HELLO, GOODBYE

In a few days 2008 will be gone and the New Year will begin. This upcoming year is a hopeful one for me. Even though the economy is in the dumps and will probably get worse before it gets better, I have hope. It's strange because I'm basically a cynic, but an optimistic one. A cynic with hope. I think that when people are left to their own devices, often, the worst will come out in them. But not always.

After Greenspan's recent statements, he could have used a dose of my cynicism. He thought banks could be deregulated because he believed they would always act with the interest of the greater good, and not grab all the profit they could RIGHT NOW, and the future be damned. All too soon they found that their future was damned, and the future of lots of smaller real people with real lives and real families to take care of. I don't care that a financial institution like Washington Mutual no longer exists, but I do care that its demise has put thousands of people out of work, and more thousands will lose their homes. I wonder if Greenspan ever heard that there's a little bit of larceny in every heart? I wonder that he thought a financial institution would behave like a human? Yes, it may be run by people, but it is not a person - it is a corporation and corporations exist only to create profits. And we now see that a corporation will do anything for ever greater profits even if it means in the end that it will die of its own gluttony. It's kind of like a parasite or a cancer - it feeds off its host until the host dies, causing its own demise in the end.

Well, all that sounds kind of hopeless, doesn't it? If so, let me say two words: Barack Obama. I have hope because after eight of the most excruciating years of dismal leadership, we now have an incoming president who appears to know how to think, a guy who can see a problem from its many different angles, a guy who has traveled and lived outside of the U.S.A. and because of that I have hope that he has a broader perspective, that he can see the bigger picture.

So, I'm a cynic with hope. An optimistic cynic. Dang, I love a dichotomy!

And here is my list of 2009 resolutions. I post them as I did before, with the hope that public posting will bring greater endeavor to achieve such resolutions. Alas, I don't really have much hope on this score, never the less, I will post, and we can revisit them in twelve months, okay?

1. As it was last year: Finish the damn book! Write, write, write until it is done!

2. De-clutter. As promised, this item has been moved forward to 2009, with hope.

3. Study hard and try to understand this new techno-babble that is web language.

4. Try to 10% more frugal, and get my savings back to a comfortable level.

There you have it. Less ambitious than last year I think, but we all know what happened to those resolutions!

I hope you all find the New Year to be kind and exciting and healthy and a time when you can get closer to those things of which you dream. I dream of peace and love and people living with tolerance if not understanding.

Happy New Year!