New Response, Different Outcome? We'll Just Have to Wait and See

While I was surfing the internet, I found an interesting article on the New York Times website. The article talks about the challenge Elkhart, a small town in Indiana, is facing because of the economic situation. A large percentage of the residents in the area have been laid off their jobs in the past year. I thought it was interesting to see how much the town has been affected by the unusually large percentage of unemployed citizens. Banks are foreclosing peoples’ houses because they aren’t able to pay their payments anymore. The town has even passed a law saying each house could have one garage sale a month because that is the only source of some people’s income. The rise of unemployment has changed the balance of life in the area. City services are on the decline and the crime rate is rising rapidly. With people desperate for money, it seems like they will go to any length to get it. In the past 2 weeks, there have been 9 armed robberies on convenience stores. This stat is alarming and scary because Elkhart is the guinea pig town of the U.S., and this same situation could be seen in other towns across the country in future years. To summarize the situation this town has been facing, a company still in business is bigger news than a company that went bankrupt. This can be tied to a lot of situations we have discussed in class. This time period is linked to the great depression by many people, as it should because of how many similar situations have happened in the past month. The garage sale is very similar to when people would sell apples on the streets during the great depression. When the working class would lose their job, they would make money any way they could. Back then, it was selling apples, and now it’s apparently garage sales. I thought it was interesting to see the difference in authority’s response to the garage sales now to what they thought of selling apples during the Great Depression. Back then, the government was clueless about what was going on in the country, and they encouraged selling apples. Today, they look down upon this secondary way of making money during times of peril, and limit the amount one can do it. It will be interesting to see the outcome of this time now that they have handled the issue differently.