New Year's Eve

Traditionally, this is a night of revelry to celebrate the end of one year and the start of another. 

Of course it's also a period of reflection and new starts where we think about the things we didn't like and what to do to correct them.

It is amazing how Americans look at the last year and see it very differently.

Much of the population sees it as a period of slow but steady recovery with progress made against outside enemies and significant domestic progress.

Others see it as a unacceptable slow economic period with terrorism on the rise and American prestige on the demise around the world.

Oddly both of these have some validity, and it may be a matter of half full or half empty.

If you remember the financial crisis and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq the current state of affairs is better.  The economy is growing, less American service people are in danger and we have made some progress in universal health care and climate change as well as some potential, if uncertain, changes in the Arab world where tyrants are gone, but turmoil is ongoing.

On the other hand, many Americans see the jobs available to them as low paying compared to what they once had, that threats of terrorism persist, illegal immigration is rampant, we have lost the respect of the world  and the national debt is out of control.

How can both these views be somewhat valid?

Well the reality is we live in a complex world where changes are happening and the outcomes are not simply controlled.  Some factor driving these things include the fact that America is entering a post industrial period where the skills required are complex and if you don't have them the jobs are unappealing and low paying. 

The demographics of the country pretty much doom us to slow growth for the next period of time and the globalization of the economy means that over time standards of living will level off.  This is good news if you live in a place with a low standard of living, not so good for Americans and Europeans. 

Terrorism continues and whether it is better or worse is pretty subjective, but of course each new incident is covered in depth and leads to a feeling of unease.

The list goes on.

There are no simple solutions, even if we would like them. 

Our best hope would be to realize these are complex and figure out what needs to be done to reach our goals which I think we agree on namely Peace on Earth, Health, Economic Improvements, and Clean Air and Water.

It doesn't seem likely, but we should all make that our New Year's Resolution.