The Decadent Decade

I am writing this post on New Year’s Day 2010 at the end of a turbulent decade that started with the Y2k uncertainty of the previous computer decade and ends with another uncertainty of greater magnitude: The economic viability of the United States.

After realizing that Y2k was an overblown concern, we continued on a spending binge of great proportions as we ran up the largest consumer debt in our history and started a 10-year housing boom that was encouraged by our politicians, relished by lenders, and virtually ignored by our Federal Reserve which kept interest rates at record low levels and fueled the fire.

In the midst of this excess, we were savagely attacked by a cowardly enemy hell bent on killing Americans for religious reasons. We lost over 3,000 innocent civilians in New York, Washington D.C., and Pennsylvania on one day in September of 2001. We became engaged in a war with an invisible enemy that can’t be identified by a uniform, a country, or a government; only a concept called radical Jihad. This is an enemy with no great army or high-tech weapons, but one that uses human suicide bombers, women and children as human shields, and puts no value on life or human rights. No country other than the United States by the shear force of its values, its will, and its extensive wealth, can fight this evil. We will be in this war for many years and we will eventually prevail, but future generations will have to shed their blood again to preserve the American dream.

Then, like a flash, we end the decade with an economic meltdown unlike anything we’ve seen since the Great Depression, a fitting end to a decade of financial excesses and greed.

In my life of 7 1/2 decades, I may not see the end of another decade, but one thing I do know for sure; no matter how politically divided we may seem to be, the freedom to express our opinions without retribution, to welcome all diverse cultures to our shores, and our dedication to human rights and the value of the individual, will permit us to survive and flourish in the decades ahead regardless of the challenges that are put before us.

I want to wish all of you who read this column a Happy and Healthy New Year. I will continue to inform you as best I can on the important issues of the day, and trust you will use your right to be heard, so that you can impact the future destiny of this great country in a positive way.