Time Magazine Names the 2000s "The Decade From Hell"

2009 is rapidly winding down, and with the end of this year comes the end of the first decade of the new millenium. Reflecting back on the decade, Time Magazine has named the 00's "The Decade from Hell", at least for those of us living in the United States

Why were the 00's so bad for us Americans? Picture this: it started with 9/11 in the early part of the decade, and now is ending with one of the worst financial crises in decades. Sandwiched in between all that we've got the on-going wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the continuing war against terrorism, major political controversy ala the 2000 elections, crackdowns on personal freedoms, Hurricane Katrina, various Wall Street scandals involving Enron and WorldCom, anthrax letter scares, and snipers on the loose in our nation's capital.

Once a happy-go-lucky nation that truly believed we had it better than the rest of the world, the United States as a whole could now use a dose of anti-depressants to lift the population out of the collective deep depression and a scrip for Xanax to ease the anxiety and paranoia that has now become so deeply engrained in our way of life. As decades go, this last one has been a rough one, and heading into the next one, it doesn't look so good either.

The decade began with everyone eagerly and nervously awaiting the arrival of the new millennium and the oh-so-scary potential havoc that the infamous Y2K Bug could cause. Some feared the end of the world, or at the very least, mass global chaos. Our hearts skipped a beat when an alarm at a nuclear power plant in Onagawa, Japan sounded, but it was merely a glitch.

The next majorly depressive event of the decade occurred on Septemeber 11, 2001 when hijackers flew planes into the Twin Towers in NYC and into the Pentagon in Washington D.C. We were under attack. Many died, and our once rosy-colored view of life was shattered. After Osama bin Laden claimed responsibility for the attacks, our troops went into Afghanistan to find him. We searched cave after cave trying to find him, but today he's still on the run, supposedly. Not content with a war in one country, the U.S. decided to go into Iraq looking for weapons of mass destruction and took out the country's leader - Saddam Hussein - while we were there. That war is still raging and grows more deadly and dangerous by the year, and the volunteer army grows more weary after each tour and extended term of duty. And we're still fighting against radical Islam.

We've endured not just one, but two market crashes this decade. The first came in the very beginning, and we're in the middle of the second one. The first was characterized by tech stocks that tanked the market from 2000 to 2001. The Nasdaq hit an all-time high in March 2000, and has since been on the downslide, especially over the last few years. Officially we are in a recession, but many suggest that it's actually a depression. The legions of the jobless, homeless and hungry grow exponentially.

The decade was also marked by snipers on the loose in the nation's capital, and envelopes filled with the deadly white anthrax powder being mailed to the country's elite and powerful. And let's not forget the Enron and WorldCom scandals of the early part of the decade.

In 2005, right smack in the middle of the decade, the largest natural disaster in U.S. history occurred. On Aug. 25, 2005, Hurricane Katrina made landfall in southeast Louisana, killing more than 1,500 and causing $100 billion in damages. That area will never be the same again.

A housing bubble in the latter part of the decade put us where we are now, in the midst of an economic meltdown. Fueled by excessive borrowing, spending, and out-of-control loans, this is the kind of mess that will take years to resolve, if ever.

Seriously, did we break one too many mirrors or walk under one too many ladders? Did too many black cats cross our paths? Whatever it was, the 00's have indeed been some troubling times for those of us living in the U.S.

It doesn't look like this next decade will be off to such a great start either. We're still struggling economically, and now we have word that the United Arab Emirates threatens to spark a second financial crisis as they teeter on the edge of defaulting on billions of dollars in loans. Such a catastrophe would have a ripple effect around the world. And let's not forget the omninous warnings of the ancient Mayans and Nostradamus which suggest that the world as we know it will end in 2012.

If the next decade looked any better we could say goodbye to the "Decade from Hell, or the Reckoning, or the Decade of Broken Dreams, or the Lost Decade". As it looks now, however, we may just end up adding an "s" and making it the "Decades from Hell." So cross your fingers and toes, say a prayer, and wish on a star that 2010 will be the start of better days.