Happy New Year! (really?)

 

 

"Should old acquaintance be forgot,
and never brought to mind ?
Should old acquaintance be forgot,
and old lang syne ?"

 

Well, it is coming to an end. 2012 has come and gone. It was not a totally bad year, but not that swell either. Our vacation to Atkin was all but washed out due to the monster flood that hit the North Shore. Our young cat, Morty, died unexpectedly. Our back yard, which we worked on so hard in the spring, suffered under the ravages of the late summer drought. On the plus side, we had an excellent vacation to Pensacola, we were able to get my mother situated in a very nice care center, and the world did not end on the 21st of December.

 

On Tuesday, we start the new year. 2013. Many times in the past, I have looked forward to the new year as a new start, a new beginning. This year however, is different. I see trouble ahead for our great nation. I keep thinking back to the George Orwell book 1984 where "groupthink" was practiced by the masses. This country is in deep, deep trouble, and many in the ruling class are in denial. Our debt is crushing us, and yet nobody seems willing to take the medicine that will fix it. We have become so deeply divided, that the smallest of issues often result in political cat fighting. Very little gets done and we are inches away from being "ungovernable". In short, whether it is acknowledged or not, we are in a mess - a hot mess indeed.

 

We are going to start the new year off with a bang. Besides not being able to get along with each other, we also have lost the ability to get important things done on time. Due to our excessive procrastination, we are coming up with an unprecedented series of "cliffs" as soon as the new year starts.

• Fiscal Cliff - What started out as kind of a joke many months ago, is now just hours away from reality. It has paralyzed our creativity, stifled our civility and further divided us economically. Many know what the real solution is, but fear prohibits them from disclosing it. To be a truth teller in 2013, will likely result in social and political isolation.
• Debt Ceiling - Drug addicts. We are no better than drug addicts to spending. Every thing we have tried in the past to slow this juggernaut has not worked. We are now speeding towards Greece and the "powers that be" will be insisting we raise the ceiling one more time. Our drug addiction continues and the treatment centers are closed.
• Sequestration - As someone in the Defense Department put it, "the upcoming sequestration is self amputation". The cuts are going to hurt. However, they must be made or our debt will climb even higher. The real culprits to our debt crisis however, continue to escape the scalpel. Run away entitlement spending is killing us, yet nobody seems to care.
• Longshoreman Cliff - Meanwhile, as we were watching everything else go crazy, Longshoremen are getting ready to stage a nation wide strike at all our ports. So what? With our imbalance of trade, it will not take long for shortages of all kinds to start. Will our pro-union Administration invoke Taft-Hartley to stop this? Not hardly.
• Milk Cliff - Due so some outdated 1949 law which needs an annual fix via the Ag Bill, milk is about to shoot up in price. The reasons behind it are so complicated and so ridiculous, I choose not to go into it. All I can say is this - if you decide to learn more about this issue, it will further reduce your confidence in how our government works.

So as we enter the new year, the first few steps will be rocky ones. When faced with a struggle, our parents would tell us to deal with it, as it would "kill us or cure us". That is how I feel about the upcoming year. January will tell the tale of the tape. How we handle these huge mountain of issues will foretell how the rest of the year will go. Am I an optimist or a pessimist on 2013? Neither - I am a realist. Since we refuse to learn from history, we are condemned to repeat it. Our financial stomach ache will only get worse until we collectively stick our finger down our throat. Buckle up folks - I think the ride will be bumpy as soon as we return from the holidays.