Instead of watching a financial tsunami, I feel as though I am watching Hurricane Ike a month ago.

That’s when the television screen in my home flickered with horrifying photographs showing tree-bending, lightpole-breaking winds and torrential rains along the Texas coast. Families were fleeing their homes on clogged highways and even in boats.

Yet when I looked outside my Pennsylvania home, I saw blue skies and trees in the early stages of the vibrantly beautiful change of colors. Havoc one place. Peace in another. Same country.

There is a feeling of weightlessness, a huge disconnect in our country today with the flood of calamitous news from Wall Street. As the Dow plunges and nervous Americans rush to withdraw savings and certificates of deposit from banks, some teetering on the verge of collapse, we wonder if the paycheck we try to cash might bounce.

While we are told hundreds of thousands, maybe millions, of homeowners will default on mortgages and lose their homes, I talked to four people last week who bought homes during the last three weeks or are about to complete a residential real estate purchase. One of them said he expects to close on his new house next week.

Another friend toured two high-priced homes in our area within the last month but decided to wait until the markets settled before making an offer. A week after she looked at the houses, both had contractual offers on them.

Automobile dealers, our advertisers, continue to finance car purchases.

Certainly many Americans have seen their net worth tumble and their retirement accounts slide during the past few weeks. Those setbacks, however, are largely on paper at this point and they still stand the chance of recovery.

By and large, life ticks along much as it has. Sure we’re frightened and confused. Those two elements are interconnected. Our inability to understand what has happened in a financial world in which exotic monetary instruments and scientific formulas failed is among the most serious problems we face.

We are afraid of what we cannot comprehend.

There is little doubt that businesses, large and small, have felt effects most citizens and individuals have not. Lines of credit at banks are essential to business operations as they rise and fall with the common inconsistency of cash flow. Many of those lines have been cut back, frozen, or eliminated. Business acquisitions have become much more difficult, believe me, but there are still lenders active in the M&A market. I personally continue to scout newspaper company deals.

Despite all the havoc, the disconnect occurs because life for most us has not changed during this period. We get up in the morning and there’s food on the table. A full day awaits us, just as it did last week.

This is not the Depression during which people who had been executives or at least gainfully employed were reduced to hawking apples to get by. The only fruit being sold here is at the Farmer’s Market on Public Square.

Flying halfway across the country on Friday, I was on two planes that had waiting lists of passengers.

Our best hope at this point is to approach life as we always have and not break from our routines. Not just yet, at least.

The federal government has increased the amount of federally insured bank deposits up to $250,000. Glimpses of creativity are creeping into government as it seeks solutions. Thank goodness, because the $700 billion bailout is a bust. Scrap it before it runs amok.

In its place, we need the government to protect people in their homes. Here’s an idea: reduce mortgages to the assessed valuations and take a secondary note on what a house might sell for in 30 years. This idea would parallel presidential candidate Sen. John McCain’s idea of spending $300 billion to protect these mortgages and the families in these homes.

Over 70 percent of the net worth in the United States is in the value of family homes. This segment of our economy needs the rescue, and needs it now. Another idea worth pursuing is the government assessing which banks have the best chance of succeeding and infusing them with cash to loan. Let the weakest banks fail.

And finally, along with living our lives as normally as possible, we need to maintain our faith in the industriousness, creativity, ingenuity and pluck of the American people. We particularly need to trust in the vibrancy and strength of small business.

We’ll survive this crisis – not without changes – but we will survive this and even grow from the experience.

About the Author

Richard L. Connor is Editor and Publisher of the Times Leader and president of Wilkes-Barre Publishing Company.

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