The Upside of the Downturn

Well, the last few weeks have been a real bummer if we want to take world news seriously. Only those on the American side of the pond succinctly obsessed with one indicator - the Euro/Dollar exchange rate - have had any reason at all to break open a bottle of something expensive. The rest of the developed world simply watches as retirement funds shrink, property values plummet, and we realize that this round of the global flu won't respond to $700 billion worth of antibiotics.

What a drag.

As one who has made a life-long conscious effort to change that half-empty glass into a half-full one, I would like to reveal some of the positive effects a global recession might have on our every day lives.

1. Those idiots in restaurants won't be annoying everyone by hanging out on their cell phones any more. This is because either their phone contracts have been terminated, or no one is bothering to call them, or both.

2. Your boss won't interrupt that all important raise discussion by whipping out his Blackberry. This is because you no longer have a boss. That entire layer of management, and the subsequent Blackberries, SUV's and mini-notebooks, were deemed unnecessary. You now will be reporting to the CEO, who is earning less than you did prior to said raise discussion. Now get back to your cubicle and stop complaining.

3. The wine selection at your local New York City watering hole just got a lot bigger. Well, no one saw this crisis coming, and Jacques the sommelier had just placed an order for six cases of1982 Château Mouton Rothschild which had not even landed at the dock before Lehman Brothers imploded. Time for the proletariat to dicker for a better deal when going out to dinner.

4. You won't have to hear your annoying brother-in-law tell you how much his Mc Mansion has gone up in value since puchasing it last year while sniggering at your lowly digs. Of course this one may backfire on you, since sister and kids might get sick of the jerk once he's lost all of his money and decide to move into your living room.

5. The selection of D&G at the local thrift shop is going to be awesome, and look for some great deals on repossessed houses, BMW's, boats, furs, castles, and trophy wives. The trophy wives will actually be the best deal because all of the surgery will have been done pre-Lehman. Go for the ones where the bruising is still evident, they'll start sagging a little bit later down the road which is important if you can't get her in for another nip and tuck with your post-Lehman asset portfolio.

6. Everyone is going to be talking about how living more simply is actually so freeing. This one can cut either way. Either you will feel exonerated because that's what you have been saying all along or it will be as annoying as hell because no one is giving you any credit for having realized this fact pre-Lehman. I fall into the second category.

7. To further point number 7, entire dinner parties will be conducted around what a person can do with a hunk of hamburger meat. Be prepared for some circa - 1975-Joe-the-Plumber Manwich parties to take over the suburbs and replace those dreadful flight-of-Barolo-with-food-pairing nightmares so prevalent during pre-Lehman times. How terribly bourgeois we were.

8. We get to tell our grandkids what is was like to flip a house, as they watch, eyes wide open, mesmerized. What we don't tell them is the last one we flipped actually flopped and splattered all over our 401K. But grandparents are entitled to their secrets, aren't they?

9. We get to think about buying a 1968 VW bus and touring the world. I mean, seriously, would we really consider such a thing while a three quarter of a million dollar balloon mortgage on which we have paid down no principle was looming over our heads? Of course not. Ok. Time to take the good china out of the crawl space BEFORE repossession, sell it, and hit the road. You can even think about visiting Russia. After all, there's only a small maritime border.... oh, forget it.

10. We get to be reminded how fragile we are. How fragile we are. Sting was right all along. Who knew?