An unfamiliar smell in the air

Posted: 23 Mar 2009 01:57 PM PDT Maybe it's because it's finally that time of year here in Northeast Ohio, where I live. We haven't seen any snow for a few weeks; you can hear birds chirping outside; and last Friday was the official first day of spring. Whatever the reason, late last week and over the weekend, it seemed to me there was a faint scent in the air that we haven't experienced for quite some time. The scent of optimism. Have you gotten a whiff of it? It must not be just me. Despite a down day last Friday, Wall Street had rallied over the previous 10 days or so. Buried a bit in the news last week was a report that housing starts had unexpectedly increased in February. Today we learned that sales of existing homes was on the rise, too. And for what it's worth, the announcement that the Treasury has a plan for buying banks' bad assets got Wall Street optimistic even further, the Dow rallying almost another 500 points today. Now, I'm not saying there's a TON of reason to be optmistic -- whether the Treasury's plan works remains to be seen, for example -- and I'm not sure what we're catching a whiff of now will be sustained. I'm just saying that we might finally be seeing some signs of optimism. And optimism is what it's going to take to bring us out of this recession. Optimism on the part of investors. Optimism on the part of institutions that lend money. Optimism for the companies that hire workers. And optimism of consumers who buy things. I saw a quote not long ago by Louis "Studs" Terkel, a Pulitzer-prize winning broadcaster, actor and author. Studs said: "With optimism, you look upon the sunny side of things. People say, 'Studs, you're an optimist.' I never said I was an optimist. I have hope because what's the alternative to hope? Despair? If you have despair, you might as well put your head in the oven." It seems to me there's been a lot of despair about the economy lately. And despair to me is useless. Like Studs said, you might as well put your head in the oven. Well, a nation of people with their heads in the oven is not going to recover from a recession. Sticking your head in the oven isn't going to keep the unemployment rate from going up or fix the housing market. I'm not sure optimism alone will do those things, either, but it's a better alternative, isn't it? Rob Minton