Name that Decade!

How will the '00s be remembered? It began with 9/11 and ended with twin real estate and banking crashes. Last week, our nation’s most celebrated investor put his chips behind a railroad – a technology that preceded the Information Age by three generations of googlers.

I’m willing to bet that you’ve missed it. But it’s a fact: the end of a decade is coming right up.

How will the 00s be remembered?

The 80s were the decade of Ronald Reagan, Margaret Thatcher, John Paul II and Gordon Gecko.

The 90s? The Internet, the great stock boom, and capitalism at its zenith - plus zaftig lechery in the Oval Office.

But this past decade has been the least light-hearted since maybe the 1950s.

The decade began with the horrifying loss of life on 9/11. It ended with twin real estate and banking crashes.

In the middle years, the economy grew while the war in Iraq seemed lost. When the war turned, the economy tanked.

We opened with Pearl Harbor - and ended in the 1930s.

Last week, our nation’s most celebrated investor put his chips behind a railroad – a technology that preceded the Information Age by three generations of googlers.

Meanwhile, our commander in Afghanistan has put forward a plan for more troops on the ground. What about waging war without soldiers, you ask? That too went out with dreams of paperless offices and virtual commutes.

So here's my nomination for the name to give the 2000s: the great leap backwards!

Sound like bad news?  Not at all.  After all, the future we saw in the 00s didn't always work.