I spent an afternoon last week in a clouded-in office trying to delineate the downward trajectory of the local economy.
I was done with my work for the day, and a simple question impelled me to investigate: When does a recession end and a depression begin?
Wikipedia, unfortunately my first stop, suggested the latter begins after two or more years of sustained economic decline, whether a contraction in GDP or rise in unemployment.
"In economics, a depression is a sustained, long-term downturn in economic activity in one or more economies. It is a more severe downturn than a recession, which is seen as part of a normal business cycle," the Web wizard said. "Considered a rare and extreme form of recession, a depression is characterized by its length, and by abnormal increases in unemployment, falls in the availability of credit, shrinking output and investment, numerous bankruptcies, reduced amounts of trade and commerce, as well as highly volatile relative currency value fluctuations, mostly devaluations. Price deflation, financial crisis and bank failures are also common elements of a depression."
Wikipedia also proffered these damning bytes of information: "Another proposed definition of depression includes two general rules: a decline in real GDP exceeding 10 percent, or a recession lasting 2 or more years."
What if, I thought on this particularly leaden afternoon, I could dig up some wondrous bar graph or diagram, some magical compilation of figures or recapitulation of key facts that would thoroughly explain the last few years and reveal the exact point on which to hang the harbinger of doom?
I looked at unemployment (13 percent), state GDP (don't know), and gaming win (it's down!).
I suppose I could have looked at taxable sales and other indicators, but after I while, I just quit. I closed out the many windows on my computer screen, which had divided in the virtual space like cancer cells, and I said to myself, enough!
At some point, the numbers become meaningless, divorced from the hard reality on the ground. How can you put a number on the pale, quivering face of a single mother who's been laid off and looking for work when there's so little work to be had?
Last year, I used the words "positive" and "optimistic" so much that I came to hate the terms. I became cynical about what seems to be a hell-bent, relentless march toward economic oblivion. No matter how much good news you spread, the bad news keeps coming.
Hey, did you hear? The state is going to have to sell higher education to China.
Hey, did you hear? Health care premiums rose 10,000 percent.
Hey, did you hear? I'm broke. I got no job. I can't pay the stinkin' mortgage and my car just blew up. Oh, by the way, I have three kids whose school's gonna close 'cuz of declining enrollment.
After a certain amount of pain, we can't kid ourselves. We can't find the silver lining in a cloud that's pure black.
So what do we do? Do we give up? Do we turn to drink and let the house go? Do we move? What do we do?
At the risk of sounding more intelligent than I am, bear with me for a minute. A few years ago, I remember reading the translated work of the little-known Danish philosopher Soren Kierkegaard. I've heard people call Kierkegaard a "Christian existentialist," whatever the hell that means. All I knew at the time was that others belonging to the existentialist camp possessed an extremely pessimistic, atheistic view of mankind.
Kierkegaard, on the other hand, believed in a supreme being, but the nature of his belief is hard to characterize. The thing I remember most from his work is his allegiance to the irrationality of faith.
To an empirical scientist, a belief in God can be as strange and unaccountable as a belief in Santa Claus. Kierkegaard, however, believed that true faith can only exist in the awareness of its absurdity. It can only exist with an equal amount of doubt.
Let me explain. Faith without anything that challenges it is an easy faith. Faith that looks ridiculous in the face of contrary evidence is a much harder faith. It is a deliberate act of defiance against the darkness. It's the "leap" people talk about when trying to describe their religious experiences.
You're likely asking what all this has to do with my dumb business column. My answer is that Kierkegaard and his definition of faith jumped in my mind when researching the economy. At some point, the facts kill you. At some point, a true act of faith is needed.
Do I positively feel absolutely optimistic about the future? No. But I tell you what, the numbers fall away and my heart leaps when I get a story like the one I got last week with Tahoe Creamery. The Minden business has more than quadrupled in the last year, so much that they can barely keep up with orders.
"We've been blessed," said owner Greg Hoch. "We've been growing kind of fast. We don't even have time to sit down and analyze the numbers. They're coming in fast and furious."
Here's a number. Tahoe Creamery was producing 12,000 pints of ice cream when I interviewed Hoch in the summer of 2008. Now, they're closer to 26,000 pints a month.
But what do the numbers matter? Hoch's happy just doing what he loves - making ice cream. What better parable of faith than a man who grows up on a dairy and milks his cow every morning? The cow that provideth. "The incomparable milk of wonder," F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote.
Tahoe Creamery, Cafe Girasole, K2 Pilates, Valley Eyecare, Battle Born Wine ... I'm beginning to quantify again just by listing small businesses who've stayed afloat in troubled waters. Anyone doubting instances of faith need only look back through The R-C archives to see dozens of neighbors, friends and family members taking extraordinary risks, taking that ultimate leap in the face of annihilation. Some may succeed monetarily, others may not, but all are trying to follow their hearts through this mortal minefield we call life.
"Positive" has never been my favorite word. I've always liked the words "resilient" and "unbroken."
