Today’s WSJ has an interesting page 1 article: Economic Fears After 9/11 Proved Mostly Unfounded. It begins as follows:
After terrorists attacked the U.S. five years ago, many worried that the economy would lose its hard-won vitality. Companies would need to hire security staff instead of production workers, build up costly inventories and face delays as goods moved across tightened borders.
This is what has happened instead: The number of security guards on business and government payrolls has declined, companies are holding less inventory, and the amount of freight moving though the nation’s ports has soared. Not only has the economy grown, it has become more efficient. And office construction in downtown New York and Washington has continued.
I don’t know that I, as a consumer, feel the economic warm-fuzziness, but that’s most likely a result of other personal factors — two of us are driving much newer vehicles than we used to (and four of us now drive, as opposed to two, pre-9/11), we began about then the practice of taking the family on a big ski trip every year, and we’ve now taken on college costs for one child.
Oh — and I quit my job about midway through the last five years. Freelancing is a wonderful thing, but it requires a couple of disciplines that a “real job” does not: finding work, and getting used to the fact that paychecks do not come on certain days (or even certain months). Actually doing the work has never been a problem, since I just take on the kinds of work that I enjoy doing to begin with.
The WSJ piece points out that one of the mitigating factors is that US businesses have invested in technology for a number of years, which enabled them to embrace the philosphies of agile manufacturing and just-in-time delivery.
U.S. businesses, on average, held inventories equal to a bit more than 43 days’ worth of sales in mid-2001, just before the terrorist attacks. If businesses had decided to build up stocks as a buffer against supply disruptions, the ratio of inventories to sales would have risen. Instead, it fell to under 38 days by mid-2006, as companies used new technology and new business practices to hold less on their shelves for every dollar of sales.
That much is evident to me, even as one lowly and budget-conscious consumer.
Yesterday, I ordered a new laptop, as mine is now nearly four years old and is a bit slow in operations requiring a lot of processing power (high end graphics editing is the best example). The new machine features the brand-new Intel Core 2 Duo processors (30% faster on half the power), along with the usual complement of features that are now standard, like a memory card-reader built-in for my camera, an internal pre-n standard wireless card, DVD writable drive, etc.
The whole package cost a couple hundred less than the one I’m using now, despite being lighter, faster, and with more features. The online order was confirmed by Dell at 12:16 yesterday afternoon, and when I checked this morning, they’d already finished the custom build and the box is in testing. I wouldn’t be surprised if I have it by the end of next week.
That means Alpha gets this one, which is entirely fast enough for the limits of her needs for this year. The ancient Sony Vaio she’s now using will go to one of the younger kids (who also have a fairly new and fast desktop when they need it).
We really have improved efficiency in the face of financial, political, and security uncertainties. We’re going to be just fine.
I enjoyed and felt the comfort of the U.S. you presented by such a devastating incident. It shows how Osama underestimated the resiliency of our nation. But let me please add, the executing of his plans has touched some American lives as devastatingly as a WMD.
I do not think businesses have left out security as to make business efficient. They had the tools before, but the person is more efficient over the past 5 years. We catch glimpses of how life was, just like TV this weekend. This continues the healing for everyone.
I still wish that day never happened in my heart. I am confident that no matter what Osama had in mind, the “extreme terrorists†did not complete the mission. Least we grow in the battle; soon we may know we have him.
Braggin about your laptop… geez.
Without question, the events of 9/11 touched all of our lives in a devastating way. I remember every excruciating detail of the day, and could easily allow it to affect my life if not for a conscious effort to look for the positive.
The fact that the American economy is resiliant, that we have actually made progress despite a very real risk of collapse, is one of those positives that helps me move forward. We must understand that there are people who wish us failure, but to become paralyzed by that fear is to allow them to win.
This is one ray of hope that I wished to share; the other is homemade soup (that I’m now canning to take to Alpha at UT).
Not to seem cold, but I really can’t detect how 9/11 itself changed my life. The fact that I recall vividly where I was and what I was thinking on that day makes it neither unique (I recall the same for the Kennedy and MLK assassinations, and for the moon landing) nor life-changing.
Certainly, the US economy was not threatened by 9/11. It is threatened by the irresponsible reaction to 9/11–the costs of the Iraq invasion/occupation–which have nothing to do with the forces behind 9/11 nor prevention of another 9/11. There are those who beat the drums of fear for political reasons, and who would have us sacrifice our principles, our rights and in some cases, our sons and daughters for their own political ends. Those are life-changing things. But for those who have been gulled by such propaganda, it is not 9/11 that touches them, it is the exploitation of the 9/11 tragedy.
While I’m a big fan of laptops (I’m posting this from one) and wish you all the best with yours, the connection you attempt to make between 9/11 and computer technology is, well, I’ll just say whimsical and fanciful. And I do thing it’s swell that as a member of a two-income household, you have the luxury of taking risks with your job.
That last sentence should read “And I do *think* it’s swell . . .”
Sorry Joel…that does seem cold and a bit detached from the reality most of us share. When three passenger airliners crash within hours of each other killing hundreds of passengers and thousands of innocent victims it changes me and it does change my life.
