….and still we advanced as a country. Yes? No? (Update)

I was anxiously waiting to catch somebody’s wave lengths regarding the accomplishments of these past ten years. As this decade comes to a close, we are already hearing about the most stupid remarks of the decade, the most popular and un-popular persons, the funniest of people and other such silly nonsense which, I admit, has a place in a society such as the one developed for and by us. (Smile)

However, I await with glee the end of decade documentary telling us how many electrical and mechanical engineers graduated from college during the past decade; how many start-up new businesses there were and in what areas of the country; how many new voters were added to the voter role; how many new cultural centers were built and how much the people are enjoying them; how many new boy and girl scouts were enrolled and how their summer programs advanced throughout the decade; the positive condition of the Peace Corp; the Nobel Peace Prize and categories we contributed to; popular names for babies during the decade; how many people took cruises; who won the Metropolitan Opera and Van Cliburn auditions; author of the year; etc., etc., etc., (Sigh)

The Big Zero
By PAUL KRUGMAN
Excerpt:
But from an economic point of view, I’d suggest that we call the decade past the Big Zero. It was a decade in which nothing good happened, and none of the optimistic things we were supposed to believe turned out to be true.

And
Let me quote from a speech that Lawrence Summers, then deputy Treasury secretary (and now the Obama administration’s top economist), gave in 1999. “If you ask why the American financial system succeeds,” he said, “at least my reading of the history would be that there is no innovation more important than that of generally accepted accounting principles: it means that every investor gets to see information presented on a comparable basis; that there is discipline on company managements in the way they report and monitor their activities.” And he went on to declare that there is “an ongoing process that really is what makes our capital market work and work as stably as it does.”
Read more at:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/28/opinion/28krugman.html?_r=1

As always,
BB

(Update)
Author: Article is a long read but a decade is a long time to report on.

America the Traumatized: How 13 Events of the Decade Made Us the PTSD Nation
Wednesday 30 December 2009
Excerpt:
History being history, the story of the millennial decade is, in many ways, about the very same things that characterized the decades that ushered it in: racial strife, the renegotiation of gender roles, our nation's place in the world, declining economic fortunes, ugly wars and unconstitutional actions by the government. But this decade offered one critical difference; the disorderly world was no longer contained within a glass tube in a wood-paneled bunker. It sneaked up behind us and whacked us in the head.
Read more at:
http://www.truthout.org/topstories/123009vh11