What's going on in the "The Old Country?"

After blogging on the News10 site for quite a while, I decided to branch out and develope my own blog site (partly because News10 changed its format and it's really tough to maneuver around). Here, I'll have more freedoms, unbound by the limitations on the News10 site (not that there was really anything there that was censored ... but this just feels cleaner and less restrained).

During the past few weeks, I made kind of a subconscious effort to not do anything real creative ... ie, just retreat from what I had been doing for the past 40 years. Veg, zone-out, chill, you got the idea. Reading (reading a lot), exercising (daily), movie watching, TV viewing, entertaining, small road trips ... yeah, that's been my life for the past few weeks. Ah, but today, I woke up feeling like writing ... and writing based on some conversations, observations, gleaned from South of the Border during my last month of semi-detachment

It wasn't total detachment because each night I watch ABC World News Tonight (I record it and play it back in the evening when I want to) and to a varying degree other news programs (and online publications). Immune, at least directly, from the goings on in the good old USA, I still find myself increasingly dismayed by the barrage of troubling economic news that is racking the country. Out of control inflation, recessionary-like lay offs, failing companies, record home foreclosures, bank failures, an airline industry in turmoil, falling stocks. Again, from afar, it doesn't sound or look good.

But the real revelations on how bad it is come from those I talk with who are, at this time, "living the nightmare." One of our neighbors who lives here fulltime just returned from a trip back to the US (Florida and Nevada). It was the ex-pay's first trip back to the US in a number of months. When he returned, he told us how depressing life in the old-country had become since his last visit. Prices for food and gas, he said, had sky-rocketed. For Sale and Foreclosure signs in Las Vegas had popped up faster than prickly pears on desert cactus. He said it just didn't feel good.

I also hear it in the voice from my mom, with whom I talk regularly. She's has experienced a lot in her life ... a young girl during the depression, in college during WWII, and countless other threats facing the greatest country in the world thoughout the 20th century. She tells me, without a doubt, this is the worst she has ever seen it ... so much so that she has been forced to put off some necessary purchases, cancel travel plans, and cut back on the standard of living to which she has become accustomed.

One other observation comes from one of my closest friends, a former Sacramentan who at age 74 is now retired, living in Palm Springs. Like so many others, he has much of his retirement in stocks and mutual funds. For many of us, weathering the market turmoil means waiting it out, essentially waiting for the market to bounce back. But for those who now rely on their investments for day to day living, a dramatic loss in their retirement funds means making tough decisions where even some necessities (including food purchases and heating/air conditioning) are being sacrificed.

Is all that bad? Not at all. Another friend who is a well-known designer/developer has been in China and Dubai during the past month working on multi-billion dollar complexes for the richest people of the world. Someone's got plenty of money ... it's just not the average folks that I communicate with regularly.

While distanced from the foibles unfolding in the US, we in Mexico are not immune. The value of the dollar has declined to its lowest level in all the years I've been coming here (from close to 12 pesos per dollar two years ago to below 10 pesos per dollar today). Food prices are rising, gasoline prices are rising (it cost $44 US to fill my car two days ago, a month ago it was $39 US ... though still significantly lower that the $65 it would cost in California). This is still a third world country where poverty is severe, corruption not uncommon, and amenities, while improving, are still lacking. Property values and tourism, on the other hand, continue to remain stable.

From what I see, hear, and read, the US is in for continued tough times until probably well past the election. While in the past it has weathered other economic storms, at least in our lifetime, this one appears to be as ominous as we have ever encountered. I am glad to be somewhat separated from it, but at the same time fear the my friends, family, and my own future should I ever decide to return to the place that I once called home for more than five decades.

And that's the view from afar