Michael Jackson's "We Are the World" anthem, written and recorded in 1985 as a fund raiser for USA for Africa, garnered millions of dollars for the cause but it may have been equally prophetic in terms of predicting the global economy that we are all now part of.
Yes, be careful of what you hope for. At one point, we all thought this was the way things needed to go. We had already been shipping our products all over the world and now the world (especially China) wanted to reciprocate. When the EU was created to make Europe one big happy family, who could have thought at that time that their problems (in large part a domino effect from our 2008/2009 meltdown) would have a tremendous effect on our market in 2011?
All of our major electronic products (yes, including Apple) are made in China, Japan or Korea. Our economy has always had an effect on the rest of the world as they relied on us for so many products. Now, the tables are turned and we don't like it as much.
The year 2011 saw a small upward movement in the health of the economy. The market inched up a couple of percentage points. Unemployment came down a couple of percentage points. But you still know that many in our country are hurting.
So where will 2012 take us? As noted earlier, our fate is not completely in our hands. Greece, Italy, Spain and other European countries are financially imploding and there appears to be no end to the misery. Unfortunately, their misery now becomes our misery as well because "we are the world."
There are no signs that we will take a step backward in 2012 but everything is tenuous. It's an election year so nothing is for sure.
Will our soil remain free from another terrorist attack? Watching the excellent Showtime series 'Homeland" certainly makes you wonder.
So buckle your seatbelts because we don't even have Michael Jackson to help lead a telethon for the United States.
