“Land is the only thing in the world that amounts to anything, for ’tis the only thing in this world that lasts. … ’Tis the only thing worth working for, worth fighting for, worth dying for,” says Gerald O’Hara to daughter Scarlett in Gone with the Wind.

Wise words. Real estate was on an upward surge for decades. It seemed unstoppable. Then, along came the disastrous collapse of the housing bubble in 2007. Six years later, we’re seeing a good rebound in real estate prices, and that has many, perhaps you, wondering if land is once again, if not worth fighting and dying for, at least worth investing in.

The answer is a qualified yes. Real estate, in any economy, can play an important role in a diversified portfolio. Today, with most real estate prices still well below pre-2007 levels, and mortgage interest rates lower than they’ve been in decades, “It is probably a very good time to buy,” says Morningstar financial analyst Samuel Lee.

There are three major ways that people sink money into real estate. The first, the most obvious, is to purchase a home. The advantage to holding real estate in the form of your own house is, well, you get to live there. There are few other investments, outside of art and antiques, that you actually get to enjoy. The big disadvantage is that no investment is less liquid than your home. If you need cash in a jiffy, your house is not the ticket. Also, with real estate agent commissions and title searches and such, homes are not easy or cheap to buy and sell.

The second way to get into real estate is to buy a house and rent it out. The advantage to being a landlord is that you can generate a steady cash flow with rent. If you can afford the down payment, and can deal with the hassles of being a landlord (fixing broken windows and unclogging toilets, not to mention dealing with the personalities of your tenants), you should be able to earn a healthy 8 percent or so on your money, says Lee, “Not bad at all by today’s low interest standards.”

The third option, and the easiest, is to invest in real estate securities, such as real estate investment trusts, commonly known as REITs. Traded like stocks, REITs typically represent ownership in commercial properties, usually office buildings, condos, or malls. REITs can be lucrative, but they are risky. The 30-year average annual return is about 12 percent, but there have been both very good and very bad years.

Norman Miller, Ph.D., professor at the Burnham-Moores Center for Real Estate at the University of San Diego, says that now might be a good time to invest in either REITs or stocks in the housing-construction industry. Of these two investment choices, “REITs are more a buy-and-hold investment, for those who want long-term exposure to real estate without the headaches of being a landlord,” says Miller. “Housing stocks, subject to even more risk, as well as potential, are appropriate for only the most aggressive investors.”

Morningstar’s Lee, editor of the ETFInvestor newsletter, agrees, suggesting a 5 percent allocation to REITs for most investors—best achieved by purchasing shares in a low-cost, indexed exchange-traded fund that invests not in one, but in many companies. One good choice would be the Vanguard REIT Index ETF (ticker VNQ).

If you want to go the more aggressive and volatile route, consider the iShares Dow Jones U.S. Home Construction fund (ITB).

Gerald and Scarlett O’Hara had but one option for investing in land. You have many.

Land Ho! The Saturday Evening Post

Every four years the air is ripe with speculation about what the presidential election—not to mention the new administration—will mean for the stock market. Will the Dow sink, swim, or soar?

While we can’t know the precise answer to this question, we do know one thing: For the average stockholder, attempting to game the market by radically reallocating your portfolio holdings is a bad idea at any time. But let’s look at some telling statistics about presidential elections. True enough, since the end of World War II, the market has risen in 12 of 16 election years. If that sounds like the market has a good chance of climbing this year, well, you’re right. But that would be no freak event. Standard & Poor’s 500 Index has historically gone up in about 12 of any 16 years. But does it matter which party wins? Studies reported in Bloomberg News prior to the 2012 election revealed that the annualized return of the S&P 500 throughout the past 23 years of Democratic administrations has been 11 percent. Compare that to the 2.7 percent annualized return during the 28 years of Republican administrations. You might want to think twice before rolling the dice on party control, because in 2008, a Democrat won, and the stock market sank in the months following the election; in 2004, a Republican won, and the stock market soared.

