With 2008, Let's Say Goodbye to Mediocrity

As 2008 takes its final breaths, I am sitting in my apartment, which is enveloped in a thick fog that’s hiding both the ugly high-rises and the beauty that is the San Francisco Bay. The fog is also muting the sounds of the city–a good enough reason as any to ponder the year that was.

Many of us who obsess about the minutiae of Silicon Valley were slow to respond (at our own peril) to the credit crunch and the financial tsunami that it unleashed. After all, who could have imagined that within a few short months around the world, banks would be quasi-nationalized, capitalist governments would have to adopt socialist principles to save failing enterprises and seemingly astute soothsayers would turn out to be worse than than highway con men.

Whether or not the bailouts were needed remains up for debate. I will let others scream and holler in outrage about the immorality of the actions taken by our completely biased politicians. I will let those who are suffering tell their tragic stories on national media. All I am going to say is this: In 2008, U.S. society–from the very top (our political leaders) to the very bottom (our bankers)–came to embrace mediocrity.

Read the rest of this post