Column

Here’s your Valentine’s gift,” says the young lady over the counter, handing over a heart-shaped lollipop in that perfectly rehearsed, happy-to-please-you-in-every-way that only hotel receptionists can manage, in Agra or Arizona. But while the smile may have been make-believe, the candy is real.

Bereft of any threat from obscurantists and other irksome oddballs that spring up every now and then in India to mar such trivial celebrations as Valentine’s, America comes as a relief despite the ordeal of flying to Phoenix (where I have come to watch the NBA All Stars basketball game on Sunday) from Delhi via Chicago, all in one go.

That said, this is clearly not a happy Valentine’s in America. The lollipop is lip-smacking sweet, but the mood of the country appears laced with lingering sourness about the state of the economy which comes through from every source possible.

My first few hours in the country had provided contra signals. For instance, US Airways was willing to give a free ticket if one would take a later flight, so huge was the demand for flying from Chicago to Phoenix. And on the five-hour flight, my neighbour, his wife and two tiny daughters spent approximately $40 eating non-stop. Where’s the problem?

In a sense, though, that is the paradox of recession, particularly in America: there is not enough money today for people to consume flagrantly, but if they were not to consume in such fashion, the economy would remain in the doldrums for god-knows-how-long. Self-restraint and moderation could be seen as solid virtues in overcoming such bad times, but I would be guilty of making macro-economics simplistic, and more pertinently, antithetical to the Great American Dream.

A $790 billion stimulus announced by president Obama last week is seen as the first major remedial step, yet experts reckon even this may not be good enough. Obama’s struggle, of course, began even before the Senate had passed this package when Judd Gregg, the Republican senator, whom the president had got to agree to be commerce secretary in a coup of sorts, withdrew at the last minute citing “irresolvable conflicts”.

That is one of several political setbacks that the president has already faced in his first month in office without even really having to cope with the struggling economy. But that is no relief for the average American. USA Today cites Fred Rotermund, a 66-year-old retiree from Caterpillar Corporation which recently sacked 18000 people, on his worries about his kids’ jobs: “Obama has four years in office, but we don’t have four years.”

In fact, the president may believe he is running out of time already.

Salaries of head honchos of major sports leagues in America, I was told by a sports marketing executive at the National Basketball AssociaitionAll Stars Jam Session, could make “even an angel clap with devilish glee, a dead man come alive”.’ Trifle exaggerated, of course, but sizes up the situation effectively as a cursory reading of some of the salaries reveals.

To give it a more tangible perspective, let’s say that in one year the commissioner of the Major League Baseball, Bud Selig, could buy a spacious flat on Marine Drive, a holiday villa in Alibaug, a top-end luxury car, the most expensive range of designer jewellery for his wife that Tiffany’s can offer this season, get his son married in the Bahamas, pay up entirely for his daughter’s three-year term at an Ivy League college — and still have enough left over to invest in India’s safe banks for lifelong, hassle-free, decent interest. Selig’s annual compensation for 2007 was $18.35 million. David Stern of the NBA, by comparison, takes home only $10 million. Roger Goodell of the National Football League is marginally better at $11 million.

Goodell, I understand, is so perturbed by the recession that he has volunteered to take a pay freeze for 2009. This might seem like Richie Rich opting to travel 25 km in his Rolls Royce instead of his helicopter hop as usual, but maybe that is being unduly cynical. So, not quite the $500,000 cap on CEO salaries he had recommended last week, but Obama will at least be pleased that somebody is showing accountability.