The Economy and ARod - The Importance of Perspective and Perception

At first it may seem to be quite a stretch to compare the state of the economy with Alex Rodriguez's recent admission of taking banned substances between 2001 and 2003. Especially how to tie this into a blog that is centered on the President. We'll get there, so grab a cup of your favorite beverage and read away.

Our economy is in its current condition because a lot of people made decisions and took actions that were in their own best short term interests. While by itself, this isn't necessarily a bad thing (and some would argue is the backbone of a capitalist society), there were many risky decisions made with long term negative consequences for themselves and others. That the roof would cave in at some point could not have been questioned by anyone. Most people suspended disbelief and convinced themselves that they would be 'out of the building' before the roof collapsed. We are now paying the price of a lot of buildings collapsing like a city built with cards.

The only correct way to create a good long-term future is to acknowledge all of the problem areas, level them, and rebuild from scratch upon anything that can be used as a foundation. Over time, what we create will be more sound and firm, and more importantly, people will slowly perceive the new stability and come back 'into the building'. This perception of a more stable future is of equal importance with the actual rebuilding in the revitalization of the economy. Until people and institutions perceive that things will be OK in the future, they will not spend or lend much out of fear.

Alex Rodriguez, currently of the New York Yankees, admitted this week that while a member of the Texas Rangers, he used performance enhancing drugs between 2001 and Spring Training 2003. His admission came on the heels of a Sports Illustrated story that he was one of the players who tested positive in an anonymous test Major League Baseball conducted in 2003 to determine if the problem was significant enough that they had to institute regular testing. Reactions have spanned the entire range of emotions and opinions with most centering on outrage and permanent destruction of Rodriguez' image.

But here, as well, perspective is important and we may want to get in touch with how much of our outrage is because the signs were in front of us for a long time and we did not demand change. Alex Rodriguez is one of 104 positive tests out of that 2003 sampling of 1198 professional baseball players. That is almost 9% of those tested. It isn't even certain that the tests conducted were sophisticated enough to identify all substances banned at that time so the percentage of those using banned performance enhancing drugs is most likely higher. In 2003, Major League Baseball had a list of banned substances, but there were no penalties.

This is like having a state with a 65 mile/hour speed limit, but they don't ever monitor for speeding. Then, they have one day where they pull over anyone driving faster than the speed limit, tell them how fast they were going and then send them on their way. Oh yeah, and there is a prize for which driver can get from one end of the state to the other first. Now 6 years later, we are highly critical of those who went over the speed limit before it was enforced. Seriously, how many of us in those conditions would remain under the speed limit? How many of us stay under the speed limit now when there are penalties for exceeding it? To those who might say this is an unfair comparison, driving faster is definitely more dangerous to your own health, AND that of others in your car and those driving near you. Many will say that those taking performance enhancing drugs got an unfair advantage over those who chose not to. If there are no penalties and no way to reward or punish people depending upon whether they follow rules, are they really a rule. The advantage was made possible by those in charge who chose not to create a disincentive to using performance enhancing drugs.

By the way, one of the things that annoys the heck out of me about these test results becoming public is that they were legally supposed to be anonymous as per the Collective Bargaining Agreement. There are many things that each of us does and says that are supposed to be protected by Privacy laws, that should not be made public. If you seek psychological services, need financial assistance, or seek legal counseling of any sort, these facts should remain private unless you choose to make them public. Being in the public eye does not mean you waive all aspects of privacy protection. The illegal wire tapping of the Bush Administration was another step in the dismantling of individual privacy and this push to find "The Truth" about drug use in Baseball regardless of what rights are trampled on seems eerily familiar.

Even Barack Obama was forced to comment on the ARod situation and he expressed what he could by saying that it was depressing news, but Major League baseball seemed to be taking things seriously now and kids are seeing that there are no short-cuts to success. I think Obama realizes what is really happening is that we are waking up to what was really happening 5-15 years ago.

One of the most encompassing quotes so far on ARod (and there will be many) is from Maryland Democratic Congressman Elijah Cummings, a committee member on steroid use in baseball hearings. "We are all guilty of making mistakes, but what distinguishes a hero is the ability to acknowledge those mistakes and the commitment to learn from them."

Many of us have made financial mistakes and we allowed others around us in positions of power to make huge financial mistakes without calling them on it. Times were good and we were all feeling young but were stupid. The past is the past. We can't change it. We only have the ability to change what is now and to create a scenario that is better for the future. Admitting we were wrong is the first step toward redemption and redirection.

Barack Obama knows this. He isn't (any longer) pointing fingers at the past. He is trying to get all of us, including Congress, to acknowledge how bad things are so we can understand what has to be done for our economic redemption and redirection.

The American public has an amazing capacity to forgive and forget which is both a blessing and a curse. We forgive and at times embrace those who apologize and ask for forgiveness because they suddenly seem a whole lot more like us. However, we tend to torture for eternity those who continue to lie and deny. After a year or two of good performance on and off the field, Alex Rodriguez will probably be seen through the same lenses we now view Kobe Bryant and Marv Albert and all/most will be forgiven. (If not it would be an interesting statement that we forgive someone of a sexual assault but not trying to be better by taking banned substances.) We want to have a reason to love and admire someone once again. The curse is that we tend to totally forget about the past and are more apt to make the same mistake again or be surprised when a problem happens again. We are very cautious when things are dire, but often fully release any inhibitions shortly after being convinced that there is redemption.

So too we want to believe that the economy will be strong again. We want to believe that our government has the ability to help us or at least protect us from future economic calamity. We want to believe that our current president, Barack Obama, has the ability to lead us to a better place. But we won't go blindly or trust anytime soon. We have to be given reasons to believe that things are changing for the better. But if (and hopefully when) the economy does start coming back, watch how quickly the American public will once again embrace it by pulling out our wallets and credit cards.