Nothing is ever as bad as it seems

Published 10:42 pm Saturday, January 17, 2009

We’re living in tough times. Money is tight, businesses are closing and people are losing their jobs. I’ve seen and reported on difficult times in the newspaper business quite often in my career. I have had to report on manufacturing plant closures, retail business closures and so on during my tenure as a newspaperman.

It’s sad and can be discouraging if focused upon. Someone once told me, though, that nothing is ever as bad as it seems. I keep that advice at heart along with the realization that economics is cyclical.

Our markets and the financial world haven’t seen this sort of problem since the Great Depression, but I realize that when the market comes back, our economy will be viewed as better than it has ever been.

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Unfortunately, some businesses, especially major retailers and super-sized businesses, won’t get to see the light at the end of the tunnel. One good example is Goody’s, a clothing retailer that is holding a going-out-of-business sale, which will result in 8,600 people losing their jobs. On a larger scale, Circuit City, the nation’s second-biggest consumer electronics retailer, is being forced to liquidate its 567 stores, thus eliminating 30,000 jobs. That’s bad news, no matter how you look at it.

In my hometown of Sweetwater, Tenn., the unemployment rate has skyrocketed to 12 percent. That’s frightening for many who continue to call that area home. For us, in Suffolk, we continue to operate in a sluggish economy but are staying strong with a relatively low unemployment rate. That’s not to say that businesses aren’t feeling the pinch of consumers holding back from spending or just not having the expendable income we all came to love.

But I have to think that most of those who are in dire straits are in that situation for a reason. Before all the realtors come banging at my door fussing, I do realize that some businesses are in a bad situation they couldn’t control.

I’m not a financial expert. But I do know that if you want to be successful, you have to spend less than you earn. The two aforementioned companies and so many across our country are finding out the hard way that having an enormous amount of debt hovering over you will eventually cause a collapse.

Based on the forecasts, it doesn’t look like we are going to be out of this recession any time soon, or at least for the next six months or so. The good news, though, is that the economy will turn around and will be stronger than ever. That I would bet on.