Decade of the Naughts

As I look back at the first decade of the new millennium, I can't help but have conflicted feelings. Of course, I have no idea how history will describe this decade but I like the ring and connotation of calling them the naughts. Naughts, a convenient pun as in, naught any jobs, naught any peace, or naught any closer to saving our Mother Earth.

In America the only way to begin any discussion of the naughts is to start with the 9/11 tragedy. This truly brought American soil into the world wide web of terror, before September 11, 2001 terrorists were the problem the rest of the world had. Many Americans had been killed but it was because they were over there, not here at home. After 9/11, we could no longer keep our heads in the sand and we gave up so many freedoms willingly for the sake of safety. I swear I'm not a pessimist but there is no way I can see us ever going back to the way things were before 9/11, so in a way the terrorists have already won.

American demanded satisfaction, a pound of flesh, and the government responded with an invasion of Iraq. With talk of 'Weapons of Mass Destruction' and the evil warlord Saddam, we all blindly supported whatever babel the pentagon fed us. The generation that bragged they had stopped the war in Viet Nam was now demanding we invade Iraq. To compound our foolishness even further we reelected a bumbling fool of a president for fear of changing parties in the middle of a war. How many more years, how many more billions and even worse how many more lives before we pull out of Iraq, who can say. Everyone knows the whole country will collapse upon itself once we abandon them, leaving a breeding ground for more terrorists. There surly are answers for this conundrum but none that I've heard so far look as if they will work.

As 9/11 was maybe the most important aspect of the naughts decade it certainly was not the only one. It truly was the decade of the electronic age as gadgets and websites grew at an almost alarming rate. In the nineties, two of ten had a cell phone; today it is almost two out of three. We went from "Can you hear me now" to "We have an app for that." Now we never talk, we just text. Today's woman might not carry a purse but she always has her phone. At one time, it was thought almost to be a sin to let a preteen have a phone and now we won't let our children leave the house without their phone. The new devices have all but replaced watches, cameras, video cameras, TV, and even the laptop as our phones have all these extras.

Another new intrusion on our lives was the social utility such as Facebook. In the nineties, there were around three hundred million people on the web. Today there are over three hundred million people on Facebook alone and growing as we speak. We are now able to keep up with all our friends and relatives around the world and in turn, we can share with them, our thoughts, our pictures, even videos. I can see Facebook replacing Christmas cards and those tiresome family letters that go with them. One of the good things about Facebook is now I am able to keep up with far away relatives, ones I haven't spoken with in years. Now do I not only know what and how they are doing, I am learning about their children and what they are up to as well. I am writing on second cousin's Facebook walls that I've never met. Another new popular tool from the naughts is sites such as Twitter and Skype. From what I understand, most people use them as a public daily journal. For me, I really don't care what you had for breakfast or that your bowels are now regular, it is just what I consider too much information.

We ended the naughts by paying the piper so to speak, as our house of cards we called the economy came crashing down on top of us. We lived the whole decade with cheap interest, unsecured loans to houses we couldn't afford and had no business living in. Banks were giving loans to people who they knew could not afford the payments. It was nothing but a huge ponzi scheme and in the end endangered the whole system.

As we looked for cheap goods, we turned to foreign countries and in turn lost our production work force. Everyone understands that if you are not working, you are not buying but also if you are in fear of losing your job you are not buying. Of course, this compounds the problem as job markets across the country collapse from the strain of decreasing sales.

Although I certainly am not an economist, it looks to me that if we want our economy to turn around we need to stabilize the job market. The working class supports the economy and only when they feel comfortable that they will keep their job will they go out and spend.

As we look back at the changes to our world in the last ten years it makes you wonder what our life will be like at the end of the next decade. Just as the naughts were both terrifying and wonder filled, I'm sure the present decade will be the same. I for one can't wait, as they say, "Stay tuned."