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Of course, the decade's bad news hasn't been confined to the financial pages. Was there actually more bad news than usual? The answer is an objective yes. For example, there were more mass shootings and school shootings, such as the murder of 32 students at Virginia Tech in 2007 and the recent slaughter at Fort Hood, than in any other decade. There were more large-scale terrorist bombings and attacks in countries like England, Spain, Pakistan, Indonesia, Russia, Jordan, the Philippines, Turkey, India and of course the U.S. The absolute number killed was not great, but the idea that terrorists can attack anytime and anywhere is new and profoundly unsettling.
Even many of our heroes turned out to be badly flawed, from doping by athletes in baseball, cycling and the Olympics to the endless political scandals and sex scandals. And yes, we couldn't get enough of them on the 24-hour cable news, blogs and reality TV that chronicle and reflect this unsavory maw. The rise of all manner of new media and the lack of barriers to criticism from the blogosphere seemed to intensify every scandal and left very few public figures unsullied. Sure, some amazingly great things happened this decade, from the stunning rise of China to Apple's dazzling array of new products to the feats of sprinter Usain Bolt to our nation rallying (at least temporarily) around its first African-American President. But all that seems more like counterpoint rather than the main act.
Perhaps we were lulled into complacency by the exuberance of the end of the Cold War. It was a deception brought on by an unusually positive historical continuum. First, America and the Allies won World War II; then, 45 years later, with the fall of the Berlin Wall, we defeated communism too. After that, maybe we believed the world would be forever free of conflict. Some thinkers called it the end of history. Well, history did not die. It came roaring back. The old conflicts did indeed wither, but new and virulent ones arose.
What Went Wrong
So here's the big question: Why? Why did so much bad stuff happen in this decade? Was it just rotten luck or something more? Sure, some of it was simply randomness, but I think a strong case can be made that it was more than just chance that got things so bollixed up.
In large part, we have ourselves to blame. If you look at the underlying causes of some of the most troubling developments of the decade, you can see some striking common denominators. The raft of financial problems, our war with radical Islam, the collapse of GM and much of our domestic auto industry and even the devastation brought about by Katrina all came about at least in part or were greatly exacerbated by:
• Neglect. Our inward-looking culture didn't heed the warning signs from around the world--and from within our own country--that Islamic terrorism was heading for our shores.
• Greed. Our absolute faith in the markets, fed by Wall Street, combined with the declawing of our regulators to undermine our financial system.
• Self-interest. The auto industry disintegrated while management and labor tangoed from one bad contract to the next, ignoring their customers and their competition, aided and abetted by their respective politicians.