New Year Reflection - 2008/2009

2008 will probably not go into my annual memory book with a smiley face attached. In one way or another, it has been kind of a tough year for almost all of us.

The most glaring 2008 book entry is the economic chapter, as was recently confirmed when I got my yearend 401K investment report summary. I had to remind myself that it is my choice whether I will focus on the 25% drop in value from its year-ago high point (still somewhat better than the overall market drop of 33%), or be thankful that 75% of it was still there. Given all of the people out of work and/or out of their homes these days, I will choose to remain thankful.

The dressing down of a number of overly-paid incompetent business executives is a right exercise to see. But the scene of the three major auto executives begging for a $35B “bailout” (i.e. handout) is still a sad commentary on this proud country’s entrepreneurial status. Wrong-doers must be identified, held accountable rather than rewarded, and punished when appropriate. But we must not lose sight of those business people still doing good and responsible work, nor be reduced to seeing negativity and conspiracies behind every door.

The Iraq war is relatively quiet, finally. But I question whether it is still just a “quiet before the storm,” waiting for old tribal loyalties and/or religious divisions to explode later. And will we just transfer the casualty counts over to Afghanistan – an ancient unconquerable country that has continually swallowed and humiliated numerous great powers over the centuries?

$4.50/gallon gas demonstrated clearly how much the American people are the butt-ends of financial speculators. With the inexplicable spiral to $140/barrel now back to $40/barrel, the old fundamental law of supply and demand was clearly put to the grave: a 250% increase in price had no connection to any quid-pro-quo percentage increase in oil usage. The power of these speculators to whiplash this country around their greed was on full display. It is hard to feel too much pity for the last-minute suckers who bought in at $140.

As we peer around the corner into 2009, there are some important small seeds of promise to see. Mt. Saint Helena exploded a few years ago and buried the ground in volcanic ash, destruction as far as could be seen. Yet one year later sprouts of grass and new trees were popping up through the layers of ash and rock from that disaster. Hopefully we can see the potential of similar new growth peeking from the ashes of our current doom.

Politically, we have set a dramatically different stage vis-à-vis the darkened theater of the past eight years. There is much potential good for us within this restaging, but it is not a promise. It may prove to be an unfulfilled potential. Done right, by a right-spirited citizenry at all levels working to forgo some short-term self-interest, good things could bloom. We will have to wait and see.

If our individual spending sprees get reined in, and people go back to the “traditional value” of living within their means, concentrating on growing their incomes instead of growing spending, our cumulative financial health – as well as our ethical values – will significantly improve. But this is not a short-term economic cure. Do we now have the will and discipline to stay on this New Year’s resolution for a financial diet?

After five years of war, do we have the stomach for a newly expanded initiative in Afghanistan? Our moral purpose and justification there may be far improved over our Iraq misadventure. But we are still an outsider in a very foreign land with its own very different history and culture. We do not have a good history of understanding and respecting other cultures. As this past week’s latest episode in the 60-year Israeli/Palestinian war reminds us, current wars do not easily solve old unresolved conflicts or long-lasting hatreds, and “right” does not live exclusively with only one side.

2008 has had a number of good memories and milestones for me personally. I will choose to remember these gold deposits found within the overall muddiness of the year. And so will it be with 2009, so I need to be prepared for the mud yet expect and celebrate the gold strikes when they are found. And make my own contributions to the potential blooms poking through this economic ash. Contributions of patience to await good outcomes that will take time, commitment to help create some of those outcomes, tolerance for ideas and beliefs different from my own, dialog to find resolutions of differences, and faith in the inherent goodness of my neighbor.

Happy New Year to all.