The Dow Goes Over 2000, and This Man Is Worried

The Dow went over the 2000 mark earlier this month and there was rejoicing and dancing in the streets at the financial centers of America. Despite the euphoric wave of joy that swept into the brokerage houses of America this almost-to-be 82-year-old citizen is worried. Memories of the 1929 crash, memories of suicides and memories of older women selling apples on the streets of New York come back to dispel the success of the Dow Industrial Average going above the 2000 mark.

As Will Rogers used to say, “All I know is what I read in the papers,” and what I read in the papers these days tells me that America has lost 33% of its automobile and tire production to foreign imports, a very big slug of its steel and textile production, most of radio and TV as well as shoe and leather production. America’s hope for the future, the high-tech industries, are now getting strong competition from Japan.

Daily I read in our newspapers of projected layoffs in our major industries and much of our employment growth is in the service fields where pay scales are substantially lower than in the manufacturing field.

America’s farmers are hurting, energy-producing states are depressed, energy production is down, research on alternate energy sources is almost at a standstill, we are importing more than 50% of our energy needs, the national debt is over a trillion dollars, the federal deficit is still way out of whack, we are a debtor nation for the first time in 100 years and the end is not in sight and the Dow hit the 2000 mark.

I am confused, dismayed and worried, not for myself, at age 82; I am not in the stock market, not many of these problems can hurt me, but I am thinking of today’s young people and those who will follow them. They are the ones who will have to pay the bills.

TED SIMONS

Salem, Mass.