Welcome to 2009

The year of 2008 is now behind us, leaving us with memories we may never forget in a life time. The year of 2008 was not the best year for many people in the United States. It was all began with something called "the sub-prime mortgage crisis" which later reverberated into a larger crisis that affected many aspects of our lives. We see volatility everywhere, from the price of gas to the stock market, from our blood pressure to our temper. With more and more bad news in front of us, even Christmas is no longer the season to be jolly for many people. Yes, we all may be quite familiar with a famous story of how the Grinch stole Christmas, but now it almost as if it was not the Grinch who stole our Christmas, but the Greed.

Many people would agree that Greed (but personal and corporate greed) may have made this crises worse for most people. Personal greed of those who recklessly speculated on the real estate market had not only brought down the housing price but also many banks and financial companies involved in the schemes. But that's not it, we also heard about the executives of large corporations who showered themselves with millions of dollar despite the fact that the companies were laying off many of its low-paid workers. The missteps of our federal regulators in overseeing, monitoring and preventing the crises from becoming more uncontrollable have also spew traces of the personal interests which may have overstepping the public interest.

If we go to our local malls, we also easily see the decreasing confidence almost anywhere we go, from the richer neighborhood of west LA and Orange County to the working people's neighborhood in East LA and Inland Empire. Many small retail shops or restaurants had closed its door in 2008 because they were no longer able to make money or make the payment for their leases. But they were not the only ones affected by the crises, even larger corporations are not immune from the plague. Larger retailers like Mervyn's and Circuit City had closed down many of their locations and perhaps a few more will follow suit.

But then again, we'll never know for sure. Our fate may follow the roller coaster ride of our stock market which plunged from its peak at the end of 2007 and had been ups and downs for many times since. The first trading day of 2009 had brought the Dow Jones Index above the 9000 point for the first time since November 5, 2008, but we do not know for sure whether the worst are over yet or not. We all know how the Dow Jones Index dived below 8000 threshold for many times before it finally ended up higher than 9000 point on the first day the market open on January 2, 2009.

Some people called it a good sign for a better year of 2009 while others who are more skeptical charged that the market movement was being manipulated by few market movers due to the thin trading volumes. Then again, only times will prove which side is correct, but meanwhile let's face the new year with a more positive attitude as we also welcome the historic new administration with the first minority to be the person under the helm of leadership of the nation.

Good luck and may God bless you, president-elect Obama (who will not be president legally yet until January 20th). We truly hope that you will be able to sort this mess quickly and bring up the beauty from ashes in this land of the free, the United States of America.

God Bless America!