The Silver Lining to the Storm Clouds: The Economic Crisis as Opportunity

"Creating a new energy economy isn’t just a challenge to meet," Barack Obama told a Michigan audience this August, "it’s an opportunity to seize, an opportunity that will create new businesses, new industries, and millions of new jobs. Jobs that pay well. Jobs that can’t be outsourced. Good, union jobs."

These are truly optimistic words, especially considering that between April and August of this year, the unemployment rate in Michigan went up a full two points, from 6.9 to 8.9. That means over 100,000 jobs lost, with approximately 345,800 people on the unemployment rolls in April growing to over 439,000 by the time that Obama spoke in Lansing.

Here is what the Democratic nominee had to say: "For a state that has lost so many and struggled so much in recent years, this is an opportunity to rebuild and revive your economy. As your wonderful Governor has said, "Any time you pick up a newspaper and see the terms ‘climate change’ or ‘global warming,’ just think: ‘jobs for Michigan.’"

Now that is what the "hope" and "change" of this campaign truly represent: an ability to see these troubled times as a challenge, as an opportunity to innovate and do what we Americans do best, by believing that our best days are ahead of us and then putting in the hard work in order to make it so. Obama isn’t the only one making this argument, though. Tom Friedman’s much-anticipated new book, Hot, Flat, and Crowded, certainly did not disappoint; in it, he argues that not only can America be the innovator in green technology – we must be the leader in this arena, both to the benefit of American consumers and for the sake of the American workforce. It’s a great read, sure, but the implications of this mode of thought are also having a direct impact on this election season.

Friedman wrote recently in his blog that "What we are seeing in this crisis is the need for a whole new financial architecture-and people are recognizing that some problems are just too big to solve unless we approach them systematically."  Voters in Michigan are making these connections when making up their minds about the Congressional race as well. They are asking the tough questions about "who can we find to lead us out of this mess," and in Michigan’s ninth congressional district, the answer is a man named Gary Peters.  Just a few weeks ago, a poll was released showing Congressional candidate Gary Peters leading incumbent Republican Rep. Joe Knollenberg by a margin of 46-37%, the second poll released in a week to show Peters leading Knollenberg. When reading the Oakland Press endorsed Peters earlier this week, it’s easy to see why. Here’s just a small part of his story:

"Peters earned an MBA in finance from the University of Detroit in 1984 and was promoted to assistant vice president at Merrill Lynch after working with the firm since 1980. As head of the company’s Rochester office from 1984-89, Peters was one of the youngest resident managers ever appointed … In 1989 Peters was hired as a vice president of investments at PaineWebber, where he served until 2003. From 1989 until he was sworn in as a Michigan State Senator in 1995, Peters also served as the branch manager of the Rochester office."

And the list goes on. "What should serve him particularly well in Washington is his experience as a securities arbitrator for the National Association of Securities Dealers," the endorsement continues. "Peters has also arbitrated cases for the New York Stock Exchange," it adds.  He is also a professor of finance who teaches strategic management and business policy courses at Oakland University and finance at Wayne State.

If voters are seeking someone who is going to put thoroughly well-reasoned understandings of fiscal matters to use by fighting for the economic interests of the American worker, I doubt we could dream up a better choice than Gary Peters.  I am hopeful that the state of the economy of the next four years will be starkly different than the economy of the last eight (and particularly the last eight months, or even eight weeks) because of leaders who see not only these times as challenge and also as opportunity, in a truly holistic and systematic sense of how we can tighten our belts and sharpen our focus when it comes to topics like smart energy and sound economic policies. 

This ship amongst the rocks will not right itself overnight; this storm is going to take a long time to pass and we are going to have to hold on tight for a while.  But there is a silver lining to these storm clouds.

And what does any of this have to do with faith and values issues? Maybe economic revival isn’t the kind we are used to when we think of faith; but at times like these, we can see so clearly how our economic future is dependent on the priorities we create via choices we make.  Finding the silver lining of opportunity makes for a story about how we can be better stewards of the earth by pursuing more environmentally sustainable approaches to energy.  Moreover, since lives are in the balance with the stark increases in unemployment in places like Michigan, the importance of budgets as moral documents has become clearer for us now more than ever. As the Faith in Public Life site has put it so aptly, "For the better part of a decade, faith leaders have developed one of the most impactful messages for the common good in recent memory: The federal budget is a moral document, and recent proposed budgets have not been indicative of the nation’s values and priorities."

Choosing smart, sensible, and principled leaders like Gary Peters will make all of the difference; and when voters in Michigan head to the polls and pull that lever because they know that having someone who truly understands the ins and outs of the economy – and has a proven track record of making wise decisions in so doing – then they are making decisions about their futures and they are absolutely taking their values into account. We are blessed that someone as well prepared as Gary Peters has stepped up to take on the challenge, and offer a new direction to get us out of this storm.  Because it really is so much more than a challenge.  It is an opportunity to seize — but only if we chart the right course.