What drives these market trends? According to Ned Davis Research and T. Rowe Price, the markets seem to like consistency. In the post-World War II period, when the incumbent party won elections, the market gained an average of 9.2 percent for the election year versus only a meager 2.2 percent when the challenging party won. But what’s happened in the past may have limited bearing on stock market performance over the next couple of months, and beyond.

John C. Bogle, founder of the Vanguard Group and author of The Clash of the Cultures: Investment vs. Speculation, says presidents influence markets. But, he adds, making bets based on presidential cycles is akin to speculating on stocks using tea-leaf readings or whether the NFL or AFL won the last Super Bowl. All of these “strategies” are parlor tricks, says Bogle, “statistical noise.”

What it comes down to is common sense: “The key to profitable investing is buying and holding a well-balanced portfolio,” says Bogle. “Market timing rarely, rarely works.” Using figures from Morningstar, he points out that the average U.S. stock mutual fund—whose manager does considerable buying and selling—underperformed the S&P 500 Index by 1.3 percentage points per year, over the past 15 years. Even more telling, the average investor—who tends to swap out almost a third of his portfolio each year—underperformed the average mutual fund by another 2.2 percent a year.

How can you beat the average investor? Invest your money largely in low-cost, broad-market index funds, says Bogle. Make sure you have a well-rounded portfolio, with stocks—U.S. and foreign, large- and small-company —and bonds. When the going gets rough and holdings tumble, don’t be so quick to sell. Trust that the market will come back, as it always has done.

Yes, who is in the White House, the President, as well as Congress, can affect the market. “We need to encourage our leaders, whichever ones are in power, to think long-term about the strength of the economy, for ultimately, the markets move with the economy,” says Bogle. “Strengthening the economy means tackling the federal deficit, improving infrastructure, creating jobs, and revamping a healthcare system that is costing our nation way too much.”

Such policies take time. “Patience,” says Bogle, “rather than taking wild bets on elections, is how to profit from the markets.”

Election-Year Investing The Saturday Evening Post

Although American stocks of materiel were sufficient for tackling Libya, they are far from inexhaustible. In fact, the U.S. military remains critically short of these same types of weapons. Early in the Iraq war, for instance, stocks of precision bombs were so reduced that the Pentagon ordered Boeing to ramp up emergency production. Boeing’s attempts to supply the military’s needs were thwarted by a Swiss company, Micro Crystal, which—angered by the U.S. decision to invade Iraq—ceased delivery of a key part, according to defense officials. Because no firm in the U.S. made the part, finding an American company capable of starting a new production line took the Pentagon seven months. If the most powerful military in the world could run short of a key weapon system against a third-rate military power like Iraq, what would happen if we faced a more powerful opponent such as China?

In the last century, American industrial might twice rescued the democratic world: first from German militarism and then from Axis totalitarianism. After World War I, one of Germany’s top military commanders claimed that his country was not beaten by the Allied military but by “pitiless American industry” that was able to mass produce war materiel on a previously unimaginable scale. Two decades later that same “pitiless industry” became President Franklin Roosevelt’s “Arsenal of Democracy,” which buried the Axis powers under an avalanche of war materiel belched out of Pittsburgh’s furnaces and Detroit’s assembly lines. Sadly, those days are relegated to the past. As American heavy industry has moved off shore, so has much of the nation’s ability to mobilize the kinds of forces that met the crises of the last century.

Despite rumors to the contrary, however, America still possesses a formidable industrial base. Unfortunately, it is no longer unrivaled by other growing powers. Every passing year sees China further solidifying its position as the world’s production base. According to the Pentagon’s 2011 annual report to Congress on Chinese military developments this “sustained economic development … coupled with an expanding science and technology base, has facilitated a comprehensive and ongoing military modernization program.”

