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Making
things happen - with integrity. A weekly CyberMemo designed to keep you on task. Monday October 15, 2001 Volume III Number 42 |
FOCUS - Now and Then
When those novice pilots took control of the four jetliners, converting American passenger planes into guided missiles, and three of the four rammed the fuel laden jumbo airbuses and their passengers smack dab into the bull’s eye of their targets, the enemies of capitalism scored a major hit.
One month ago, the whole world watched live images of the crumbling collapse of two of the greatest monuments to economic and engineering ingenuity ever built. It made the attack on the Pentagon seem secondary. And the full on crash of another packed jetliner into the farmland of Pennsylvania seem like an afterthought.
Ever since that fateful moment, frozen in time, all of us have entered into a daily process of redefining ourselves. We are asking, what does this mean to my future? How will this affect my personal journey? Where will it lead? How will it impact my business and my career in the long term? What priorities will I keep? Which will I jettison?
The answers are slow in coming.
Most of us grieve the loss of the innocents. We are inspired by the selfless bravery and courage of rescuers who sacrificed their lives in the exercise of their profession – acts of untold heroism in the effort to save imperiled lives. Countless stories of narrow escapes hold us spellbound, shaking our heads in amazement. Tragedies offset by miracles. It leaves us in the crucible of the human dilemma: the intermingling of good and evil, hope and despair, love and hate, gain and loss, injury and healing, life and death. Theologians and philosophers call it “the problem of evil.” And it certainly is that… a problem.
Cynics complain, “How can a good God allow such evil…?” Believers answer with a prayer. “Precious Lord, take my hand, lead me on, help me stand…”
So when the explosions ripped through the steel and glass shell of the twin towers, they took over five thousand good people. They brought the globe to a stunned standstill. They caused untold billions in lost and damaged property. A massive portion of the nation’s wealth vanished as a weakened stock market slid into record lows.
The global economy is as shell shocked as the City of New York.
Generally, portfolio reports are created quarterly. Investors, from portfolio managers to moms and pops in retirement, watched in anticipation for the four days of unscheduled market shut down in the nations markets. In the week that followed, there was an expected sell-off. But something else was not expected. There was no real panic selling. In retrospect now, we know that institutional managers initiated the primary trading. They rearranged their portfolios to match up with a new world order.
The result was a one-week record drop in value for the overall market. The Dow Jones Industrial Average lost just over one thousand two hundred points in five days of trading.
But rank and file investors sat tight. What emerged in the aftermath of the tragedy was a renewal of patriotism. It became “un-American” to sell.
Already, the markets have rebounded to pre-tragedy levels.
The day of infamy was September 11. By the end of the month, the toll was taken from the markets. August values were already below second quarter values. By the end of September, the tragedy’s impact extended to the stock market.
About the time your statements were printed.
You opened the envelope and looked at the numbers just this week. It took your breath away. Mine, too.
The terrorist attack was a stomach punch to the greatest economy in the history of planet Earth. It knocked the wind right out of us. It hit us in the core of the Big Apple. It hit us in the fortress of our nation’s defense. It took more lives than the attack on Pearl Harbor.
And it hit us in the nest egg.
* * * * * *
Think back to where we were as a nation last August.
The most common word to describe our economy was “sluggish.” The root word itself is interesting – it’s the pace of a slug. Slow. Unresponsive. Inactive. Stagnant.
Retail sales, down. Lay-offs, up. Corporate downsizing. Trimming costs in advertising and marketing. The computer industry with too much inventory.
Our national debate centered on the so-called Social Security reserve. Projected tax surpluses which had accumulated in staggering proportions with no end in sight just a year earlier, strangely vanished. Republicans pursued tax cuts that would bring relief to weary taxpayers. Democrats warned of a return to deficit spending. The big question looming this past summer: would politicians pry open the Social Security “lock-box” to pay the bills and jeopardize the cherished retirement benefit for aging Americans?
I’m going
to keep my September 10, 2001 edition of TIME Magazine. On the cover is a
tall, well dressed, well groomed Colin Powell. I want to remember how
quickly public image can change. Dramatically. I recall well just
a month ago when I read the article believing that Mr. Powell could
not have understood the true intent of the weekly newsmagazine. The people
from the magazine must have flip flopped their stated purpose by the time they
published the story. It was a set-up. There was a photo shoot. A lengthy
personal interview. Clearly, Powell had consented to an extended block of time
for the purpose of cooperating with the interviewer/writer/editor for a
celebrated cover story.
But the bold print on the cover that week, just days before the attack, made the point: WHERE HAVE YOU GONE COLIN POWELL? Inside, a two pages spread announced: ODD MAN OUT. TIME Magazine let the world know that, in its opinion, Colin Powell, widely believed to be one of the most powerful and popular men in America, had fallen off his pedestal in the Bush administration. He had failed to deliver the political clout many, including the President himself, assumed he’d bring to the table by mere virtue of his stature, a reputation that was built on the solid foundation of the victory in the Persian Gulf War. There was even the suggestion that he had, in less than a year, outlived his effectiveness as Secretary of State. He was, according to TIME, Odd Man Out.
The big story dominating all the headlines in the month of August focused on a heretofore little known congressman by the name of Gary Condit. A pretty, young Washington intern is missing. Without a trace. It was widely believed that the middle aged politician had a lusty affair with the twenty-something intern, and that perhaps he was somehow involved in her disappearance. The mystery and intrigue owned the headlines and the top stories in all the media outlets. With little else to cover, the global hardware for reporting the news, cameras, trucks, satellite dishes, mobile units, countless cable networks and local news organizations all focused their laser beam eye on a lean, scrappy congressman who didn’t have much to say, really. In the major coup of her on camera career, Connie Chung landed the BIG PRIME TIME interview with Mr. Condit. But it wasn’t, really.
