Meltdown worry seeps on Main Street

RALEIGH -- Max Gaskins had a simple mission Friday: deposit his paycheck at BB&T and hurry back to the kitchen of Caffe Luna, the downtown restaurant where he works.

But he broke his brisk gait, stopping his cook clogs at a television in a Fayetteville Street window that flashed images of frantic stock traders during a news broadcast.

Gaskins, 29, doesn't have money in the market. But that didn't matter. He knew what it meant to him, his job and his hopes of one day opening his own restaurant.

"If people get squirrely about finances," he said, "then they won't go out and spend money."

With consumer costs rising and home prices leveling in the Triangle, everyday people have felt the pressure of a slowing economy for months. Loans are harder to come by, and companies are freezing wages or, in some cases, laying off workers.

But an eight-day, 22 percent stock plunge, which sent the Dow Jones industrial average below 8,000 for the first time since 2003 before rallying to close at 8,451.19 on Friday, has only driven the malaise deeper into the consciousness of everyday consumers.

They're worrying to themselves or chatting nervously about investments from barstools, barber chairs, courthouse benches and city benches.

"In 20 years, I've never seen it this bad," said Ed Moloney, a co-owner of HighPark Bar & Grill on Whitaker Mill Road, near the city's Five Points neighborhood.

The sports bar is typically busy this time of year. Major League Baseball teams are fighting for pennants. College football and the NFL are in full swing. The Hurricanes play their second regular season hockey game tonight.

They compete for eyes on 24 big-screen televisions. But eyes are wandering away from sports, Moloney said. "We get a lot more requests from people to turn on the news."

Ditto for the TV in the deli at the Wake County courthouse, where lawyers, judges and deputies huddle after courtroom sessions.

At a Jiffy Lube in North Raleigh, customers and employees talked about Thursday's sharp drop in the last minutes of regular trading on the New York Stock Exchange.

By the time the closing bell had rung, all eyes were on a tiny television that hung over the customer service desk.

As TV blared reports on the day's events, strangers nervously confided about their retirement accounts while they awaited oil changes and tune-ups.

Pat Westphal of Raleigh joked with the clerk at Seaboard Wine Warehouse about how a 10 percent discount on a case of wine would help offset the losses in her investments. "I think good wine and cheap movies from Netflix will carry us through" the down market, she said.

But Westphal and her husband, Keith Little, both retired environmental engineers, are worried. The erosion of the value of their investments has been swift.

"We live off an annual budget, and we've lost about six years of that in the last two months," Little said. "I woke up at 3 a.m. wondering where I could get a job."

Some, however, sighed in relief on Friday.

Michelle Lyon and her husband, Alan Field, sensing a big drop, unloaded 1,800 shares of Exxon Mobil on Sept. 26, when the stock closed at $80.65. Days later, the stock lingered near $77 and popped up to $78.58. They wondered if they had jumped the gun.

On Friday, Field was calling Lyon with regular market updates. "We were high-fiving," she said from behind a sewing machine at Knockabout, her boutique in downtown Raleigh's City Market.

By the end of regular trading on Friday, Exxon stock was worth $62.36 -- a two-year low.

"We didn't freak out for nothing," Lyon said. The couple paid off a business loan and still has cash left over.

Carson Leach, 23, an unemployed Carrboro resident walking his dog at the town's Weaver Street Market, was just relieved he didn't have any investments to worry about. But he added: "I'm trying to hoard some cash." Stephen Cash, the owner of Man Mur Shoe Shop on Hillsborough Street in Raleigh, has noticed an uptick in customers getting shoes repaired, perhaps a sign of thriftiness. He's not surprised, however, that his longtime repair customers aren't talking about the financial crisis.

"They're people who have money -- and know how to hold onto money," he says. "Some of them are so tight, they squeak."

In a back room, a television stuffed on a shelf above a machine that re-soles shoes was set on CNBC, which is reporting the economic soap opera as it unfolds.

"It's better than watching 'Days of Our Lives,' " Cash said.

In a way, he is watching it.

(Staff writers Sue Stock, Sarah Ovaska, Richard Stradling and correspondent Colin Campbell contributed to this report.)