A YEAR AIN'T NOTHIN' BUT A NUMBER

Dear Readers,
As the old year winds down to it's final few hours, most people pause and take a quick look back at everything that's gone down in the last few months (No more top ten lists, pleeze). After we've tallied up our gains and losses, it's time to take the broader view and look at the events that made our world what it is on this New Years' Eve eve. To me, this year, moreso than most, has been about the sheer size of numbers. The newscasts and conversations of the nation were stuffed with numbers, numbers getting bigger or smaller, better or worse. Hardly any number remained static.
One number that remained the same was the 270 electoral votes that it takes to elect a President, and more citizens voted in a general election in history to select the first African-American (the 44th over all) as our next commander-in-chief. Wall Street, that Mount Olympus of numbers, looted the U.S. Treasury to the tune of at least 700 billion dollars, and probably one trillion dollars, once the bonuses are added in. The real number will probably never be known. Meanwhile, all the Stock Markets posted record losses (almost on a daily basis in September-October) and Americans set new records in tossing away unopened 401K statements, lest the numbers contained therein drive them to despair. While unemployment numbers haven't reached record levels yet, it's not for lack of trying. Plus, our national deficit has so many numbers in it, Apple and Microsoft working together couldn't accurately calculate it, let alone give it a name.
Some guy named Madoff made $50 billion go poof, while the 'Detroit Three' asked for $25 billion so that they could keep making 17 million cars that nobody really wants. The New York Yankees got themselves a $1.5 billion new stadium built, then went out and spent $500 million on contracts for three players! Shoppers who went to malls to buy for Christmas found themselves looking at 70% discounts on popular gift items, then were told they did not spend enough to keep dozens of retailers out of chapter 11. Oil went to $147 a barrel and gas soared to $4.00 a gallon, then went to $38 a barrel ($1.70 a gallon) and is headed back up again, making us all nauseous. The music industry struggles to sell recordings in the same numbers they used to, and good old consumer technology gave us more numbers of not-so-needed gadgets with more gigamemories - like 3G iphones, or, whatever - so we could never be alone with our thoughts ever again. Perhaps they have saved us all from contemplating the sheer weight of the numbers in 2008 (Which was also the biggest A.D. year, ever.).
Since I never bother to do any research or fact-checking on these blogs, I may have got a thing or two incorrect, but if you stop and think about it (stop twittering for a second, will you?) this year's numbers were quite staggering. If only there were some cosmic bailout available to us all as recompense for the blizzard of numbers stinging at our faces, we might feel more positive as we head in to the first day of a year with yet another big number - 2009. Calculate that.
Well, I know how many times I put the kettle on this year, because I've carefully counted the teabags (because they're from England, they cost more this year, too). And, I'm always watching the numbers on the clock, because somewhere on this planet, it's about 4 o'clock, and time for a nice cup of tea.