Knowing this, one cannot help but wonder if the U.S. industrial base is still capable of winning the production war in a major conflict. Meanwhile, there is another looming threat that is only beginning to be understood—the globalization of supply chains. In today’s globalized economy a weapon may consist of parts from a dozen or more countries that come together at a single assembly point. At least 50 percent of all of content in any item bought by the Department of Defense must, by law, come off American production lines, and some weapons are 100 percent made in the USA. Still, in certain cases, parts are made in America, shipped to China for assembly, and then shipped back to the U.S. for sale. This presents America’s high technology military with a major problem.

Illustration by Jonathan Bartlett

Then, there is the potential for sabotage anywhere along the supply chain. For instance, many of the microchips purchased for the Pentagon come from China, where they theoretically could be tampered with by Chinese intelligence. And, in fact, in 2010 alone the U.S. Navy purchased more than 59,000 computer chips from China that were discovered to be counterfeit. These chips were destined for use in our most sensitive weapons systems—from missiles to transponders, as reported in Wired magazine. Any or all of these chips could have included malware that would allow the Chinese military to turn off or otherwise wreck whatever systems the chips were inserted within. After counterfeit chips were discovered, the Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity initiated the Trusted Integrated Circuit Program both to help prevent foreign adversaries from tampering with U.S. chips and to check foreign-sourced chips for flaws after delivery.

But the problems don’t end there. The Pentagon is expecting huge budget cuts as a result of our current wars ending and the nation’s dire economic position.

For this reason, America’s defense industry is scrambling to reduce capacity.

Northrop Grumman, a global aerospace and defense technology company, recently announced plans to close troubled shipyards and leave the shipbuilding industry. This means that one of the country’s five remaining naval shipyards—Avondale—could close for lack of work with a loss of 5,000 jobs.

With those jobs goes decades of shipbuilding experience that will be near impossible to replicate if it is needed in an emergency.

Today U.S. shipyards produce less than one percent of all commercial vessels while Asia builds 95 percent. Without the naval shipyards America would effectively be exiting the shipbuilding business entirely, a sad end for an industry that in World War II produced ships six times faster than Hitler’s submarine wolfpacks could sink them.

In the meantime, China has the capacity to build almost 60 million tons of ships per year and is looking to increase that capacity, according to the East Asian Institute at the National University of Singapore.

In the end, if America loses a future war because of production shortfalls that leave our soldiers, sailors, airmen, and Marines bereft of what they require to fight and win, it won’t be because we lack the capacity. America’s ability to win the wars of tomorrow rests on implementing the economic policies necessary to rebuild our industrial base and ensure the availability of funds required to meet an unforeseen crisis.

Jim Lacey, Ph.D., is the professor of strategic studies at the Marine Corps War College. The opinions presented here are entirely his own and do not represent those of the Department of Defense or any of its members.

Outsourcing U.S. Military Might The Saturday Evening Post

Quigley’s Building Supply—Putting Customers First

The St. John River in Maine swiftly and relentlessly surged over its banks. After a record snowfall and heavy spring rains in May 2008, the river’s waters rose more than 30 feet. The lumberyard of Quigley’s Building Supply in Fort Kent, Maine, became a grim yardstick of the floodwater’s progress. Foot by foot, plank by plank, the water swallowed pallets of wood until the 66-year-old family business was 12 feet under water. In just an hour, more than $200,000 of the small business’s inventory was either waterlogged or swept away by the murky currents.

Six months before the flood, owner Norman Ouellette died in a boating accident at just 51 years old. That left general manager Justin Dubois, Ouellette’s son-in-law, running the company. Then, only a few months after the flood came, the man-made disaster of the financial crisis hit. Fresh from college and only 24 years old, Dubois felt a little like the Biblically unfortunate Job.

But Dubois wasn’t alone. Many other businesses throughout the country were submerged or swept away in the overflow of the financial meltdown. However, Quigley’s and many others survived and even thrived through these tough times.

