Remember when President Bush called upon Americans to go shopping in the aftermath of 9/11?
He was ridiculed as a superficial cheerleader, but in retrospect, it wasn't such a dumb prescription for a country paralyzed by fear.
We showed the terrorists by taking to the skies – and taking vacations. We expressed our courage by going out to restaurants, enjoying the good life.
Despite the dot-com bubble, we spent our way back to economic, if not emotional, well-being. (Thank goodness for cheap credit and the equity in our ever-appreciating houses.)
Well, that was then. In the wake of the subprime foreclosure epidemic, Wall Street's credit freeze and the nervous breakdown of the stock market, it's a million jobs and the portfolios and 401(k)s of millions of Americans that have been hijacked.
The other day, my wife and I ratcheted up our courage and took a look at our life's savings. Big mistake. Our nest egg has been scrambled, diminished nearly 40 percent.
Americans may be hedonists in hock when times are good, but we're not so stupid when times are manifestly bad.
In self-defense, we're shutting down the carpe diem lifestyle and returning to our puritan roots. Many of us are imposing harsh limits, if not an outright moratorium, on holiday shopping. Cotton Mather would be proud.
But – and here's the 9/11-related point – nothing comes without a price, even individual prudence. No consumer is an island. We're all a part of the main shopping mall.
Granted, it won't seriously hurt millions of Tiny Tims if they don't unwrap the coolest video game this Christmas, but it will seriously hurt the economy if millions of Bob Cratchits are laid off because, as a nation, we're too afraid to throw down our credit cards for life's rewards.
To get some real-world perspective on how Wall Street's stroke has battered Main Street, I dropped in on Angelo Damante, owner of Mercedes-Benz of Escondido.
Beneath his landmark American flag, Damante has created a far-flung base of loyal luxury-car customers.
In North County, Damante is a respected dean – if not the don – of high-end automotive sales and service. Both a practical philosopher and an impractically generous philanthropist, Damante likes to describe the purchase of a sleek Mercedes as a well-deserved reward for success in life.
This market downturn is unlike any other he's seen, Damante told me. No one, not even his annual new Mercedes customer, is immune from the clammy fear of the future.
“This is the first time in my career where people whose egos would never allow them to even say they were feeling the crunch – they're admitting it. That's the scary part.”
In his living-room-size office, fully loaded with memorabilia (including a Western saddle with silver horn, a gift from actor Robert Wagner), Damante admitted it has been a brutal period to be a car dealer, but he predicted a turnaround “sooner than everyone thinks”:
“I'm starting to see people getting mad about this,” he said. “They want to fight. Not be taken care of. They want to fight. They want to pull their businesses back to where they were. If I talked to one person I've talked to 10 who've had to cut employees, cut benefits, so they could survive. Each one says, 'I can't wait for the day when I say I've got to hire people back.' ”
That day will be farther off, however, if American consumers lack the confidence to spend what they have, no matter how furiously the federal government pumps money into the economy.
“What makes businesses go is the exchange of currency,” Damante said, an observation that strikes me as elegant in its simplicity.
“You've got to go out and get moving. I don't like to see people scared. You want that up attitude. You've got to fuel the economy. Maybe not at the level you did before, but if you don't use it, you lose it. You have to get things churning.”
In other words, we as individuals owe it to the country to spend what we can on ourselves – and others – without giving in to the fear that the future will be a poor, miserable place.
It's an odd tension built into the economy.
What's virtuous for the individual family – saving like Scrooge, eating at home every night, fixing the broken toaster oven instead of replacing it, keeping the old beater when you need a new car – is, on a collective level, terrible for the market economy.
Consumer spending accounts for 70 percent of gross domestic product. If we dramatically cut the RPMs of that 12-cylinder engine, we'll pay for it with lost jobs.
“People still need to reward themselves,” Damante said. “There's a pent-up demand to reward themselves.”
On this human desire the values of our vulnerable nest eggs depend.
Logan Jenkins: (760) 737-7555; logan.jenkins@uniontrib.com.
