Sharon

Want to know how the current economic crisis is playing out in most people’s lives right now? Well, for some, there is the disastrous loss of a home or a job, the need to move, increasing stress and the sense of crisis. But for most of us, so far, instead of increased mobility, we have less.

Had you planned on moving? But the house won’t sell, so you are stuck. Were you saving for a downpayment? But wait, you don’t want to buy until the market bottoms out, right? Were you nearing retirement? But if your pension or 401K has tanked, you can’t retire. Do you hate your job? But you need your seniority if you want to outlast any coming layoffs, and you can’t risk your benefits. Were you thinking of going to college or back to school, or have you just graduated? Well, student loans are increasingly tough to get, and the job market is looking bad - back to Mom’s we go.

The first effects of our tanking economy have been enormous pressures on most families and households to stay where they are - even if they might be better off somewhere else. And the dual problem of increased and decreased mobility seems truly unlikely to do anything but accellerate - for the rising numbers of unemployed and those who lose their houses, the need will be to move somewhere, anywhere they can find work and housing. For those lucky enough to keep their jobs and homes, the ability to move or change jobs is rapidly disappearing.

Now to some degree, and for some people, this may not be so very bad. Those who would have liked to move for career reasons or for a bigger house, parents who might have downsized to a condo but now have room for the kids and grandkids to move back in may find themselves not so very discommoded. For others, who dreamed of buying a farm, wish to be closer to aging parents or beloved family, those who invested in an area that may not be sustainable - this is a big and serious problem. Being trapped is better than being unemployed, but it isn’t good.

So the question becomes - how do we get out of the trap? Is there any recourse for us now that credit and the old ways of getting things have dried up?

And the answer is yes, but it will require a lot of something that most Americans don’t have in their friends, neighbors and family - trust and cooperative energy. What do I mean by that? Well, the truth is that you probably only need one 2000 square foot house between two 4 person households - so if you can trust each other enough, and find a way, you and your sister (or your best friend or your neighbor) who both have houses teetering on the edge of foreclosure can save one of those houses and move into it. But that requires that one of you be willing to give up their home, that everyone sacrifice privacy, that the fears that the arrangement work out badly don’t overwhelm the value of it.

What if you wanted to quit your job and start a business, building the local economy, but you can’t now? Or if you need to retrain? Well, one of the best possible tools for you might be the kind of collective funding that immigrant communities have brought to the US. Everyone puts a certain amount of money into a kitty. The money is loaned out to one of the members of the group, who is then required to repay it within a reasonable time. Then, the money goes out to the next member. This is scary stuff - someone might lose money, someone might fail and be unable to repay, everyone might get hurt a little by taking a risk. On the other hand, everyone might gain, as well.

What if you were hoping to retire, and now you can’t, and it is increasingly hard for you to work? Well, do you have any friends in the same situation? Could you share housing, and make what’s left of your retirement money go further? Could you let your grandkids or a your friend’s daughter move in with you, in exchange for her keeping up minimal costs. Perhaps you could take your new free time, and barter some childcare and your house for someone to take over earning most of the payments. Maybe you can change your dream of what a retirement is - perhaps to owning outright a little house with another couple. But this is much harder and scarier than relying primarily on your money to take care of you and help you out of trouble. It is hard for the person who is aging, and it is hard for the younger family they will rely on.

In a crashing economy, family, community, friendship and social ties are what we have to compensate for a lack of money. We turn to barter, to love, to friendship, to trust, to shared risk, to shared gain to make up what is missing in our lives. We’re stuck - but we get unstuck by risking ourselves with other people. And sometimes, it won’t work. Sometimes we’ll lose, maybe even more than we can afford. Odds are, however, mostly we won’t. And if we do, the only thing we can do is remind ourselves that losing more than you can afford isn’t limited to direct human relations - it happens all the time in the industrial economy.

Sharon