Chuck Norton called the meeting to order at 12:15. There were 13 members present including Wes, Tony, Marie, Rich, Bill Leske, Rob, Greg, Chuck, Keith, Fred, John Thomas and Patti. Bill gave the thoughts of the day: Paul Harris said “it’s a changing world and we need to change with it” and Walt Disney said “if you can dream it, you can do it”.
There were no visiting guests other than our speakers from Northern Trust and no birthdays, announcements or Happy Bucks. Patti Van Cleave is celebrating her 13th year of Rotary membership.
Dig and grin was handled by Robert who told us how, after 16 years of marriage and several months of being confined with his wife in their home, he discovered that he and his wife have different body parts! Due to privacy concerns, you’ll have to check with Robert for the details!
Personal bio given by Fred Schwimmer: and Greg Nelson. Fred has spent 95% of his 85 years living in Winnetka. He was in the first 1st grade class at Crow Island School in 1940 and not only graduated from that grade but also from the University of Michigan! But his greatest achievement was meeting and marrying his wife Ellie July 30, 1961 (yes, today was his 59th anniversary). After finishing Michigan he worked for a short time for Westclox and then with his Dad at Bear Stearns where Fred was a stockbroker for 47 years. Fred’s brother Mike has long been in the antique piano business, primarily handling piano rolls. When Fred retired as a stockbroker he joined Mike’s business in collecting and trading various antiques. He closed by thanking David Birkenstein for introducing him to Rotary.
Personal bio given by Greg Nelson: Greg grew up in the Hobart, Indiana area, has two adult sons, and spent several years as a commercial banker with the Continental, LaSalle and BMO banks before starting his own payroll business, which he sold last year. He then joined another company which provides employers with services in areas such as payroll, worker’s comp, risk management, regulation compliance, and health insurance. He has been in Rotary for about 3 years and has enjoyed the experience a great deal.
SPEAKERS FROM NORTHERN TRUST—Julie Mokdessi (Public Relations), Susan Currie (Winnetka office manager) and Ryan Boyle (Senior Economist and main presenter).
Ryan started by saying that it was important to have Dodd Frank in place before the Covid pandemic occurred. Other points he made were that Covid has taken our minds off of other very important national issues such as tariff and trade problems, failing alliances among countries (e.g. Brexit), and climate change issues; we were initially too optimistic that the virus problem would be solved within a couple of months; it has blown up the current U.S. budget; states have been hurt by a drastic decrease in sales tax revenue; our Gross National Product dropped 9.2 % in the second quarter of this year which puts our economy in a hole more than twice as deep as it was following the financial crisis; and 30 million people are receiving unemployment benefits. A few positive things have occurred such as the Federal Reserve was able to dust off its 2008 playbook used during the housing crisis to provide assistance; we know more about the Covid problem than we did in March; the 3 pay protection programs enacted the first of the year helped minimize the loss of jobs and provided substantial unemployment benefits; the unemployment rate of 14.7% is lower than the 20% during the depression; and even though our Country is printing lots of money, future inflation may be minimized by people reducing their spending habits—consumer spending in the second quarter fell 10.1% led by a near collapse in spending on restaurants, recreational activities and some health care activities like elective procedures.
Ryan said that our recovery may be more in the shape of a W, rather than an U or V—i.e., we may now be on the 2nd downturn with an anticipated upward surge to the finish line. We have to find a way of opening businesses to provide available jobs. When asked about what would be a good investment strategy at this time, Ryan said that is today’s unanswerable question because things are so uncertain.