happy new decade

Thank God the double-zips are over. One advantage of the new decade is we can now go back to using two two-digit numbers to name the year we're in, just like we did back in 1992, rather than saying "2000-this" and "2000-that."

So happy twenty ten, everybody. It looks to be both better and worse than the last couple of years have been.

One reason Edward Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire is such an infernally long book is because it took the Empire so long to fall. It was such a gradual process that it led one wag to observe that "Rome fell without a sound." Likewise, the Empire of the Pentagon and Wall Street is taking its time unravelling, and either it or its zombie will be around for a while yet.

There's precious little for revolutionaries to do these days. There's not much need to recruit volunteers to help bring down the Empire, since the people running it seem to be doing a pretty good job of it.

2010 Will see no improvements in what used to be called The Economy. That sound reminiscent of the other shoe dropping will be the crash of commercial real estate coming on line, compounding the twin phenomena of paralysis in the residential real estate markets and intractable unemployment. Hard times are here to stay, because this is not a downturn, but a collapse, and unless you're in the retail grocery business or working a family eats-style restaurant, you're looking at no job, or one which yields fewer rewards for more work.

The good news is that a lot of people are changing their behavior to adapt to changing conditions, and many who aren't drowning in debt or foreclosed onto the street actually seem happier now. With their hours at work cut back, and making less money, folks adjust by driving less, shopping less, cooking and entertaining at home, and taking the dog and kids for a walk in the park rather than ferrying the little ones to ballet lessons, soccer practice, firearms training, and so forth. Family life and scenes of seedy domesticity are all the rage in this crumbling economy, and as long as there's enough money for food, affluence can go fish.

Is it possible we can be happier with less? That goes against the Gospel of Affluenza, but the truth is you'll never know what life is all about if you spend it behind the wheel of a moving vehicle in suburban traffic.