We received a funny e-card recently. The card showed a picture of an obviously off-kilter gentleman blissfully playing an accordion with a goofy grin and a silly hat, and bore the message, “It might be the antidepressants talking, but I’m optimistic about 2012!”
The card gave us a chuckle, but also got us thinking.
The implied message seems to be that optimism for the New Year is just a little bit, kind of, well … crazy. And on the surface, maybe it is.
Based solely on what we know of the way last year ended, 2012 certainly has all the makings to be another wild ride, locally, nationally and globally.
Globally, the major Eurozone economies continue to hold worldwide recovery hostage as they attempt to find a way to both ameliorate their crushing debt problems and find the money necessary to help goose new investment. Iran is threatening to choke off the world’s supply of oil through the Strait of Hormuz, all but daring someone to force them to stop. China is facing its own housing bubble, Russia refuses to acknowledge a populace finally ready for real democracy and Syrian leaders are slaughtering their own people as they desperately cling to power.
In our own country, already fierce partisanship that has needlessly destroyed our faith in government and manufactured any number of pointless “crises” in recent months will only get worse in what looks to be a bruising election year. The housing market continues to suffer from a lack of qualified buyers as lenders seem to be making the qualification and buying process even more difficult. Completed foreclosures are picking up steam again, our deficit continues to balloon and the 99 percent is 100 percent fed up with all of it.
Closer to home, Massachusetts bankers are struggling with an uncertain regulatory environment and rapidly rising compliance costs. The housing market is coming off one of the worst years of total sales in memory. Vacant space still sits unused in our office towers, the legalization of casino gambling seems to offer only more problems rather than solutions and the foreclosure process as we know it is under assault in the courts.
Given all that, it may make sense that optimism for 2012 is probably at least a little crazy. But if that’s the case, then we’d have to declare the majority of you, our readers, quite insane.
We know you to be an amazingly intelligent bunch, capable of sound decision making and innovative strategizing. Which is why, despite all of the headwinds outlined above, we have perfect faith in you when you say this year will be better than last.
In our annual reader survey, conducted in partnership with Sudbury-based market research firm Bannon & Co., almost 90 percent of respondents said they believed the Massachusetts economy would either remain the same in 2012 or improve to some degree. Among bankers, that number was closer to 95 percent. When asked about the national economy, almost 80 percent predicted flat or better performance.
It’s almost always far easier to be a pessimist than an optimist. In a 21st century full of 24-hour news cycles and instantaneous access to information, bad news and dubious indicators are far easier to find than encouraging trends and successful initiatives.
But true optimism, especially in the face of seemingly overwhelming data to the contrary, takes courage.
And if having courage makes us all crazy, well, so be it.
Happy New Year. We look forward to reporting on all the news – good and bad – made in Massachusetts in 2012.
