Tale of Two Societies

By Mark Svetz

WILLIMANTIC –November, 2008

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A Tale of Two Societies

Claire started off telling me about some notebooks she came across recently. She told me about her long-time habit of writing the cost of a few items in a journal. What she found recently were lists from 1994, 2006 and this year.

We got talking about prices, which lead to the economy and what was going to happen.

Now, Claire was a young girl when the stock market crashed in 1929, Her childhood sort of coincided with what I think of as “the Depression.” Sometimes we call it the “Great Depression.” So, we did talk about the price of apples, which, according to Claire’s notebook, were $1.00 (for some unstated amount!) in 1994 and also $1.00 for the same amount in 2005. That was a surprise to me – 10 years and no change in price.

“I don’t know what people are supposed to do now,” Claire wondered. And that was when I wondered: What would the children of today remember about these times? I fear they may not compare so favorably to Claire’s childhood.

Broccoli went from $1.00 in 1994 to $1.90 in 2005. That’s more what I expected – a 90 percent increase. Cottage Cheese went from $1.50, in 1994, to $1.55 in 2005 and $2.00 in 2008. It's still not what I’d call an economic crisis.

And that brings us to the current financial crisis, which seems to be about so many of us living beyond our means. We know this eventually catches up with us.

As a young boy, I remember, my brother and I were playing with the water at an outside spigot. We caught hell for that, as we used to say. My father told us we were going to run the well dry.

There are a couple of things I find very troubling about this disjointed string of memories. One is, who will most of the people in our community turn to when they can’t afford the grocery bill? Mr. Bergeron’s tab has been replaced by the credit card. We have seen what happens to the banks when they lend out 30 to 40 times more than they have.

There is another thing that bothers me. While I can imagine hustling the few dollars I need to get some apples and a loaf of bread, which can keep me alive for a week or more, I have a hard time imagining where we are going to hustle for the enormous cost of our shelter. The price of real estate has skyrocketed.

Now, I think my brother and I were like our economy. We were using our family’s resources in a profligate way, thinking there would never be a price to pay. My father’s warning, followed by that sand in the water, these are some of the events that have made me a conservationist today.

Who will warn the bankers about the dire consequences of their actions?

But again, the conversation shed some light on a more troublesome aspect of the whole thing.

“My mother only made $8 a week back then,” Claire remembered. “But we only paid about $8 a month for rent, so we made it OK.”

On Claire’s price list bread went from $1.00 in ’94, to $1.69 in ’05 and $2 in ’08. And I pay $6 and change if I want a loaf of Colchester Bakery Rye Bread at the Willimantic Food Co-op.

Claire’s lifetime has seen, not just the normal inflation of food prices, but the staggering, almost geometric increases in the price of a home, car, and overall, an increase in the number of “necessities” that are beyond the reach of many wage earners.

I’m often not sure what all these terms even mean. What’s more, I’m not sure if the so-called experts, the ones who are making the decisions, really know what these terms mean either. But there are a few simple truths, and I love the conversations that shed light on those truths.

I had such a conversation the other day with my old friend Claire Meikel, and I came to realize we might have been better prepared in past years, for the financial problems that may be coming.

This was a dire consequence, which left a powerful impression on me. I don’t recall if we actually stopped playing with the water, but I do remember a few years later, my father’s words coming back to me when our pump malfunctioned and we had sand in our water. I believed at the time, this was a sign of our well running dry.

Many of my conversations these days are about the economy. Jobs, consumer confidence, interest rates, sub-prime loans, mortgage crisis. These are the ideas that are on our minds, in our hearts and our conversations.

“I don’t know what people are supposed to do now,” Claire wondered. And that was when I wondered: What would the children of today remember about these times? I fear they may not compare so favorably to Claire’s childhood.

Broccoli went from $1.00 in 1994 to $1.90 in 2005. That’s more what I expected – a 90 percent increase. Cottage Cheese went from $1.50, in 1994, to $1.55 in 2005 and $2.00 in 2008. It's still not what I’d call an economic crisis.

My parents bought a house for about $10,000 at a time when my father might have been earning $8,000 to $10,000 a year working construction. Now, a manual laborer, earning twice that amount must pay 10 times that for housing.

I’m not sure what the solutions are. I believe the financial community – the bankers, insurance companies, and the Government – have to reign in this crazy debt, and get their affairs back in line with the rest of society.

The biggest thing that bothers me is this: Who’s going to tell the bankers to stop playing with the water before the well runs dry?

Mark Svetz and Sarah Winter own Clothworks, a shop on Church Street in Downtown Willimantic, where they make and sell clothing and bags. They have not received their share of the $850 Billion bailout yet!

Claire, 82 and still riding!

“We lived down in Sodom, and we had a little French market down there,” Claire recalled. “And there was a Polish place and I think there was an Italian place…no that was up the west end, I think…but they all took care of their customers. Mr. Bergeron would always let families buy on credit. Everybody. We could always get something for supper. You know what I mean?”