Seeking Silverdale and Central Kitsap

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I’m sure there’s been a lot happening around Central Kitsap, but the news hasn’t come my way.

There was a pretty dramatic fire in a house on Clear Creek Road last night, but luckily the family that lived there escaped safely.

The news about the black bears in Bremerton has made the Seattle TV stations, but I haven’t noticed any of the critters hanging around in my neighborhood on the Ridgetop. I have enough critter trouble with the family of racoons that keeps coming around and digging up my yard under the bird feeders. So I’m certainly not going to be inviting any bears to come around.

If you’re like me, you get some seasonal depression this time of year when Daylight Savings time ends. I hate it when it gets dark at 5 in the afternoon. I have to say there’s a lot I love about our area, but the short winter days is not on the list. I put up with them because they are balanced by long summer days. But I don’t like them. And the standard way of dealing with them (leaving in the winter to “snow bird” somewhere in Arizona) is not my cup of tea. I find it difficult enough to manage one household; I certainly don’t need two places to take care of and worry about.

But there’s no reason to be depressed today. The sun is shining. I’ve already seen several woodpeckers at my feeder this morning.

The neighborhood black cat survived Halloween and came by the back door for a treat already today.

Barak Obama was elected president just about a year ago, and last I noticed, the United States has not become a Muslim nation, has not confiscated everyone’s firearms, has not trashed free-enterprise, has not taken over your health care decisions (and, you know, it won’t do that even if there is a public option approved in the health care reform legislation), and has not yet suffered another terrorist attack on our soil. All of those gloomy outcomes were predicted before his election victory. And I guess some believe they will still come true; but I don’t.

Unfortunately, the recession seems  pretty intractable, despite a lot of money being spent to try to stimulate the economy. I still have some friends who are out of work, and I feel for them. Those of us who had money in the stock market through 401k plans or through other investments and who did not panic have seen the value of their portfolios bounce back a little, but not to pre-2008 levels. And for the majority of us for whom our house is our largest investment, the value in that investment is still below what it was in 2008. At least we in Kitsap were lucky to see only about a 10 percent reduction in housing values here, compared with 25 and 30 percent in the areas hardest hit by the foreclosure problem.

But I fear it will be a while before people feel more economically secure and ready to look forward again with some confidence and anticipation.

When that point comes, what will we be thinking? Will we be changed by this recession like people who lived through the 1930s were changed by the Great Depression?

I doubt it. The Depression lasted for almost 10 years. It wasn’t until the nation geared up for World War II that we really climbed out of that hole. In many ways, what we’ve been through is much less traumatic. So the question is whether it will mark our thinking and our economic behavior for the coming years.

I’d be interested in hearing your thoughts on that.

— Jeff

Tags: economy

This entry was posted on Monday, November 2nd, 2009 at 11:38 am by jeffbrody and is filed under Community news. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.