That’s where we were as a nation, August 2001.
The slide began with a Presidential election that brought out the very worst in our political system. The shameful haggling in Florida between two powerful parties, where Americans attacked and ridiculed and positioned themselves for votes and influence with shameless name-calling and personal insults. It was a national embarrassment. And then a presidential inauguration that perhaps for the first time in American history seemed tentative. Grudges everywhere. Muted celebrations. The White House nearly went underground.
While we had a president occupying the office, we had no presidential leader in the hearts and minds of the American people.
Economic performance in this system we call capitalism, the American way, free markets, is, well, to a large degree psychological. Ours is the land of opportunity. We reward success. We love Horatio Alger stories. We believe in pulling one’s self up by the bootstraps.
When the people believe in the system, it works. When they don’t, it doesn’t.
By August of 2001, the American people were as fragmented as they could be. While President Bush knew the message the people needed to hear, he had no voice. The opposing party, along with the national media had pretty well silenced him. Even his top guns, Dick Chenney and Colin Powell, were bumped from the national conversation by critical stories like the Condit affair.
Our nation was lulled into a new widely accepted doctrine – the inevitability of recession. The Bulls can’t run forever, we were told, gotta give ‘em a rest. Let the Bears have their day. Nothin’ we can do. The token tax reform didn’t help much. Those rebate checks didn’t even make a dent. Successive interest rate cuts barely influenced the market.
The world quit buying computers. The search for a “killer app” turned up empty handed. The world’s richest man spent most of his time in court defending his company against charges of anti-trust.
And maybe that’s what was most missing from the whole national psyche… trust. There was none. Anywhere.
We didn’t trust our leaders. Didn’t trust our corporations. Or our government. We didn’t trust the media. We didn’t trust our neighbors.
We didn’t trust our system.
That was August, 2001.
* * * * * * *
These passed couple of weeks, I’ve been talking to a woman two days younger than I who is dying. She knows it. Hospice care now shows up pretty much every day. Her brother asked me to make some visits. She’s got lots of questions. She’s too young to die.
Judy reads. She thinks hard about the big questions. All her life, she’s been cynical about people who seem to think they’ve got all the answers. And now, she knows she doesn’t have a lot of time to come up with answers of her own.
But she’s trying.
Her battle is with Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis. Lou Gehrig’s disease. It’s bad stuff.
She’s heart broken over a world filled with hatred and violence. She weeps at the thought. She is as troubled by violent reactions to Americans who happen to be Moslem as she is troubled by the terrorist attacks themselves. She mourns the loss of innocent people, both the innocents in the Twin Towers and the innocents on the ground caught in the cross-fire of bombing raids in Afghanistan.
Mostly, she’s troubled that evil has such a grip on such a wonderful world. It’s a world she’s embraced with loving enthusiasm all her life. Every morning these days, the sunrise is an event for Judy. Even on cloudy mornings, she celebrates the light. Good-byes, even for a day or two, are hard. She’s not ready to say good-bye.
She wants God to make every day count.
Judy’s teaching me something profound.
Some tragedies just happen. They rob us of any sense of control. We’ve got no where to go. No ability to change the course set by tragedy.
We wish we could change it. Eliminate it. Eradicate it.
But we can’t.
So we are left with our response to it. That’s the only thing we have power over. Our response.
Our response is a reflection of our character.
That’s what matters.
* * * * * * * *
It’s a hard reality. We would not wish tragedy on anyone. While there may be some (probably too many) who celebrate the loss of life and destruction of property, we do not number ourselves among them. We work hard to protect people from injury. From harm. If we could, we would eliminate hardship altogether.
While it may be misunderstood, misinterpreted, I’ll say it straight. I’d much rather be where I am today than where I was in August 2001.
I like our country a whole lot more today than I did five weeks ago.
My belief, my confidence, my hopes and dreams, my focus, my aspirations; all of them have taken a quantum leap in the weeks following the tragic events of September 11.
The presence of a clear and present danger has a way of bringing one to a place of mental clarity. Losses spur one on to a complete re-assessment of priorities.
It’s about time.
* * * * * * *
It’s Monday morning. Our nest egg has taken a hit.
Our businesses have taken a hit. Our nation took a hit. You took a hit.
In the wake of the awful images burned into our consciousness like a brand on cattle in an open range, we will carry the lessons with us. They are now part of our national identity. Even the fear of anthrax heightens our sense of alert.
And in the process, we’ve learned that what we have together has value. Vigilance is now a byword.
In the wake of the tragedy, we have a renewed sense of appreciation for our leaders – we have a President now. Colin Powell is no longer the odd man out. He’s a key player on the President’s dream team. We’ve got profound respect for those who put themselves on the line for the sake of our safety, our protection. Our police officers, our firefighters, our military men and women, even our intelligence agencies enjoy a new status in our society. They are our heroes. We have a new appreciation for our economic system – and a new resolve to preserve our way of life.
I don’t know how to disguise it. I like things the way they are now better than I did then. I never would have chosen this method or these events to bring us back to our senses.
But they have.
May we not soon forget.
The best is yet to come.
© Copyright Kenneth E. Kemp 2001
Special Thanks to my good friend David Belcher, owner of Rhino Media Group and creator of WisdomGram
LeaderFOCUS is a service of Good Stewardship Associates
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