CIO — Shakespeare jumped the gun. It was the winter of 2002-2003 that was truly the season of our discontent.
Unemployment was up. The trade deficit was up. Gas and home heating oil prices were up. And anxiety over the impending war with Iraq and the threat of terrorism was way, way up. About the only things going down were revenue, stock prices, retirement account balances and consumer confidence.
An eternal pessimist, I grudgingly vowed this past New Year’s to adopt a more upbeat attitude. After all, there are two sides to every coin, and the difference between the happy and well-adjusted folk and those prone to melancholy and malaise often comes down to a mere shift in perspective. So in my effort to achieve my resolution, I’ve taken a good hard look at this past winter. Lo and behold, there have indeed been a few silver linings hiding inside those ominous black clouds.
Reasons to Be Cheerful
The airlines. No industry has suffered more directly from the 9/11 tragedy than the airlines. Take rising fuel costs, the fear of flying and dwindling corporate travel budgets, and you have a nice recipe for Chapter 11. Among the big carriers, United Air Lines is the leader on the runway to oblivion. To save money, the airlines are skimping on their already pathetic snack menus and clamping down hard on carry-ons by charging fees when passengers exceed the limit. It says a lot about the state of the industry when the only bright spot is provided by a plucky startup called JetBlue.
From a passenger’s perspective, however, the industry’s struggles have resulted in certain fringe benefits. With fewer passengers, there’s much less jostling for aisle seats, pillows and those precious onboard magazines. With the airline employees’ jobs perhaps depending on whether you’re having a good experience, everyone seems more than a little bit friendlier, more eager to be of service. And fewer passengers translate to fewer people who are hypersensitive to peanuts. (Hopefully that means I no longer have to scarf down my candy bars furtively to avoid detection by the peanut police.)
It’s said that bad times bring out the best in people, and that adage can be applied equally as well to the airlines. The next time you’re on a flight and you hear the attendant chirping over the PA, "Thanks for flying with us today," you can be certain that these days they actually mean it.
Capital gains. For a while there, around the turn of the century, I actually entertained fantasies of being an amateur version of Warren Buffett. Every stock I bought recorded double-digit gains every few months. Everything was going so well I started to worry about the dreaded capital gains tax.