Despite an economic mess and big businesses outsourcing labor and manufacturing, the spirit of small business continues to drive the growth of our nation with enterprise, ingenuity, and craftsmanship. Small businesses still create most of the nation’s new jobs, employ half of the country’s private sector work force, and produce more than half of the private sector gross domestic product, according to the Small Business Administration. Much like the hardworking Americans that came before them, the modern-day entrepreneurs you’ll meet here are striving for success against all odds, whether the problems are thrown at them by the economy or Mother Nature herself. These small businesses keep their doors open with a mix of smarts, guts, and determination, even in the face of unexpected hardship.

After the floodwaters crested, Quigley’s buckled down, adapted to the changes and challenges, and notched one of their highest sales years ever, with a 21 percent sales increase from 2008 to 2009.

“Just like everywhere else in the United States, there was a slumping economy and the housing market was nonexistent,” Dubois recalls. “If we just sat back and allowed it to happen, we’d fall. We looked at the slump as a chance to increase sales, customer traffic, and loyalty.”

To increase customer count, Quigley’s needed to find their niche. The store increased advertising, and management looked to long-term employees for new revenue suggestions. Of the 16 employees, many have been working for the company for 12 years or longer. Their know-how helped identify that customers were requesting more and more products they saw on television or the Internet. The bottom-line result for the store: The special order department has increased 50 percent in the past three years. “This has changed the way we do business,” Dubois says. “We’re increasing customer service. No matter where a customer sees a product, we can get it for them.

“The employees are the reason we changed,” he says. “I looked to them for advice and knowledge. We couldn’t have done that without their knowledge and support.”

Schacht Spindle Company—Woven to Success

From its humble origins, Schacht Spindle Company has grown to world-class status with a reputation as a maker of quality hand-made looms and spinning wheels.
Photo courtesy Schacht Spindle Company.

Pulling together the similar fibers of employee knowledge, Barry Schacht has spun the Schacht Spindle Company into the kind of American success story that’s vanishingly rare these days. The Boulder, Colorado-based company began in Schacht’s garage about 
40 years ago and has grown into a 35,000-square-foot factory with 35 employees. Today, Schacht’s is the second-largest weaving supply and loom manufacturer in the world.

“In those early years, I made a point of finding people who knew more about the business than I did,” says Schacht, who owns the company 
with his wife, Jane Patrick. “That employee knowledge helped me 
create a better product.”

Schacht says he constantly strives to improve relations with his staff and provide them the right tools and benefits—both at work and in their personal lives. In addition to health insurance, the company offers two months of unpaid leave, assuring employees that they’ll still have a job when they return. Schacht and Patrick also built a special, environmentally controlled room for an employee with asthma and allow flexible schedules for workers with children.

“We hire people for their skills, then work with their schedules,” Patrick says. “We emphasize family values, getting back to what’s important. If employees need time to take care of a sick parent or child, it’s not a problem.”

The work atmosphere Patrick and Schacht created has paid off: The duo’s philosophy has fostered long-term staff retention. One employee has worked with the company for 39 years, a few others for more than 20, and several for more than 15. And Schacht is quick 
to credit those employees with the company’s ongoing success. For example, staffers recognized a market for lower-priced, entry-level, easy-to-use spinning wheels. Their input led to the development of the company’s new Ladybug spinning wheel. Adding to the company’s handmade cachet, each is unique, with a ladybug logo individually placed somewhere on the wheel. During the past two years, such entrepreneurship has helped Schacht Spindle Company to post a 35 percent sales increase. But the company can’t rest on such successes, and its bottom line can be dramatically affected by the fortunes of suppliers and profit-driven big box retailers. “Some of the companies I have dealt with over the years have disappeared,” Schacht explains. “I have had a more difficult time finding suppliers.”

Schadt’s hard work has paid off: The company’s spindles, looms, and winders are in just about any weaving supply store in the country, and they ship orders worldwide.

