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Is There Light At The End Of The Economic Tunnel?

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The Tampa Tribune

Published: March 20, 2009

At some point a person just has to believe things are getting better. For a lot of Americans, that's almost impossible, and with good reason. But there are flickering signs, and even a few non-partisan experts are saying there is a light at the end of the tunnel.

It's difficult to imagine, considering the onslaught of legitimate bad news we hear about the U.S. economy. The job losses are real and so are the foreclosures. Businesses are shutting down and a few banks have closed. Just the same, there's hope out there and it came from someone who is in the thick of this crisis.

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke told "60 Minutes" last Sunday that he believes our nation's economic woes will bottom out this year and start to improve. That depends on our ability to have guts and push forward on needed legislation, but he genuinely believes it, he said.

Bernanke, who rarely does interviews and who must guard every word he says because of the way world markets go up or down with every vowel sound he mutters, was open and frank about the U.S. economy. He feels the same anger toward A.I.G. as everyone else, but also understands if that behemoth fails, so goes our banking system.

But it was his words of encouragement that were most striking. He actually thinks it's getting better - right now - even if the signs are faint. And he's not just blowing smoke.

We all know that public confidence plays a huge role in how our economy works. Markets dive and soar depending on how people are feeling about things. Right now public confidence is low, but apparently some people are looking to the future. Even stock prices have been creeping up after tanking for some time.

This crisis can't be blamed on public confidence alone. It's much more complex than that. Greedy bankers sold bad loans and Wall Street bundled them and sold them across the globe. They made a ton of money, and a lot of undeserving people bought houses they could never afford, government regulators were apparently napping and it all came tumbling down. It wasn't until all those things happened that confidence tanked.

Most of us who are barely surviving just want a sign that things are getting better, and according to Bernanke, we might be seeing it if we look hard enough. Once we bottom out, we'll start growing again, although not quickly, but we'll see improvement.

Everyone would like the economy to turn around tomorrow, but just knowing that we've probably seen the worst of it - or so they say - is better than nothing.

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