2008 in review!!!

What a year. While we have had some doozies of years in the past, each and every year afterwards tends to be more explosive than the other, in each particular and individual way.

I would like to highlight some of the more important points of this year, around the globe, which impacted the world the way I see it.

I am going to write this from heart, as if you had to do research to jot down all of the things that has- as you said- impacted your view, then, they really were not that significant to begin with.

While I would shy away from dates and times as much as possible, these are the issues in no particular order;

1. The credit squeeze of a financial crisis, gave the world a crushing recession. What a way for the world to go out in 2008. While the pain started in June and then again August, the peanut butter hit the fan in November when everyone had to finally admit that they do realize that things were really, really, that bad.

Companies got bail out after bail out after the flow of money stopped from the private market--US and in Europe. Unheard of in a free society that so many subsidies handed out to so many established private market share companies. Companies like Lehman Bros. and Bear Stearns, went out of business and hence, were bought or swallowed up in government sponsored re-packaging buy-outs by other bigger firms.

The auto-industry, got a late Christmas present when president Bush, gave the industry the bail out money and subsidies, it was begging for--which I don't think they needed.

In any event, the era of government (sovereign) business is in. This year, marked the end of free-market capitalism and international finance.

RIP!

2. India and Pakistan, are in heated tension over the latest attack, sponsored by Pakistani terrorist in Mumbai India.

Mumbai, is the centre of capitalism in India. Pakistani Muslims hate India and hate western capitalism. So, they go a two-for.

This will shape the region, most definitely. Why I say, is because, if India, one of the major emerging markets, is hampered and bogged down in a conflagration with Pakistan, then, we would have, literally, a world war on our hands.

I don't know who's allegiance is bought and to where the other countries side, but, I side with India. While I am willing to give Pakistani authorities- under the coverage of President Zadari- the benefit of the doubt. But, if things get to things, then, India has my full support in any war or sanction.

India is not the aggressor.

3. Obama and his hot looking mama, are coming to DC. This has to be the feel good story of the year. Nothing can top this, in regards to news making.

America, has it's first African American president. While I don't think that you can fully classify president Obama as a true African American, he's close enough.

Why do I say he is not a full African American, in the black African American sense of the term? Well, he is not a born in African American, from slavery. His father, was an African student and not a Johnson, or, Smith from Georgia or Alabama. The issues black Americans carry in regards to their heritage, Obama, has not had the ecological framework built into him because of it and, endure the hardship on his psychological makeup because of it.

Second, his mother was white. He was raised in a Caucasian home, by very conservative grandparents. While his skin color is not black, or, charcoal, he is not full white, either.

Even so, for him, to be an oddity, rather than a minority, is good enough for me. I accept him with what every he identifies with. Him being their, as opposed to the other people we had in office before, is proof enough that there is hope in a color blind society.

The saving grace, is that he was socialized black, not by his choice but by the way the world saw black and white. While he may not carry all of the tensions in his heart, he understands the social implications. His wife has these same black American issues and outlooks, which she has shared with her dissertation at Princeton and with her "being proud, for once, of her country".

I know I may have missed a few other things, but this is what I remember as important.

Well...

That's 2008, for me.

Best wishes for a 2009.

Youri