Yet, Schacht’s garage-born business roots are never far from his reach. On his desk is the first spindle he ever made. Constructed from an old, used doorknob and wooden stick, it’s the genesis of his business. “It reminds 
me of the complex, yet simple, beginnings,” he says. “When I started, what was most inspiring was making new products and solving old problems with a creative touch.”

Hudson Beach Glass—Hearts of Glass

Touch of glass: Operating out of a renovated firehouse, the artisan owners of Hudson Beach Glass prove that pursuing their passion makes good business sense.
Photo courtesy of Hudson Beach Glass.

The glass-blowing furnace in Hudson Beach Glass burns 24 hours a day. Visitors to the converted firehouse in Beacon, New York, feel the heat and hear the hum of the furnace that glows white hot, full 
of molten glass. For the 26-year-old company’s owners—John and Wendy Gilvey, Michael Benzer, and Jennifer Smith—that furnace is the source of their art and entrepreneurial freedom.

“In the last 26 years, we’ve been able to make the work we want to make,” John Gilvey says. “Doing that has been satisfying. I feel like I’ve done it my way. That’s so corny. But true.”

The different blown glass styles of the artist-owners are on the shelves throughout the store. John, for example, crafts Tiffany-like vases with leaf-like patterns. Benzer’s trademark work is hand-cast tiles and bowls that have been Hudson Beach Glass signature pieces for more than 20 years. Wendy Gilvey and Smith produce fluid-form pieces, often with opaque, sandblasted finishes.

“Every object we make, we’re proud of it,” Benzer says. “We’re not making big money, but we’re not sure we could work for anyone else.” John likens the Hudson Beach Glass business model to subsistence farming. “Or subsistence artists,” he says with a laugh. “We know we have done something right at the end of the year if we’re still in business.”

The four originally opened Hudson Beach Glass Studio in 1984 in a warehouse-type building and sold through distributors and trade shows. Seven years ago, they opened their retail store in an old firehouse on 
Main Street. In 2008, John’s son, 
Sean, opened his own Hudson Beach Glass storefront in Philadelphia. Works from the studio have been featured in the book 500 Glass Objects, and plates from the Philadelphia store were used by 
chef Jose Garces when he competed 
on the cooking reality show Iron Chef.

Such success came after riding more than two decades of up-and-down economic trends. The downturn 
of 2009 definitely caused some scrambling. “Our business took a big hit,” John says. “No one was calling with orders, no one was buying.” And they had to make the difficult decision to lay off four full-time employees. Knowing that their business could 
turn in a season, John and Benzer continually look for new markets and different ways to distribute their work. In recent years, they have expanded to include etched glass awards and table settings for high-end restaurants. 

“We adjust to what’s happening in the marketplace,” John says. “We’re also continually experimenting with new colors, forms, and processes. In our business, new is everything.”

They learned that lesson in the mid-90s. After 20 percent to 30 percent growth per year, their business became flat. When attending a business consulting seminar, they realized the studio hadn’t been rolling out enough new products. “After that, we didn’t go to a trade show without something new,” Benzer says.

Enterprising Endurance The Saturday Evening Post

We can count the money spent and the number of Americans wounded and dead, but the effect on society is harder to calculate. Business declines. Resources grow scarce. Opportunity shrinks. The money for non-essential industries dries up. And people just learn to get by with less. They lower their expectations. Sometimes, they never raise them again.

Americans endured such things in 1944, knowing how little they sacrificed compared to the GIs in combat. So it is rare to find an article that talks openly about the cost of living in wartime. The author of “Ouch! That White Collar Pinches” [PDF download] gives a glimpse into family life in wartime, as it was lived, not recalled through clouds of nostalgia. Owenita Sanderlin accepts that wartime austerity is inevitable. But she is dismayed that her husband’s education and profession are so poorly rewarded.

In our garage, next to a 1935 model without any rubber, is a row of wooden chairs.

