Obama gave us shot of optimism

This past Tuesday was a day that crossed the emotional spectrum for me. Sitting in the Playwright Tavern with a colleague watching the Inauguration was just the shot of optimism that I and America needed and hadn’t had in sometime (though we got a warm-up taste when Captain Sullenberger glided his disabled Airbus onto the Hudson and prevented catastrophe). Obama’s speech was strong and eloquent, and the sea of supporters sent a message to the rest of the world why our system of government is like no other. America has an embedded capability of correcting its mistakes and moving forward.

Unfortunately Tuesday was also a day in which my company began to layoff staff. The banking system that I have been a part of in New York since 2000 is going through what my father’s generation went through in 1977 when the steel industry in Youngstown began to shut its doors. Truth be told the hubris of the system that became rampant needed to go away, as did the excesses it helped to create throughout this country. But my sadness exists because it’s not only the multi-millionaire banker getting shown the door, but the men and women who need to pay the bills and college tuition for their kids. Obviously this is a problem all Americans are facing.

Being a natural born optimist, its taxing for me to operate in this environment on a daily basis. But since I am a big believer in perseverance, I decided its time to construct a list of what I am optimistic in, and why.

1) The U.S. Auto industry. The phrase “darkest before dawn” was never more appropriate than when discussing Detroit right now. GM will need more bailout money. Chrysler is on the brink of going away. Yet I feel good about where Detroit is heading. Ford is introducing a reinvigorated Taurus for next year, and its Fusion Hybrid has the potential to be a game changer and a serious competitor to Toyota. Even Chrysler, a company whose existence I began to question, is receiving capital from one of the best strategic partners it could find, Fiat. Chysler needs small car capabilities, and Fiat has them in a big way. And from all that I hear, General Motors’ Chevy Cruze and Volt are the real deal. These companies have been restructuring costs and their product portfolios, and the UAW realizes that it has to change its ways to keep the Big 3 well, big.

Saavy capitalist

2) Renewable Energy Production. It may just be that it takes an oil man to get rid of our addiction to oil. I don’t believe that T. Boone Pickens is simply doing this out of sheer patriotism, but as a saavy capitalist he sees a future in renewables. We have to get off our addiction to foreign oil and the reliance on fossil fuels. President Obama realizes this, as do some moderate Republicans. There is finally the political will to do something badly needed, which is to create the infrastructure and subsidize the start up costs for renewable energy production. This is as important for the country now as it was for Ike to fund the creation of a national highway system.

3) A well-regulated financial system. Even though this mess happened on President Bush’s watch, I do not blame him, nor President Clinton for that matter. But I do blame Congress. They have financial services committees that are suppose to be the watchdogs of the industry, and they were not. Whether it was ignorance or a blind eye created by lobbyists showing up at campaign time, I don’t know. But I do know there must be appropriate regulation on leverage, which became the crack cocaine of the whole system — from subprime mortgages to the investment banks’ source of capital. A better equipped regulatory body will rise from the ashes, and America will have a trust and confidence in it once again.

There is one last area that I will place into the category of “guarded optimism,” and that is the Mahoning Valley. I think the experience the Valley has had in dealing with recessions will be useful as it is an old hand at witnessing shrinking tax revenues and employment. But I am guarded because I wonder if it is ready to take the next steps, that being the hard decisions that affect our political leaders and their way of life.

Regionalization and sharing of services and expenses is exactly what President Obama is calling for when he talks of shared responsibility. If the Valley will heed that call, then the Valley can display a new optimism long before the rest of the country.

X Eric Planey, a Mahoning Valley native, is a bank vice president in New York City.