It is said it is always darkest before dawn.  I suppose that is true but those times I have been awake at that time I am usually preoccupied with whatever it is that has me up at that time.  The point is that when things look the worst it is because they are the worst and things are about to get better.

Markets are not cold, impersonal machines.  They are the medium of exchange between people.  We exchange goods, services, ideas, feelings, hopes and fears.  Today there is great fear at work.  We have reason for concern.  Our leaders have abdicated much of the responsibility we invested in them over the past eight years.  We are embroiled in Iraq in an exercise in nation building, an engagement that we were promised during the 2000 election this administration would not undertake.  We are told we had to do this for our own defense against a threat to our security we now know was false.  In a fine example of making lemonade from lemons we are now told this effort is to defeat terrorism, although by all accounts the center of that threat is in Afghanistan, where we are woefully under manned due to the distraction of Iraq.  Did I mention that this so called war against terror where the terrorists aren’t is costing us two billion a week?  That is depressing and was completely avoidable. 

We have a credit crisis due to the lack of oversight of sub-prime mortgages.  I have written in detail about this situation (see The Mortgage Mess and The Hedge From Hell).  We have an energy crisis due to the sky rocketing price of oil.  This is due to this administrations stubborn ignorance of the blatantly evident necessity for the development of an energy policy that would lessen our dependence on foreign oil and provide economic expansion with the creation of new alternative energy technologies.  Instead we got secret sessions between Dick Cheney and big oil that has resulted in record profits for the oil industry and record hardship for the American people.  We have no national energy policy.  That is disgraceful and has cost us dearly.

We have a broken health system unless you are fortunate enough to be provided for under the existing national health care programs that provide care for the elderly, the poor and government employees.  We spend twice per capita on health care than do the other developed nations which have universal coverage yet rank 37th in level of health in the world.  That should give any self-respecting free market capitalist something to ponder.  I thought the wonder of the “invisible hand” was to insure that products and services worked best unregulated.  Of course the irony is that I have never experienced even the most entrenched conservative who would not cash his or her Social Security check or utilize the services of Medicare.  There is the line where hypocrisy trumps ideology.  It is called mendacity.

Our children are floundering under an educational system that is rapidly falling behind, not only the programs in the developed nations, but China and India as well.  We cannot compete for manufacturing in a global economy.  If we cannot lead in intellectual capital and technological innovation we will witness a slow decline to second-rate status.  That is depressing.

Ready to sell everything and head to the hills?  Don’t panic.  It is bad but there is hope.  We are the most powerful resilient people on the planet, when we focus our energy to a common cause.  We have been distracted over the past several years.  We have been immobilized by fear and distracted by issues that are not central to solving the problems discussed above.  Same sex marriage and abortion are important social and moral issues, especially for those who are in the relationship or those who wish to deny them or for those aborting or being aborted.  These issues are of seminal importance at the individual level.  They must be debated and solved by communities at a local level.

Energy, health, infrastructure, and education are problems that must be confronted at the national level if we are to coalesce the resources required to finance and implement the solutions to these daunting challenges.  They are problems of our national community.  If we choose we can meet these challenges and restore our position of moral and economic leadership in the world.  We have a long way to go in digging ourselves out of the mess in which we have become entangled.  I believe we can.  We must choose wisely if we are to do so.  It is not a partisan issue.  We must relinquish the useless demonizing and pointless party rhetoric.  Think independently.  Listen carefully and catch yourself if you find yourself falling back on old party clichés.  Don’t accept everything you hear.  There will be many lies on both sides brandished about over the next several months.  Challenge statements that are overly emotional or demonize the opponent.  Don’t just accept what you want to hear but search for the truth within the words.

If we as a nation can accept the responsibility to engage ourselves democratically and humbly toward re-inventing this nation we will look back at this time as a watershed moment when we as Americans were challenged to our very core to re-commit to the central values that bind all Americans together. Among these are humility, compassion, tolerance, hard work, faith, and commitment to individual liberty.  If we make that choice the power, force and energy that this will engender will certainly find itself represented in the economic markets that serve us.  Prosperity awaits.

Mike Ryan CFP®

(c) Paragon Asset Management

www.paragonasset.com