New Year Predictions

By Dave

It's almost the end of the day, but I wanted to wish everyone a happy new year and welcome you all to a new decade. I've been thinking a lot about that last bit. It's a new decade. The Ten's, I guess. I have no predictions for the next decade. Well, no good predictions, anyway.  In fact, just trying to make a prediction highlights the futility of attempting those types of predictions. It's easy enough to predict that technology will continue to remake the world in new and exciting ways. It's a pretty safe bet that globalization will continue and that the combined force of new technology and trade will largely make the developing world better off, and as a result we will continue to see a rise of other nations and a world in which America's uni-polarity is challenged more frequently. These are pretty basic assumptions that anyone could make about any new decade. But life often gets in the way and changes things in ways no one can predict.

Who could have predicted at the start of 2000 that the 00's would be a decade shaped by national tragedy. And that, as a result, America would become engaged in two endless wars, and by the end of the decade we would be teetering on the edge of national insolvency? Or who could have guessed that America would elect it's first black president and that we would see the collapse of American conservative movement and begin an era of liberal ascendancy? No one. It would have been impossible, unless you were Nostradamus, but then no one would know what you were talking about.

Here's what I will say about the last decade: it was a great time for pop culture. The music was pretty good, the movies were great, and TV was surprisingly awesome, plus YouTube made it so that I could watch really funny videos, even if I missed them when they were new.

If anything, it seems like the big questions of the new decade will be how to deal with the all of the baggage of the last. When will the recession end? Will global trade get back on track? How will we end the wars we're still fighting? Is the liberal ascendancy a permanent feature of the political landscape or just a minor blip? 2010 will be an important year for that last question in particular. It seems like a given that Republicans will pick up seats. The question is can they get enough to undo the progress made by liberals in the last year. I know I'll be working to make sure that doesn't happen but, believe me, they are working just as hard to make sure it does.

Let's hope this new decade will be filled with peace and prosperity. Best wishes and best of luck to all of you.