We have tried glue and nails and everything else, but nothing will hold them together any more. George sits, and they split. Not that George is so hefty. He may be more than six feet tall, but he weighs only a hundred and fifty pounds. It’s just that the chairs didn’t cost very much, in the first place, and they have served their term. So now we sit around our maple table on an odd assortment of seats — George on a solid piano stool; Frea, our five-year-old princess, and I on the wobbly, last two of the chairs; Mary, fat, funny and three, on a tall kitchen stool; and David, the baby, in the remains of the high chair.

We eat the minimum essentials with just enough silverware to go around, washing the spoons between dinner and dessert — when there is any dessert. Of course, if we have company — which I have been avoiding lately — I get out my wedding-present silver: six spoons, four knives and four forks, six salad forks and a sugar spoon. We have been borrowing the chairs, ever since the time a college president folded up in one of those little maple numbers of ours. I suppose when the last two chairs are gone, we shall eat buffet style.

Surely, you are thinking, it isn’t so bad as all that. You can still buy chairs. Well, maybe you can. We can’t, because we haven’t any money.

Senator Thomas of Utah, a member of the Senate committee which recently investigated the status of white-collar workers… says there are 20,000,000 of us, living on salaries that were low before the cost of living rose 25 per cent or more. He says we are “mighty good Americans” and just as essential as factory workers. We keep the schools open, for one thing. Well, it is comforting to know that somebody appreciates us.

This makes George feel that he is of some consequence—a good teacher, with all the training a man can get, plus experience. His salary is $2000 . . .

The average income in America that year was only slightly higher: $2,400. But, as you’ll see, that $400 would make a big difference in Mrs. Sanderlin’s 1944 budget.

The Sanderlins, one of the thousands of white-collar families squeezed by rising prices. Their budget will not permit such "luxuries" as dining-room chairs.

We live in a small university town in Northern Maine—a town where living is cheap. Milk is only thirteen and a half cents a quart, but, on the other hand, the long winter burns up a great deal of fuel. Then, too, we have three children, but some people have even more. Although we get along, the thing that stumps me is this: How about the people who don’t live in a town like ours?

To get down to details, suppose that your budget, like ours, allowed your family less than $2.50 per person per week for food ($600 per year). Or twenty dollars a year per person for clothes.

Is your rent less than forty dollars? We are buying our house, and the payments are only $38.47 a month, including taxes and insurance. We spend $128 a year for water, electricity and a party phone.

Do you carry much insurance? We can afford only one policy on my husband’s life, which would pay me and the three children $1000. [Health] insurance premiums, in our budget, come to forty-one dollars a year. Perhaps you don’t have large fuel bills. Ours was $135 last winter, for the furnace and hot water in the morning.

How much do you contribute to the Red Cross, the War Chest, your church? And do you like to say no? We can give only thirty-two dollars a year. If we had more money, that is where most of it would go, because we know how many millions of people are far worse off than we are.

Did you ever put up with a toothache because you couldn’t afford the dentist? Or wonder what you would do if your baby were really sick enough so that you had to call the doctor? I have. All I can manage under the item Medical Care is twelve dollars a year for each of us, and it will hardly be enough, even if we are as healthy as usual. Last year, it all went for a baby.

Another difficulty of ours is that my father was a doctor, and so it would never occur to me not to pay a doctor’s bill. Ask any doctor [which patients] are the surest pay. Not the rich, not the poor, but men in white collars.

You may very well have to pay more taxes than we do. Only $3.80 a month is withheld from our check, some which will be returned, and we are glad to pay some Federal taxes; we wouldn’t feel very American if we didn’t. Then we have an extra eleven dollars in local taxes.

Do you spend much in going places-either by bus, train or automobile? We have no items at all in our budget for Transportation. We put our car away and sold the tires. George walks to college, and you should see David’s chubby face entirely surrounded by groceries piled in the baby carriage. We wheel over to the village once a week and stock up.

I suppose you contribute 10 per cent in War Bonds? We feel like heels because we can’t. We have no money to save. We have no savings because the salary was always low, and the first few years of marriage are the hardest. Furniture, babies—you know. But I do put down seventy-five dollars a year for bonds. And we keep them.

