While Occidental Dissent is posting articles like:
http://www.occidentaldissent.com/2010/12/07/potential-nightmare-scenario/
And:
http://www.occidentaldissent.com/2010/12/07/the-end-times/
I thought it would be a good chance to look back at this year that started so very long ago, and tally up just how great it's been.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average was at 10,583 on January 4th, 2010, when it first opened for the year. It's now at 11,359. That's an increase of nearly 1,000 points or ~8%.
http://useconomy.about.com/od/economicindicators/a/GDP-statistics.htm
This site says the economy grew, on an annualized basis, around 2.7% this year. This will go up or down based on the fourth quarter. In any event, this isn't a recession, or even stagnation. For a developed economy these are great numbers. 3% of a 14 trillion dollar economy is a lot of growth. It pretty much gets us back to where we were in 2007/2008. IE, as rich as we've ever been in history. Maybe we can mope that we are a few pennies short of this record, but the economy is now on a much sounder footing than it was before the housing bubble burst, so actually we're in a much better situation economically than at any time in American history. This might sound strange but numbers don't lie. 10% unemployment is a natural result of endless immigration, outsourcing, and technological innovation, it isn't the result of an economic 'malaise.' The economy can't be blamed for how many people's jobs have been made redundant by finding more efficient, more effective solutions. In fact, the goal of any economy should be to make everyone's work redundant, so that everyone can enjoy a high quality life without work. 10% unemployment is a step in the right direction, but I'm not content until we reach 100% unemployment. Those 10% are not freezing in the streets either, if that's the concern, because they have been given a stealth citizen's dividend in the form of endlessly extended unemployment benefits. This citizen's dividend has taken care of everyone affected and will continue to do so next year too, according to the new compromise Obama struck with Republicans in congress today.
This is another good news item on the economic front. When before we were looking at enormous tax increases across the board on everyone when Bush's poorly designed tax laws expired, we are now looking forward to a permanent enactment of these new, lower taxes for nearly everyone. This is the best news coming out of Washington in a long time. This was probably due to another piece of good news this year --
The historic midterm election which saw Republicans gain 60+ house seats and 6 senate seats, as well as dozens of state legislatures and governors right before the 2010 census was set to be enacted. Republicans have been given a great chance to do a great deal of good with this election, and we can at least rest assured that no further harm will come from the Obama Presidency with this powerful a check and balance. This many seats haven't changed hands since the 1930's or something. It was a total bloodbath. This not only showed the fundamental conservatism (and good sense) of the American people, but it showed that peaceful, legal, democratic action can still be a force for meaningful change.
We won't know how the health care bill's passage affects the future until it's fully implemented. However, odds are it will be substantially revised now that Republicans have taken over Congress, so whatever bad effects it is 'slated' to have will probably never happen. The bill was smaller than Bush's health care bill and ultimately doesn't matter either way.
Immigration has dipped during the recession and many criminal illegal aliens have been deported. Arizona has passed a tough law against illegal immigration and many other states are looking to follow. This is the beginning of the end for illegal immigration. The public is firmly against them, the economy is firmly against them, and Republican politicians are firmly against them. Amnesty didn't even pass when democrats had 60 senators, the House, and the Presidency. It'll never pass now.
The bailouts under Bush and Obama were a spectacular success. Estimates of the government's 'loss' sit around $20 billion, far less than Bush Sr.'s bailouts in his era. Meanwhile, they saved jobs, stabilized the economy, and resurrected the stock market. In a similar fashion, the stimulus bill delivered economically helpful tax cuts in the hundreds of billions of dollars, valuable research and infrastructure work, provided aid to the most needy, and saved the jobs of no doubt millions of people. What were considered 'gambles' when enacted proved to be total 'successes' when implemented.
The Fed's printing of money to buy government debt was another 'gamble' that has succeeded brilliantly. Without suffering any inflation at all, we've created tons of new money to buy things we need with. This really is a free lunch. The weakness of the Euro which is having its own debt problems has meant our exchange value hasn't decreased in the least, and the rest of the world has no other currency to turn to as a world reserve. Whenever we can inject an extra trillion or two dollars into the economy without paying any price for it is a good year.
The Iraq War came to a peaceful end and a new Iraqi government has finally been formed on the basis of their most recent election. Deaths in Afghanistan continue to be scattered and few. War, which used to completely dominate this decade, has taken a graceful bow and left the scene.
Everything, economically and politically, has gone better than expected. But this is just a small portion of what made 2010 such a great year. Increases in wealth or power only look at the material side of the equation. What's really exciting is our progress in terms of love, beauty, and truth.
