COMMENTARY: The four paths ahead

(UNDATED) Two years ago, when housing prices were soaring, the common wisdom was, “Never rent, always buy.” Today, renters can negotiate 15-percent rent reductions to stay in place (or even more if they don’t mind moving), while homeowners are stuck in houses that have dropped steadily in value and are still painfully illiquid. Two years […]

(UNDATED) Two years ago, when housing prices were soaring, the common wisdom was, “Never rent, always buy.”

Today, renters can negotiate 15-percent rent reductions to stay in place (or even more if they don’t mind moving), while homeowners are stuck in houses that have dropped steadily in value and are still painfully illiquid.

Two years ago, when the Dow soared to 14,200 points, the common wisdom was, “Get in the market, and go all in.” Today, as the market hovers around 7,000 and the typical $1,000 mutual fund holding has shrunk to $562, the stock market looks about as promising as a four-bedroom house in suburbia.


Two years ago, the common wisdom was, “Do whatever it takes to get into an Ivy League college.” Today, as Ivy scholarship funds are shrinking, many families are turning to affordable state universities.

What happens when the conventional wisdom goes belly up?

For one, the experts don’t look as smart. When a rising tide was lifting all ships, luck seems to have played a larger role than training, analysis, skill or connections. The high salaries demanded by meritocrats now seem unwarranted.

Sacrifices and loyalties haven’t been rewarded. The 15-hour workdays that punished families or delayed marriages haven’t yielded financial security or career success. The child who begged, “Play with me, Daddy,” had a better grasp of reality. The biological clock whose ticking was ignored now seems to have told better time.

Cultural, charitable and religious institutions that shared in ramped-up wealth and came to see themselves as the very center of society now find themselves easily cast aside; their donation pools the first to vanish, as if they were indulgences. The “prosperity gospel” proved to be what it was all along: fawning over wealth, and not a Gospel.

When the common wisdom proves bankrupt, the earth shakes. Bedrock values seem built on sand. Assumptions that shaped people’s lives are revealed as unworthy of our devotion. National pride built on a strong economy needs a new foundation. The unfairness of recent wealth distribution becomes a glaring fraud. The “best and brightest” were simply lucky and greedy.

These are sour, sobering and scary times for many people. Not only are their assets dwindling, but so is their self-confidence, and their trust. People are being forced back onto their own resources. For some, that is a reasonably smooth transition. They paid enough attention to their families to have homes capable of providing succor and new direction. They kept their skills sharp. Others, however, find themselves adrift.


For some, doing without is no big deal. Others, however, raised their sails into the intoxicating wind of entitlement and luxury. Now what?

I see four paths lying ahead.

Some will turn vengeful and indulge in wild swings of blaming and recrimination.

Some will turn their anger inward and slide into depression.

Some will “ride out the storm,” hoping that yesterday’s normalcy will resume.

And some will do the hard work of repenting, not so much in the traditional Lenten sense of confessing sins (although confession is always good for the soul), but in the broader sense of rethinking values, lifestyles, assumptions, attitudes and purpose.

Only the fourth path offers hope. We must rethink who we are, what we value, how we intend to pour out our lives, and whose star we will follow.

(Tom Ehrich is a writer, church consultant and Episcopal priest based in New York. He is the author of “Just Wondering, Jesus,” and the founder of the Church Wellness Project, http://www.churchwellness.com. His Web site is http://www.morningwalkmedia.com.)

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