How much money do you blow in annually for birthday presents, wedding gifts, cards, Christmas, little toys for the children? We never have been able to give anyone a decent present, although we have received many beautiful things ourselves. We are limited to sixty dollars a year for gifts.

How often do you go to the movies or stop at the drugstore for a soda? Are you taking any kind of vacation this year? These things appear in our budget under the heading of Recreation, and I allow one dollar a month. This has to include the fifty cents it costs for a girl to take care of the children. Cigarettes? Luckily, we don’t smoke.

Do you ever pause beside a newsstand? I’d rather have a magazine than a new hat, but I never buy one. We take one magazine to keep us posted, and listen to the news on the radio or read the paper in the college library. And of course we can borrow from our good neighbors. But if we ever do get rich, George is going to buy – soft music, please – a book.

These miscellaneous items — which must include medicine, postage, stationery, lollipops and such- like — are supposed to come to no more than $6.30 a month in our budget.

Now, if you will add up all the expenses listed above, you should get $1956.84. Deducting this from George’s salary leaves $43.16 to cover the unforeseen. You’re right. It never does.

But we are not in debt— yet. We haven’t lost our home—yet. Right now, George is out in the garden assassinating potato bugs, which helps explain how we live on our small food allowance. And he is looking up at the sky to straighten out the crick in his back, certain the sky over our small white house is bluer than anywhere in the world. He thinks he has pretty nice children too. I agree. Of course, it was rather unreasonable of us to have so many. And, obviously, we can’t have any more.

But we feel that we are getting along fine. We compare ourselves with the privates in the foxholes and the pilots in the sky and the many war workers who are not lining their pockets with gold. Even compared with the war profiteers, we are lucky. The biggest item in our budget costs nothing at all. It’s happiness.

But I wonder about the rest of the 20,000,000 white-collar workers — most of them without gardens — with higher city rents, with transportation expenses, with more insurance, larger families, lower salaries, poorer health and old debts. And what do they do for fun, when they can’t play tennis for free and plant flowers and vegetables in their own back yards? It must be dreadful to stay in a sweltering city all summer long, without a spare cent for weekend vacations, year after year of this war. How they must worry about the future. And I can guess which question worries them most, because it’s my worst nightmare, too: What if prices go up even higher?

Read “Ouch! That White Collar Pinches”, by Owenita Sanderlin, July 22, 1944 [PDF download]

Family Life in Wartime The Saturday Evening Post

More than that, I found myself thinking about the one thing I’d really like to see made in America—more jobs.

So, where are they? It’s a question on a lot of minds, especially in the wake of economic conditions that saw nearly 7 million jobs vanish. When the 2009 multibillion dollar stimulus package was unveiled, the government promised that stimulus would create and save some 3.5 million jobs, but making that promise was much easier than actually keeping a job tally, and many believe that the actual number will ultimately fall short of the mark.

The pundits say things are getting better. But it’s hard to be upbeat about the economy when most

of us are still reeling from one of the worst downturns since the Great Depression. Meanwhile, stimulus funding to date seems to be favoring Wall Street more than Main Street. Small business, the very heart of American private enterprise, is also the engine that drives the creation of

new jobs, yet recovery funds don’t seem to be making their way down to entrepreneurs—and the people they might employ—with a speed or efficiency that has made a real difference yet. Until it does—if it does—it’s hard to look on the bright side.

But it is surely there. While we may lament our ongoing economic woes, there’s something about tough times that brings out the best in us, that makes us roll up our sleeves and work harder, like the men and women profiled in writer Doug Donaldson’s story, “Enterprising Endurance.” Reading their stories reminded me that even in difficult times, America has an abundance of ambition, motivation, and even optimism. Thankfully, these things, too, are still made in the USA.

Stephen C. George

Editor-in-Chief, The Saturday Evening Post
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