So starting from January, let's remember how far we've come:
The year started with Alabama capping off its perfect season with a NCAA football national championship against the ever-dangerous Texas Longhorns. It then moved on to the New Orleans Saints winning an historic first ever Super Bowl victory over the ever-dangerous Indianapolis Colts. This, coming after Katrina, is a particularly heartwarming 'comeback kid' story.
This is just the beginning though. Next up is the Winter Olympics in Vancouver, a beautiful city that hosted a flawless Olympic Games. America takes home an enormous bundle of medals, showing off incredible athletes like Shawn White in the half pipe. Even more exciting, however, is a gold medal hockey match between the USA and Canada that rivals the miracle on ice. America beat Canada earlier in the tournament, and got Canada to overtime in the final, but Canada just cared too much to lose this chance to win gold on their home soil, and finally took us down to the delight of nearly the entire nation cheering them on. Next to this amazing hockey game was Kim Yu-Na's james bond free skate, the most beautiful, perfect free skate ever done. This isn't just my opinion, it was also the judge's opinions, who practically gave her across the board 10.0's. (She won gold of course) These two Olympic memories will be preserved forever in the eyes of those who watched.
The winter olympics were replaced by the summer World Cup, which showcased amazing teams from all across the world, plucky performances from a lot of underdogs, and finally upset the boring trend of Brazil/Germany/Italy to give a new team a first ever World Cup Victory, the #1 team coming in to the tournament, Spain. Their passing attack and foul-free sportsmanship was a wonder to behold and a joy to see win it all. The USA proudly tied England and eventually won their division in the first round, so patriots had a lot to be happy about this year too.
When the World Cup ended, it was football season again, and now we have a dream match-up between two undefeated teams from powerful conferences, Auburn vs. Oregon. We have already seen a lot of great games this year -- Auburn vs. Alabama, Boise St. vs. Nevada, Oklahoma vs. Oklahoma St, but the BCS selection show gave us a bowl season to salivate over. Only heaven could have arranged the match-ups coming up: Arkansas vs. Ohio State, Wisconsin vs. TCU, Stanford vs. Virginia Tech, Auburn vs. Oregon, Alabama vs. Michigan St. This could be one of the funnest college football seasons of all time.
2010 really was the year of sports, but it's not like other media lagged behind:
In 2010, a slew of hit video games came out, like Call of Duty: Black Ops, Halo: Reach, Gran Turismo 5, Final Fantasy XIII, World of Warcraft: Cataclysm, Starcraft II, and Super Street Fighter IV. The millions of people who play these games for hundreds of hours all had something to be merry about this year.
In books, we had the all important new addition to Wheel of Time, Towers of Midnight.
In movies, we had Toy Story 3 and the new Harry Potter.
And in anime, we had an unprecedented lineup that just takes your breath away:
Durarara! Baka to Test to Shokanjuu. Ookami Kakushi. Sora no Woto. Katanagatari. Working!! Kobato. Angel Beats. Major. K-On!! Amagami SS. Bakuman. To Aru Majutsu no Index II. Ore no Imouto Konani Kawaii Wakaiganai. The World God Only Knows, Mahou Shoujo Lyrical Nanoha the Movie, and Disappearance of Haruhi Suzumiya the movie. Also running at this time are long-time favorites One Piece, Naruto, Dragonball Kai, and Fairy Tail. Tons of other stories not mentioned were still good this year. It's unbelievable looking back. This was clearly, beyond all doubt, the best year for anime of all time.
To make things more clear, since many of these series were better artistic works than anything that has preceded them, whether you name Homer or Shakespeare, what we are looking at is the best year for art of all time. Both in quality and quantity, density and volume, the art coming out of Japan in 2010 surpassed all previous heights.
Not to leave science out, 2010 saw the arrival of the Google driver-less car, that, stealthily, drove thousands of miles among ordinary Americans without crashing once. Science may have discovered the first habitable exo-planet, Gliese 581. It made good progress on the Large Hadron Collider and the International Space Station. It found a way to convert heat and light into electricity on the same solar panel. It found a way to combine optical and electrical elements on a single computer chip. Science progressed both rapidly and steadily in nearly every field.
I can't think of a single parameter which, if measured statistically, didn't improve this year. I don't want to hear about 'nightmare scenarios' or 'end times.' The morbid, evil far right writes and comments about nothing else. They dwell in darkness, and so all they ever see is darkness. But just outside their cave is a bright, overflowing light of Love, Beauty, and Truth that's embracing the whole world and marching on without them. Outside the cave we have peace, prosperity, art, science, athletic excellence, and progress. Inside the cave we have 'nightmares', 'end-times', 'war', 'chaos', 'death', and 'ruin'. Good and evil could not be more clear-cut. The choice is yours.
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