Turning Back the Clock

Yeah, this is the weekend where we lose an hour of sleep. So what? According to the news, we aren’t sleeping anyway. And if we don’t pick ourselves up pretty soon, we won’t be sleeping for a long time.

My father always had an interesting expression for longing for the “good ol days”. During those conversations, he would say, “If only we could turn the clock back.”

Well if we could, what year would you like to revisit? Just for the purposes of this post, how about if we choose 1999? That might have been the best economy I experienced in my adult life. Why?

• The NASDAQ increased by over 85% that year
• The unemployment rate was at an 8 year low (4.1%)
• Interest rates were at their lowest levels in 30 years
• The Dow Jones closed at 11,000 at the end of the year
• Personal bankruptcy filings declined to 1.2 million filings
• Dot-com’s were sprouting all over (does anyone remember the Super Bowl ads that year?)
• People were buying RV’s, boats, campers, in record numbers
• A whole new industry was created surrounding the pending doom of Y2K

Things came crashing down just before 9-11 and then took a hit after that tragic event. But we came back, and we enjoyed unsurpassed prosperity for most of the decade. Sure we created problems and greed reared its ugly head. The point is, we have a history of taking a blow, picking ourselves up, and move on. We will do it again – I know it.

Sometimes turning the clock back and taking a peek isn’t so bad after all…