It causes me to take much more seriously the threat from these Islamist nut bags. It causes me to look at people that I fly with, just a little differently. Don’t want to seem racist…just practical. It causes me to wonder if I should sell my airline stock.
I have a cousin that has worked for an airline for several years. Her life certainly was changed by the events of September 11th, 2001. I wonder if you can even imagine how.
Not since December 7th, 1941 have so many Americans been killed by an attack on American soil. So sorry if I don’t share your opaque view of American history, but you are full of your own political foolishness if something like 9-11-2001 doesn’t change you. Sorry if that seems cold.
daco, I didn’t say it didn’t change you. I didn’t say it didn’t change netmom or your cousin. I’ve had life-changing experiences with tragedy that don’t seem to have changed you at all. I don’t criticize you for that and I don’t demand that your life be changed by my tragedies.
“Her life certainly was changed by the events of September 11th, 2001. I wonder if you can even imagine how.”
You are badly confused, daco. I didn’t say the lives of others weren’t changed by 9/11. The relatives of those killed were certainly changed in ways I wonder if you can even imagine. I certainly can’t, and I’m not going to pretend I can. And I’m not going to pretend that my life is vicariously changed because of their changes. Touched, yes. Changed, no.
” . . .but you are full of your own political foolishness if something like 9-11-2001 doesn’t change you.”
Uh, no. I’m just honest with myself and with you. I don’t own a significant amount of airline stock, so that didn’t change. I fly just as often and just as willingly as before. It is far more likely that I and my loved ones will die in a traffic accident than in a terrorist incident.
I’m sorry you feel the need to ridicule me in order to cope with your solipsistic incomprehension. Not everybody has to experience life the way you do in order to be thoughtful, caring, compassionate and honest. There is more than one way to experience life fully; I don’t have to fit into the little boxes you prepare for me.
After looking up solipsistic, please allow me to ask you a question.
How can you say, ” I really can’t detect how 9/11 itself changed my life” when 3000 of your countrymen die, all within an hour or two? At the risk of unintentionally insulting you again, your view does indeed seem egotistic.
Man, I hate to say it, but I’m with Joel. I’m a little irritated at him also, because I spent the past 3 days writing a post that’ll pop up tomorrow that is a much less concise version of what he said.
Daco, dude, nothing changed. These people wanted to kill us this much back in the 80s. Hell, I remember digging into my ‘Weekly Reader’ back in the 4th grade and reading about Muammar al-Gaddafi (his name was spelled Khadafi back then) said “The rivers will run red with the blood of Americans” or something.
As a fourth grader, hearing the leader of a nation say something about my blood like that is an eye opener.
The only difference is that they slipped through the defenses on 9/11.
They’ll probably do it again. If not them, it’ll be another home grown terrorist. The means of easy mass murder is legion if a mind is twisted to that kind of thinking.
Uh… if you see this tomorrow… um, well, it fit in with my post.
daco, I think you believe I’m saying I was unmoved by the tragedy of 9/11. If so, you are wrong. Of course I was moved. I was saddened. I was moved by the flooding around St. Louis in 1993, by the killings of the Washington DC snipers, by the Oklahoma City bombing, by the Katrina flooding in New Orleans. To live life is to know tragedy. To learn history is to learn of tragedy.
It subtracts nothing from the tragedy of 9/11 to say that it has not detectably changed me or the way I conduct my life. I hasn’t changed the way I work, my relationship with families and friends, my relationship with my community. It hasn’t changed the way I save or spend money. It hasn’t changed my goals or priorities. It just hasn’t, and I’m not going to pretend it has just to satisfy some tribal PC belief that it is supposed to.
To evaluate whether or not an event changes one is an egotistic act. It is no more egotistic for me to say that an event hasn’t changed me than it is for you to say that the same event has changed you. Our feelings are inseparable from our egos.
AT, I understand Joel’s concern of the boy who cried wolf. It is valid in many ways in our society, but I really doubt that people who only focus on us is also a hindrance to this nation’s security. Those victims had lives like Joel and you and myself. We thought getting up that day would be safe. Thanks for bringing both sides to the story.
Well fellas I am glad that your lives haven’t been changed too severely by the events of Sept. 11th.
Mine was. Due to the harsh drop in manufacturing, brought on by the economic uncertainty produced by the attack on our country, I lost my business. I completely lost my livelihood. Following 9-11 I struggled for another year and a half before I went completely belly up.
You guys may not have ever experienced something like that, but it really is like a death in the family…combined with the inability to buy groceries. The three years following the collapse of that business have been a struggle to regain my family’s economic foothold. We are doing fine now and are probably more secure now than before 9-11, but the events of that date had a huge impact on me emotionally and financially.
I’m sorry for the tragedy visited on you by 9/11, daco. I really am. There is no question that 9/11 *did* change your life. I know if I lost my job, it would devastate me. I certainly consider myself fortunate that 9/11 didn’t change my life in such a fashion.
Well, the economy (particuarly in my department) was going south before the 2001 stuff happened. The web bubble, which was artifically inflating the NASDAQ, was doing some hardcore poppling that spring, and that may have played a part in it too, man.
You spent 3 years in our shoes, truthfully, so its hard for me to work up a lot of sympathy for anything except the sheer shock of going from top to bottom.
Glad things are working out now, tho.
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