Of all holidays Thanksgiving is perhaps the most American Holiday.
There can be no doubt that despite all of our challenges, we have much to be thankful for. Yes even in these days where unemployment remains at a higher level than is healthy of our economy and is the cause of pain for so many of our neighbors, and in these days where so many of our brothers and sisters are in faraway lands engaged in what has come to seem endless wars… Despite political strife unparalleled since the American Civil War… Despite what has been a weak and slow recovery from the worst recession since the Great Depression…. Despite all of these things and more, we are indeed a fortunate people.
Even so, we seem to be more focused on what we don’t have… what we would like to have and on our differences rather than those things and non-things that we have and on our similarities … the hopes and dreams we share.
The American Dream while seemingly out of reach for a growing number of our brothers and sisters continues. Home Ownership continues to be a keystone to realization of that dream. Yes, the Housing Market has been challenged like no time in our history as a nation. And while we have experienced strong signs of its recovery, there is still a distance to go before we can declare full recovery. But progress is being made in substantial ways… Not that every market will experience a full recovery.
In this season of Thanksgiving it might be more than appropriate but even beneficial to us all to recount all of those things that we have to be thankful for: the progress that has been made… looking at the half full glass rather than the half empty glass. Let us rekindle the American Spirit of the house-raising, where members of the community come together to help another participate, as co-members in our community and sharers of the American Dream.
May the Market be with you.
