The Bolt-hole Dilemma

We've been enjoying the Winter Olympics. The skating, the downhill, the half-pipe -- all great. And we've also enjoyed the commercials, especially the ones for Vancouver and British Columbia. What a beautiful place! -- and, I'm thinking, maybe the perfect bolt-hole.

Merriam-Webster defines a bolt-hole as "a place of escape or refuge" (think of a hole in a fence or a hedge that a rabbit can bolt through when it's being chased). I first heard the term back in the '80s when I was covering "the troubles" in Northern Ireland. A Protestant businessman I met in Belfast told me that he loved his country, but that he was saving up for a "bolt-hole back in London" in case things got really bad.

Well, nowadays we've got troubles of our own here in the States, and I'm guessing that for more than a few Americans, a bolt-hole like Vancouver is looking better and better. Lauding Canada's virtues in a recent New York Times piece, columnist Timothy Egan wrote, "Their murder rate is just a third that of the United States. They have universal health care... And when our financial system caused the world economy to tank because of reckless deregulation, Canada's banks were steady as they go, boring and mostly health." Egan called Vancouver, "Manhattan with mountains."

"Boring and mostly healthy" probably sounds pretty good to a lot of people down in the real Manhattan, where the US economy is struggling to dig itself out of the Great Recession. And if you still don't think our economic problems are serious, Don Peck's cover story in this month's Atlantic will have you Googling Canadian real estate agents faster than you can say Vancouver. In "The Recession's Long Shadow," Peck, the magazine's deputy managing editor, assesses the long-term impact of what many economists predict will be prolonged and widespread unemployment in the US. After laying out the grim statistics ("The unemployment rate hit 10 percent in October, and there are good reasons to believe that by 2011, 2012 and even 2014, it will have declined only a little"), Peck writes:

"All of these figures understate the magnitude of the jobs crisis. The broadest measure of unemployment and underemployment (which includes people who want to work but have stopped actively searching for a job, along with those who want full-time jobs but can find only part-time work) reached 17.4 percent in October, which appears to be the highest figure since the 1930s."

Peck then cites a recent survey showing that 44 percent of American families have experienced a job loss, a reduction in hours, or a pay cut in the past year. "If it persists much longer," Peck concludes, "this era of high joblessness... is likely to warp our politics, our culture, and the character of our society for years."

If Peck's story depresses you, don't open today's New York Times. Reporter Peter Goodman begins his front page, above-the-fold story, "Despite Signs of Recovery, Chronic Joblessness Rises," by declaring that "Even as the American economy shows tentative signs of a rebound, the human toll of the recession continues to mount, with millions of Americans remaining out of work, out of savings and nearing the end of their unemployment benefits." Maurice Emsellem, a policy director for the National Employment Law Project, told Goodman that "The system was ill prepared for the reality of long-term unemployment... Now, you add a severe recession and you have created a crisis of historic proportions."

Up in boring and mostly healthy Canada, unemployment, though up compared with pre-recession levels, has actually declined for four of the past six months. The national unemployment level stands at 8.3 percent -- unacceptably high, yes, but still about 1.7 percent below the US figure. And for those of you keeping a bolt-hole list, unemployment in British Columbia is at 8.1 percent, slightly below the Canadian national average.

Setting economics aside, Canada also looks good to Americans who are depressed about our hyper-partisan, paralyzed and dysfunctional political system. I'll save my comments about politics for a later post, but in the interim I highly recommend David Barstow's chilling report on right wing groups affiliated with the Tea Party movement in last Tuesday's Times ("Tea Party Lights Fuse for Rebellion on Right"). If groups like Arm in Arm, which "aims to organize neighborhoods for possible civil strife by stockpiling food and survival gear, and forming armed neighborhood groups," and Oath Keepers, which "recruits military and law enforcement officials who are asked to disobey orders the group deems unconstitutional" continue to grow, a lot more Americans will be shopping for bolt-holes in the near future.

But as attractive as a "bolt-hole strategy" might be, it doesn't feel quite right. The United States is a great country, with a long and proud history as a beacon of liberty and opportunity for the rest of the world. You don't have to be a cry-on-cue, right wing television personality to love this place: it's blessed with breath-taking natural beauty and it's full of decent, hard-working, honest, kind, and generous people. It really is a tough place to turn your back on.

And despite its current struggles, it's important to remember that the United States has been an engine of progress for the entire global economy for almost a century. Which means that the failure of the American economy isn't just bad for America; it's bad for the whole world. "We are the indispensable nation," former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright once said. Or as an Australian friend of mine put it: "The world needs a strong America."

Which begs the question: who will keep America strong and great if -- when the going gets tough -- the tough "get going" to Canada, the Caribbean, Australia and New Zealand?

Is it right to stay and fight, or is it smarter to know when to pack and go?

It's a world-class, bolt-hole dilemma.