Recession Is A Familiar Plot Line, And So Is Recovery

By Shawn Zuver, editorial/content director

I recently read about a European banker who had taken money from people under the pretense of placing them in “safe” investments, but instead it was found that the funds were squandered in other directions. The result was that thousands of unknowing victims ended up mired in poverty and some were even suicidal.

Sadly, this has become a familiar story during the past six months, though what’s different in this case is that I was reading a fictional short story called The Pavilion On The Links, written in 1880 by Robert Louis Stevenson, best known for Treasure Island and The Strange Case Of Dr. Jekyll And Mr. Hyde. It’s certain that Stevenson didn’t come up with anything new when he created the banker character in The Pavilion On The Links. There were plenty of charlatans around at that time for inspiration, and likely have always been.

While network TV and online news venues in 2009 bring us round-the-clock updates on the whereabouts of the latest swindler in hiding, we sometimes need to remind ourselves that it’s nothing new.

“There are only a couple dozen plot lines and Shakespeare covered them all,” was the frequent assertion of a good friend, the late Sam Milnark. During the 18 years that I worked with him, I found that Sam was right about most things—like his inspiring vision of the future potential for metal construction products—and this was just another example. My then co-worker and now business partner Bob Fittro and I had fun challenging Sam about the plot line theory, but eventually came to agree him—with the proviso that while there were a limited number of plots, there could still be many twists to make a story seem fresh.

So, as it’s now clear that we’re in the midst of (and hopefully on the way to recovering from) a recession in the U.S. and throughout the entire world, my current question is how that relates to Sam Milnark’s plot line theory. Basically, the premise is that it’s all been done before—and there’s no doubt that recessions are familiar to just about anyone who’s been around for a while and hasn’t been holed up in a cave. The economy slows, spending is curtailed, unemployment increases, and consumer confidence is shaken. The plot is generally the same, though the twists are varied. The variables may include the depth of the recession, the length of time until the economy rebounds, the possibility of inflation or deflation, the availability of investment capital, etc.

As I’ve stated countless times before, for me it’s not a question of will the recession end, it’s a question of when it’s going to end. I don’t have an answer, but I do know that it will. Experience and history tell me that it’s a certainty. Recession is a familiar plot line to all of us, and it’s always followed by recovery. Many people, including some noted experts, think the recovery has already begun.

A couple years after I began working in the metal construction industry, the economy in the Southwestern U.S. underwent a severe oil bust recession, so much so that a popular joke in the late 1980s went something like this:

Question: “What do you say to a Texas oilman?”

Answer: “Waiter, I’d like another cup of coffee.”

It didn’t take long for that joke to become outdated. And, my guess is that the current economic situation will improve much sooner than had been initially expected. In the meanwhile, there are many exciting things going on in the metal construction industry—like Green Products and Solar Roofing—and it’s good to see that we’ll all be ready to handle the increased design and construction activity that lies ahead.

Shawn Zuver is editorial/content director for DesignandBuildwithMetal.com. He has been covering the metal construction industry, including residential and non-residential construction, since 1985. To contact Shawn, call (419) 581-2051 or email shawnz@designandbuildwithmetal.com.  

To view other columns by Shawn or other columnists, click here.