’t many cows in newsrooms. Or in New York City or Washington. So instead of seeing anthrax as a treatable (albeit creepy) danger, it’s morphed into the Black Death. Throw in the advertising depression affecting much of the media, and the associated cutbacks and closings, and it’s easy to believe that the whole country is going into the tank.
But maybe it’s not. Richard Curtin, who runs the University of Michigan’s well-known consumer-confidence surveys, says that after Sept. 11 confidence fell more in the New York and Washington regions than elsewhere, and has since come back less. “It will take longer for those people to recover,” he says. The NEWSWEEK Poll shows that an increased proportion of people feel “not at all less safe” since the attacks began, and that more than 70 percent are optimistic about the economy.
“The farther you get from Ground Zero, the quicker you are to say, ‘Let’s get back to normal’,” says Art Spinella, head of CNW Marketing Research, from his office in Brandon, Ore. “In World War II, people in England showed their patriotism by planting victory gardens,” he says. “Here you don’t plant victory gardens; you go to the mall.”
Spinella says that car sales may post their best October in history, partly because of patriotism (“Eight percent of the people in Los Angeles showrooms said they were there because Mayor Giuliani told them to go out and buy something”), largely because of zero-percent financing. That financing, by the way, doesn’t cost the companies all that much, thanks to short-term interest rates’ being so low. At the current 3 percent interest for big short-term borrowers, carrying a three-year zero loan costs a car company $1,000 to $1,250 on a $25,000 SUV. And zero loans are lots sexier than rebates.
To be sure, there’s no shortage of bad economic news, or of people who have lost their jobs. But I think optimism is spreading, because it looks like the country has its act together on both the antiterror and economic fronts. Regardless of whether you think we’re handling these things the right way, at least we’re doing something. If there’s another big successful terror attack, though, all of this could go out the window. As it could if proposals to stimulate the economy get bogged down in partisan squabbling. Three weeks ago it looked like a package would be forthcoming soon. Now it doesn’t. The president’s recent proposals consist almost entirely of tax cuts, including accelerating the personal income tax cuts passed this year. There’s no official Democratic proposal, but Democrats tend largely to tax “rebates” (which are actually advance tax refunds) and spending to help people who’ve lost their jobs. I’ll spare you the details of who says what. Suffice it to say that each side accuses the other of promoting its agenda and calling it “stimulus.”
My predictions? Washington will compromise by both increasing spending and cutting taxes. The economy will keep clawing back. And the Yankees are going to the World Series.
