The end of the zeroes

Chicago, IL (March 8, 2008)

Two days ago I read on The New York Times an opinion piece by Paul Krugman proposing to call the first decade of the millennium, that will be over in less than one day, “the Big Zeroes”. One doesn’t need to be a Nobel Prize in economics to realize that he is referring to the gains that employment, median household income, health of the economy have achieved in the decade that is closing. In this respect, we can certainly all hope that the new decade will end on a different note.

Not all ended bad, though. I still remember when, just a few years ago, two friends of mine asked to be woken up in 4 years because they really didn’t like how certain elections had just ended. Well those 4 years had passed and that big disappointment was erased by the euphoria of an unlikely victory full or promises. Let’s hope that this new decade will bring these promises to fruition.

On a personal level, these 10 years have certainly coincided with big changes. One decade ago I was still a student in a busy city of the east coast. In the last years of this decade I have been commuting between that busy city to another large and windy city in the mid-west, where my wife was living and working. Just before this decade was ending, we have been finally visited by Santa, or at least one of Rudolf friends (I have photographic proof, see on the left, that’s our backyard on Dec 25, 2009), because we are now living and working as Professors in the same University, in a small (and certainly less busy) town in the middle of the prairie that was.

Let’s then say goodbye to the ‘00 decade, and wish all the best for this new decade that starts.